The law of God written on the tables of the covenant at Mount Sinai was neither a suggestion nor good advice. It was absolute law. This is why that law had the clear and sure penalty of death attached to infractions of it. Preachers, myself included, explain this by pointing out that a sixty-five-mile-an-hour speed limit law, with no penalties or fines attached to it, could not be called a law. Without a penalty and a police officer to enforce the law by arresting and fining someone driving seventy-five miles an hour, the speed limit sign is merely advice, a request, or a suggestion. The penalty aspect gives law its true nature. There can be no true law without attached penalties. This is the primary reason a child of God can never be under the law or subject to its just penalty aspect.

The terms and penalties of the law given at Sinai were clearly spelled out. The penalty for breaking any of the covenant laws, the Ten Commandments, written on the Tables of Covenant (Deuteronomy 9:9-11) was stoning to death (Heb. 10:28). Moses established an entire judicial system to administer strict punishment for not only breaking the terms of the actual covenant, or Ten Commandments (Exod. 34:27, 28), but also for other sins such as putting out a neighbor’s eye, etc. (cf. Lev. 24:13-20). This was strict and righteous law; no mercy or pity was allowed to be shown (cf. Deut. 19:16-21). This was because a breach of the law under Moses was not a crime against society; it was a sin against the covenant God of Israel. It was not merely the law of the land—it was the law of God.

Pure law is inexorable and allows no mercy or pity. John Bunyan showed this clearly with his picture of the man with the club (Moses) beating poor Faithful to death. When Faithful pleaded for mercy, Moses replied, “I do not know how to show mercy,” and beat him some more. Only the Man with the scars in his hands could make Moses stop the beating.^[1] Bunyan was showing that the law, when allowed to reign in the conscience in any covenantal sense, can only condemn anything less than perfection. The purpose of the law as a covenant was not to show grace, but to show sinful human beings their great need of grace. True law cannot show grace, it can only bless perfection and curse infraction. We have often said, “There was not an ounce of grace in the tablets in the Ark of the Covenant, but it was very gracious of God to give that covenant to Israel to make them see their need of grace.” By the way, do not confuse the Ark of the Covenant with the covenant itself. The Ten Commandments were the summary document of the terms of the Old Covenant (cf. Exod. 34:27-28), or tables of the covenant (cf. Deut. 9:9-15), and the Ark was the box that housed the tables of the covenant (cf. Heb. 9:1, 4). The lid of that box was called the mercy seat and it pictured nothing but pure grace. The blood on that mercy seat hid the sins against the covenant tables in the box. There was no grace in the tablets in the box, but there was nothing but grace in the picture of Christ’s sacrifice on the lid of the box. Likewise, do not confuse the basic summary covenant document—the tablets of stone, Exodus 34:25-27; Deuteronomy 9:9—with the sacrificial system and priesthood that was necessary to administer the covenant (cf. Heb. 9:1-15).

It is impossible to use the word law with its legal meaning without having penalties and judges to enforce the penalty. It is also impossible to deny that God put the nation of Israel under his law at Sinai and thereafter forever subjected them to just punishment if they deliberately broke any of the covenant laws written on the tables of the covenant. This death penalty was exacted for breaking any of the covenant laws (Heb. 10:28). You could be stoned to death for picking up sticks (cf. Numbers 15:32-36) or lighting a fire (cf. Exodus 35:2, 3) on the Sabbath.

The penalty aspect provides law with its essential nature and force, and thereby puts law in a different category than advice or suggestion. Israel, from the time marked by the events of Exodus chapter 19 until the coming of Christ, lived with the constant threat of punishment if they willfully broke the law. They were literally under the law as a covenant of life and death.

A theological problem arises when we say that a Christian is under the threat of just condemnation and punishment from the law of God when, at the same time, they are totally free from any threat of condemnation or punishment. If we are free from the curse of the law (Galatians 3:13), which means the law cannot touch us in a condemning sense under any circumstances, then how can we be said to be under the law in any legal sense whatsoever? Law ceases to be law without penalties attached to it. We know from Romans 8:1 that a true child of God is eternally secure in Christ and can never come into condemnation. It is impossible, in a judicial sense, for a Christian to have the same under the law status that the Israelite did before Christ came, without also being under the same curse and threat of punishment. In other words, the very thing that gives law the nature of law, namely a just penalty, is proof positive that a New Covenant believer cannot be under the law in the same sense that Israel was under the law.

