Concept

Grace vs Law

Intro

The whole Bible is held together by one of its sharpest tensions: God gives a Law, then God gives grace. How do those two fit?

The Law in question is mostly the Mosaic Law: hundreds of commands given through Moses, including the Ten Commandments and a long list of regulations on diet, worship, holidays, and conduct. The Law is good. Paul says so explicitly. But the Law cannot save anyone, because nobody keeps it perfectly.

Grace is God's unearned favor. It comes through Jesus, who kept the Law perfectly and then died as if He had broken every line of it, so that those who trust Him are credited with His perfect record. "You are not under law but under grace" (Romans 6:14).

That sounds like it might mean: throw out the Law and live however you want. Paul saw that move coming and shut it down hard in the very next verse. "Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be!" (Romans 6:15). Freedom from the Law is not freedom to sin; it is freedom for love-driven obedience that no longer earns God's favor but flows from it.

Different Christian traditions handle the balance differently. Lutherans emphasize Law as the diagnostic that drives sinners to Christ. Reformed believers add a "third use" where the moral law guides the Christian life. Catholics see grace as the fuel that makes obedience possible. Dispensationalists and New Covenant theologians draw harder lines between the Mosaic system (ended) and Christ's commands (binding). Antinomians (rejected by everyone) say grace cancels obedience completely.

The wrong answer is on either extreme: you do not earn salvation by keeping rules, and you do not get a pass to ignore God's character once you are saved. This page maps the territory.

In full

The recurring biblical and theological question of how the saving grace of God in Christ relates to the demand of the Law, whether they are opposed, complementary, or sequenced; whether justification by grace through faith eliminates, transforms, or upholds the Law's claim on the believer; and what shape Christian obedience takes once the believer is "not under law but under grace" (Romans 6.14). The contrast is sharp in Paul's letters, structurally central to the Reformation, and the framing question for Are Christians Still Under The Law (ris3n).

The biblical contrast

Romans 6:14, "Sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace." The believer's standing is grace, and that standing is what dethrones sin.
Romans 6:15, Paul immediately anticipates the antinomian objection: "Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be!" The answer to "no longer under law" is not moral indifference.
Galatians 5:1, 13, "It was for freedom that Christ set us free... only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another." Freedom from the Law is freedom for love-driven obedience.
John 1:17, "The Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ." The two are sequenced and distinguished without being opposed in their divine source.
Ephesians 2:8-10, saved by grace through faith, not by works; created in Christ for good works God prepared. Grace as the ground of works, not the abolition of works.

The constitutive tension

The challenge is to honor both of two New Testament refusals:

Refusal to add law to grace as the basis of standing. Justification is by grace through faith, not by works of the Law (Gal 2:16; Rom 3:28; Eph 2:8-9).
Refusal to dispense with obedience under grace. "May it never be!" against using grace as cover for sin (Rom 6:1, 15); James 2 against faith without works.

The historic Christian traditions navigate this differently:

Reformed / Lutheran, sharp law/gospel distinction. The Law convicts and drives to Christ (its primary "use" for Lutherans). For Reformed, the "third use" of the Law (regula vitae, rule of life) means the moral law continues to direct the believer's grateful obedience under grace. Grace doesn't abolish the moral law; it grounds and motivates obedience to it.
Catholic, grace infused through the sacraments enables the believer to fulfill the moral law (which the natural man cannot fully do). Grace and law are not opposed; grace makes obedience possible.
Wesleyan / Holiness, grace progressively sanctifies the believer toward actual obedience to the moral law; perfection (in love) is attainable in this life.
Dispensational / strong-supersessionist (the position of Are Christians Still Under The Law (ris3n)), believers are entirely "under grace," not "under law," in any covenantal sense; obedience is to Christ's commands and Spirit-led love, not to the Mosaic code.
New Covenant Theology, Mosaic Law fully ended; Christ's law (taught by Christ and the apostles) is the New Covenant ethic; grace is the framework, Christ's law the content.
Antinomianism (rejected universally as orthodox error), grace abolishes any continuing moral demand on the believer.

The article's framing (ris3n)

Are Christians Still Under The Law (ris3n) explicitly addresses the antinomian worry: "Living under grace does not mean living without obedience. It means living under a completed work of redemption rather than under a probationary covenant system." Two contrasts are foregrounded:

Probationary vs. settled. Under the Old Covenant, faithfulness was measured by performance within a legal framework; assurance was limited because the system was temporary. Under the New, obedience flows from a settled relationship rather than from fear of losing covenant standing.
Reset vs. established. Forgiveness is not "reset week after week" through repeated sacrifice; it is "established once and lived out daily." The motive structure of obedience is gratitude and union with Christ rather than covenant-maintenance.

The article notes (correctly) that this framing raises moral expectations rather than lowering them, "Jesus consistently called for deeper righteousness, one that begins in the heart and shapes actions from the inside out" (cf. Matt 5-7; Matt 15:11).

Tensions

Continuing role of the moral law. Reformed third-use vs. supersessionist / NCT replacement is the central live question. The codex should record both as it grows.
Sanctification mechanism. Whether progress in holiness is primarily by Spirit-led union with Christ (most Reformed / NCT), by sacramental infusion (Catholic), by progressive perfectionism (Wesleyan), or by something else, is downstream of the law/grace question.
Lordship vs. free-grace controversy. Within Protestant evangelicalism, dispute over whether assurance of salvation requires evidence of obedience (Lordship) or grace alone secures it without behavioral conditions (free-grace). The ris3n article is closer to a Lordship framing while staying explicitly anti-legalistic.