Grace and Law

We love to discuss the Law vs. grace, but what if it’s both/and?

Hear me out.

And allow me a disclaimer: This is for disciples – for people who have dedicated their lives to Christ.

Don’t get all crazy on me.

For you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. 14 For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Galatians 5:13-14, NKJV)

In Christ, we are called to freedom. We were invited, drawn, chosen. To be free from the bondage and the slavery of sin, and – in the context of Paul’s letter – from the requirement of the law.

“However,” he warns, “don’t use your freedom as an excuse to indulge in temporary pleasures. Instead, serve one another, through love.”

That’s an interesting juxtaposition.

We might expect something like, “Don’t use it for this, but do use it for that.” But Paul doesn’t do that. He contrasts the idea – the natural inclination – to use God’s grace as an excuse for our own pleasures, with a call to love and serve each other. As though the two are opposites. As though you can’t really excuse questionable behavior on the basis of God’s grace, and serve your brother in love. (Paul has a similar conversation in Romans 14 and 1 Corinthians 8.)

But then he goes on to explain why. Verse 14 begins with, “For …” which is like saying, “Because …”

Why should we serve, rather than make excuses for our questionable pleasures? Because the fulfillment of the law is that we love our neighbors as ourselves.

But Paul has written four chapters to the Galatians about how they’re free from the requirements of the law in Christ. He’s spent pages explaining why and how our salvation is in the faith that was promised to Abraham and delivered in Christ, and not in fulfilling the law.

So why is he now explaining the purpose of our freedom by explaining how to fulfill the law? 

What if our freedom in Christ is for more than easing our consciences? What if it’s for more than a ham sandwich and cotton/polyester blends?

“Use your liberty as a tool to love and serve each other, because the whole law is about loving and serving each other.”

Christ came to fulfill, not destroy, the law (Matthew 5:17), and He did. If we are in Christ, we are within the fulfillment of the law as well, by the power of the Holy Spirit. (Galatians 5:5) The same tool that frees us from the requirement and chains of the law also enables us to fulfill it.

Not that we’re to abstain from shellfish by the power of the Holy Spirit. But, as Paul and Jesus both said, the law is summed up in loving God and loving people. And here, loving people is done through service, even at the cost of our own desires or comfort.

Jesus taught similarly in Matthew 5. “You have heard it said … but I say to you …” He didn’t counter the law, he upped the ante. But He wasn’t laying out a new set of rules. He was describing the natural outflow of a life lived in the revelation of the grace of God, and it looks like extreme sacrifice and love.

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