On the surface, it seems logical to assume that since it takes the curse element to give any rule the status of law, and since believers cannot come under a curse, there can be no such thing as true law (which must include a curse) in a Christian’s life. This is correct, if we are talking about covenant law. We must insist, and very strongly, that justification forever frees a believer, in every sense, from being under the law as a covenant with blessings and curses. Justification equals no condemnation and full and unconditional acceptance with God, and such a status demands our total freedom from the law’s power to condemn. This is Paul’s argument in Romans 6:14, 15.

We must be very careful, however, to avoid going too far in the opposite direction. This very reasoning laid some good people in church history open to the charge of antinomianism by their enemies. It also led some of those good people to make rash and dangerous statements that appeared, on the surface, to justify the charge against them. Granted, these people were reacting to a wrong-headed application of the law to the Christian’s conscience, but they themselves were wrong in making their extreme statements. Some of these people made statements that seemed to imply that they did not believe there were any objective standards at all in the Christian’s life. They did not actually believe that a Christian is without any objective laws, or standards, under the New Covenant, but they did leave themselves open to that charge by their rash statements. However, their enemies were guilty of deliberately putting the worst possible connotation on the statements. Both sides in the dispute used the word law in two different ways, without clarifying their meaning.

Here are some essential facts that we must understand and apply in any discussion on law and grace.

1. Because a believer is not in danger of going to hell if he or she breaks one of God’s commandments (and remember that is exactly what justification teaches), it does not follow:
   • that we can sin as much as we like and it does not matter;
   • that because the believer personally does not have to pay the penalty for sins committed today, therefore the penalty somehow is not paid. All of a believer’s sin, before and after conversion, must still be borne and paid for by Christ.
2. Because a Christian cannot be punished—by being sentenced to hell—does not mean there are no serious consequences for them when they sin. However, chastisement from the hands of a loving Father must never be equated with judgment from an offended God! No child of God will ever face God as judge.
3. Because the Christian cannot be under the Old Covenant made with Israel at Sinai, it does not follow that there are no laws—in the sense of objective standards—in the New Covenant.

A theological problem arises when we discuss the distinction between the law (Ten Commandments or the tables of the covenant] and laws (specific commandments) in relation to a Christian, without first clearly defining the terms. Any discussion of the law/grace controversy is likely to have different sides using the same word in different ways. The word law will sometimes mean covenant, sometimes commandment, and other times objective revelation. Some people will even attempt to make law mean all three things at the same time.

The thesis of this chapter is that a Christian is not under the law (singular, meaning as a covenant), but under laws (plural, meaning objective commandments). This means a Christian is not under the law, in the sense that Israel was, as a covenant with blessings and curses. The glory of the New Covenant is that Christ, as our surety, has kept the covenant for us. He earned every blessing the covenant promised and endured every curse it threatened. The Christian, however, is under clear objective commandments that are to inform and guide his or her daily life and motives. A Christian’s life is just as much controlled by objective laws, meaning God-given objective standards, as was an Israelite’s. In no sense do we deny that. However, we insist on two crucial differences. First, the Christian’s laws, or standards, are much higher than those given to Israel. Grace can, and does, demand far more than the laws given to Moses. Second, grace both informs and empowers a Christian to do what pleases God, whereas the Mosaic law could only inform. Grace is, in every way, higher and better than the law given at Mount Sinai.

The phrase, the law, does not mean the sum total of all laws. The words, the law, when used in Scripture, usually refer to one of two things: (1) To the law given on the tablets of the covenant to the nation of Israel. In this covenant sense, Israel is the only nation that was ever under the law. (2) To either part or all of the Scriptures. The word law often refers to the first five hooks of the Bible or to the entire Old Testament. The law, in this sense, means special revelation as opposed to natural revelation (Psalm 19). In this sense, Christians are indeed under the law and morally obligated to keep every commandment in the whole of Scripture, as interpreted and applied by Christ or his Holy Spirit-inspired writing disciples.

Our position sounds similar to the Puritan assertion, “The Christian is not under the law as a covenant of life, but he is under the law as a rule of life.” The statement sounded profound, but the Puritans never clearly explained what they actually meant. In one sense, they could not explain and work out the implications of their statement because they insisted, most strenuously, that Israel was never under a legal covenant of life and death. For the Puritans, Sinai could not possibly be a legal covenant of works, because there could not be a second covenant of works after Genesis 3:15. Their system of theology forced them to contend that the Sinaitic covenant was the same gracious covenant God supposedly made with Adam in Genesis 3:15 after Adam fell. The New Covenant is really a “new and better administration” of the same covenant.

The Puritans believed that prior to the events described in Genesis 3:15, humanity, as represented by Adam, was under a works covenant (Gen. 2:17). Adam failed to keep the terms of that covenant, thereby failing to earn what it promised, namely life and righteousness, and so God immediately and graciously instituted another covenant, different in nature from the first one. This second covenant they called the Covenant of Grace. They reasoned that this Covenant of Grace included Sinai and the church. Sinai was one manifestation of the same Covenant of Grace under which the church lives, but the church functions under a newer and better administration of that covenant. The Puritans stated that the law was, “not a covenant of life, but a rule of life.” This statement, in a sense, was nonsense, since they did not really believe that the Mosaic law ever was a covenant of works. In their scheme, no offspring of Adam was ever under a legal covenant of works. Adam alone was under a covenant of works in Eden. The words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments, being the clear expression of the Covenant of Grace, were brought over into the New Covenant, as a rule of life for Christians. The primary argument for asserting that those ten commandments were a rule of life for the redeemed people of God, meaning Israel, was simple. You cannot put the redeemed church, and the Puritans viewed Israel as the church, under a covenant of works. That covenant was finished in Eden. Thus, the Puritans had a theology with a built-in problem. They wanted the Mosaic law to function in a Christian’s conscience as a rule of life and not as a covenant of life as in the case of Israel. However, at the same time they wanted to deny that Israel was ever under the law as a legal covenant of life. Israel, since it is the “redeemed” Church, has to be under the same covenant of grace that believers are under today. Therefore, the covenant at Sinai had to be an administration of the Covenant of Grace. 

The Puritans wanted the Decalogue to function as a covenant with the power and authority to bless and to curse, to function as a covenant with the power to convict lost sinners to see their need of salvation, and to function as a rule of life for a believer’s sanctification. They further confused the issue by trying to make the law perform all of these functions to the same people at the same time. Little wonder that these theologians created confusion in the area of law and grace that neither they, nor their heirs, have been able to clarify. We need only read the many meticulous, but futile, attempts to distinguish between evangelical obedience to the law and legal obedience to realize what a complicated and confused view they created.

We believe the Old Covenant made with Israel at Sinai was a legal covenant with the authority to promise and to deliver blessing, including life and righteousness, and to threaten and to administer punishment, including death. We reject the idea that God gave it to a saved people for their sanctification.^[2] Israel, for the most part, was a collection of hardhearted rebels, not a congregation of tenderhearted saints. We also believe, however, that every one of the laws that formed the summary terms of that covenant (The Ten Commandments, Exod. 34:27-29) as they are interpreted and applied in the New Covenant Scriptures by our Lord and his writing disciples are a vital part of a Christian’s rule of life today. We cannot equate the Ten Commandments as they are written on the tables of the covenant with what has been called, without any biblical support, “the unchanging moral law of God.” However, the unchanging moral principles expressed in the Ten Commandments are just as moral and applicable today as they were when God gave them to Moses on the Tablets of Stone at Sinai. We receive those laws, not as they were written at Sinai as the terms of a covenant, but as they are changed and enlarged by our Lord and his writing disciples in the New Covenant Scriptures.

Justification—The Leading Doctrine

Most evangelicals agree that the leading doctrine of the gospel is the doctrine of justification by faith alone in Christ alone. Justification is the glorious truth that I am completely free from the just condemnation of the holy law of God. When God declares a believer to be justified, his declaration places the believer in a position, with a status, that nothing can then change or alter in any way. All the devils in hell and all of the believer’s sins are unable to change the fact of justification. Justification results in the believer’s having absolute and unconditional assurance of acceptance with God. Knowing and understanding the truth of justification enables a true child of God to sing the great hymn:

Free from the law, O happy condition,
Jesus hath bled, and there is remission;
Cursed by the law and bruised by the fall,
Grace hath redeemed us once for all.

What do these words mean? Are they not declaring the wonder of the gospel of grace? Are we not free from the law’s curse because Jesus died by shedding his blood, thereby paying our debt in full? Do we not have full and free remission of all sin, and deliverance from the effects of the fall because Christ has given us a complete redemption? Are believers, or are they not, redeemed once for all? If those glorious things are true, and they are, then why should anyone hesitate to declare them as loudly and clearly as possible? These words contain no explicit or implicit bad theology. Only a legalist can be afraid of this hymn! Look at the next verse:

Now we are free, there’s no condemnation,
Jesus provides a perfect salvation;
“Come unto Me,” O hear His sweet call,
Come, and He saves us once for all.

Ought we to fear a guarantee that we can never come under condemnation because the atonement has made us free from the reach of the law’s just and holy demands? Doesn’t Paul, in Romans 8:1, proclaim the same truth that the hymn does? Should we soft-peddle Romans 8:1 and hedge it with qualifying ifs and buts? Does Christ’s atoning work on our behalf provide a perfect, meaning total, or complete, salvation that thoroughly satisfies both God’s holiness and the believer’s conscience? Do not the words of this hymn set forth the blessed gospel of grace that we so deeply love? If these things are true, why should we hesitate not only to love them, to sing them, but also to broadcast them as loudly and as far as we can? How could any biblically informed child of God object to a single word in these two verses of this hymn? Look at the third verse:

“Children of God,” O glorious calling,
Surely His grace will keep us from falling;
Passing from death to life at His call.
Blessed salvation once for all.

Again, these words should make a child of God shout for joy. Are we wrong in believing that grace will finish the job it starts? Should we encourage God’s weak sheep that their ultimate guarantee of not falling away lies completely in their Shepherd’s sovereign purpose and power? Or should we, as the older church member in Bonar’s article (see page 95), constantly be afraid of joyous assurance? Should we not carefully work out the implications of what it means to actually be a child of God? Or should we do all in our power to make Christians doubt their salvation so they will double their efforts to keep the law in the hope of finding peace of conscience? Lastly, look at the chorus:

Once for all, O sinner, receive it,
Once for all, O brother, believe it;
Cling to the cross, the burden will fall,
Christ hath redeemed us once for all.^[3]

Would any true lover of God’s grace warn God’s people to reject this hymn as an antinomian perversion of the gospel? Would you say, “Don’t believe this presumptuous nonsense, but keep working as hard as you can and hope that you might finally make it”? Is not the significant issue that of clinging to the cross? No one would deny that the cross is the starting point for the child of God, but do not some preachers and teachers subsequently lose the cross and exalt Moses in the Christian life? Do not these people appear to be afraid of grace and of full assurance? We are not asking if it is essential that a child of God work out his or her salvation by continuing to persevere in the faith. The answer to that is always a loud and emphatic yes. We are asking, however, if the believer works and obeys because of the assurance of his or her salvation, or does the believer work in order to secure assurance of salvation. As Bonar put it, “Which is the root and which is the fruit?” Grace that does not make us run in the way of his commandments is not biblical grace. Likewise, grace that does not fill the believer with the joy of assurance of acceptance with God is not biblical grace. A good root always produces good fruit. The real question is this: What is the root that produces holy living in a sheep of Christ—law or grace?

My friend, Bliss’ hymn celebrates pure, sovereign grace. His words completely harmonize with the gospel that Paul preached. I have heard good brothers who do not really understand law and grace mock and ridicule this hymn. Most evangelicals know, at least intellectually, that the hymn “Free from the Law” spells out exactly what justification means. However, some of our Reformed pastors feel uneasy when they hear the truth laid out in such a bold manner. Some of Paul’s hearers would have shared that same discomfort (Rom. 6:1). The legalist wants to say “Yes, but,” and then qualify, hedge, and guard grace until they have stripped it of its power. The hymn is as biblical as any hymn ever written (if we see that it refers to the glorious gospel of justification); nonetheless, singing or hearing it causes the legalist to squirm. Remember what Lloyd-Jones said about the foundation of a true legalist’s theology—they believe that the only way to produce holy living is by planting the law in the Christian’s conscience and then constantly reminding the Christian of his or her duty. This inevitably leads to a believer’s turning to the fruits of his or her sanctification to try to find assurance of his or her acceptance with God. Pity the poor, deluded believer who constantly looks inward for sufficient evidence upon which to build assurance. Contrast that with the biblically informed, joyful believer who always looks outward to an enthroned Lord for evidence upon which to base hope. Paul’s theology describes the reality of Christ’s sufficiency and then encourages believers to look away from the law and to Christ alone. True holiness grows out of the assurance of acceptance with God, and that acceptance has absolutely nothing to do with either the law or our obedience. It is rooted in the blood and righteousness of Christ alone. Appendix A, “The Root and Soil of Holiness,” by Bonar (page 95) addresses the heart of the law/grace controversy.

A legalist is terrified of a happy believer who consistently exhibits love, joy, peace, and other fruit of the Spirit. In the eyes of a legalist, such a person is dangerous. The legalist sincerely believes that godly people never are that overtly happy and joyous. Godly people work on their sanctification seriously, and groan constantly under their failure to keep the whole law. A serious and growing Christian occupies him or herself constantly with self-examination against the standard of the Ten Commandments in an effort to ascertain progress in holiness. Those commandments rightly demand absolute perfection, and the poor soul, despite their sincerity and best efforts, cannot come even close to sinless perfection. Thus, this Christian always doubts his or her salvation. The more sincere the efforts to keep the law, the deeper the ensuing doubt and despair. They must try harder to obey the commandments in order to prove that they are a child of God. Only then will their conscience be quiet. If such a person continues to sit under a ministry that constantly emphasizes nothing but law and duty (please note the word constantly), that person will be “of all people most miserable.”

Spurgeon described such miserable Christians in terms that, sad to say, fit some of our modern church folk. His sermon, “Full Assurance of Faith,” answered common objections made by some of his contemporaries who felt that full assurance could be dangerous. Spurgeon’s arguments are as salient today as they were when he first made them. He sounds as though he has just finished arguing with some law-centered elders that I know.

I have one more class of objectors to answer and I am finished. There is a certain breed of Calvinists, whom I do not envy, who are always jeering and sneering as much as ever they can at the full assurance of faith. I have seen their long faces; I have heard their whining periods, and read their dismal sentences, in which they say something to this effect—“Groan in the Lord always, and again I say, groan. He that mourneth and weepeth, he that doubteth and feareth, he that distrusteth and dishonoureth his God, shall be saved.” That seems to be the sum and substance of their very ungospel-like gospel. But why is it they do this? I speak now earnestly and fearlessly. It is because there is pride within them—a conceit, which is fed on rottenness, and sucks marrow and fatness out of putrid carcasses. And what, say you, is the object of their pride? Why, the pride of being able to boast of a deep experience—the pride of being a blacker, grosser, and more detestable sinner than other people. “Whose glory is their shame,” may well apply to them. A more dangerous, because a more deceitful, pride than this is not found. It has all the elements of self-righteousness in it.^[4] 

A true legalist, because of their own miserable experience, must consider the happy believer to be a deceived hypocrite.^[5] The poor legalist has no assurance or joy, despite all their efforts at law keeping, and must, as a result, resent and suspect the happy believer of either hypocrisy or easy-believism. It seems to me that the message of the New Covenant is clear on this point. Absolute assurance of unconditional acceptance with God on the sole ground of the blood and righteousness of Christ provides the only effective motive for joyful, holy living. The law is ineffective to either produce or sustain a single holy act. It can inform, but there it must stop. God never intended for it to do more. Ironically, we must be free from the law before we can sincerely desire to obey the law. We must be forever convinced that the law cannot give us one ounce of strength before we will look to Christ alone for all of our help. This truth becomes simple and clear when we let Scripture mean exactly what it says. However, if we really do not believe in the awesome power of grace to accomplish holiness in the believer, then we will say, “Yes, but we must still put the Christian’s conscience under law.” Spoken like a true legalist! Remember, a legalist has more confidence in law than he does in grace.

What did Paul mean when he wrote that the Roman Christians were not under the law but were instead under grace (Rom. 6:14)? He meant exactly what he said, and that truth applies to Christians today in just the same way it applied to them in Paul’s day. The Christian is literally not under the law, but in contrast, he or she is under grace. The statement’s meaning is clear if you will just accept it as written. The law, as covenant law, can neither bless nor condemn a child of God. As Romaine wrote, “The law has no more right to condemn thee, a believer, than it has to condemn Christ.” The law, in no sense whatsoever, can touch the Christian. It has no power to make them holy and it has no power to condemn them. A Christian is free from the law.

Perhaps the best illustration of a Christian’s relationship to the law is to compare it to diplomatic immunity. When an ambassador from a foreign country comes to the United States, they are free from the laws of the United States. Regardless of their actions, the American legal system cannot touch an ambassador. If a law-enforcement officer stops a foreign ambassador for speeding, the ambassador only needs do show their credentials and the officer will apologize. No ticket. No infraction. An ambassador may shoot and kill a person in front of ten witnesses, but American justice cannot prosecute. The ambassador is not, in any sense whatsoever, under the law of the United States. The most that our government can do is to deport the ambassador and to close our country’s borders to them.

This diplomatic immunity extends to the Embassy building as well. It is not subject to any of the laws of the United States. The local fire department cannot enter the building to put out a fire without first getting permission from the ambassador. Diplomatic immunity means that the ambassador, his or her family, and staff are beyond the reach of American law. Diplomats and their entourages are subject only to the laws of their own country. Of course, our ambassadors in other countries also have the same diplomatic immunity.

Some people may say, “Well, if those people can do whatever they want without any fear of punishment, I am sure they must live riotous and wicked lives.” In fact, the opposite is true. Nearly every ambassador from a foreign country is extremely careful not to break any of our laws. Actually, any ambassador worth their salt is more careful about keeping our laws than many of our own citizens are. Fear of punishment, however, plays no rule in such scrupulous law keeping. 

Suppose you were riding in a car with an ambassador from England. You were late for an important meeting, and you asked the ambassador to “speed it up.” The ambassador replied, “I am already driving the speed limit and I do not want to break your law.” You may reply, “But you do not have to worry, the police cannot give you a ticket because you have diplomatic immunity. You are not subject to our law. What are you afraid of?” If he or she were a true ambassador, the diplomat would say, “I am not afraid of anything. However, my job as an ambassador is to represent my government and country in such a way that you, and your fellow citizens, will see what kind of people we are. My behavior affects your opinion of my country. One of the first things I did when becoming an ambassador to America was to study your laws so I could consciously obey them in order to impress you with my country’s attitude toward you.”

The ambassador’s status and attitude pictures those of the Christian. He or she consciously wants to know God’s will in order to obey it. The Christian, however, does not obey God’s law from fear of punishment. The Christian knows that he or she is free from condemnation by the law; however, the child of God wants his or her good works to glorify the Father in heaven. The assurance that he is delivered from the law no more makes a Christian ambassador careless about his life than it does a secular ambassador. The only people who have a real problem with this glorious truth are those sincere, but misguided, people who believe you can produce true holy living by putting the Christian’s conscience under the law.

The legalist is not concerned as much with holy living as he is in seeing the law reigning in its terrible, but just and holy condemning power. He wants to see people receive the condemnation they rightly deserve. His fear of lawlessness and desire for honoring the law may be correct on the surface, but it often hides an ugly, miserable and unhappy heart. The legalist’s answer to antinomianism (anti-law) is a greater emphasis of law. Paul’s answer to the same problem, as Bonar shows, is just the opposite. Paul would totally free the believer’s conscience from the threat of law and put the conscience under the power of pure grace.

Putting a true ambassador from a foreign country under the law of the United States would produce less true obedience to our law than diplomatic immunity produces. A person who would abuse diplomatic immunity is not a true ambassador. They are hypocrites whose country would soon dismiss them. The same principle holds true for a person who professes to be a child of God and yet lives in willful sin. That person is a counterfeit Christian. Applying the law to the conscience cannot solve such a person’s problem. That person’s problem is not law; the problem is that the Holy Spirit never regenerated and indwelt that person. The real problem is that this person never came under the power of sovereign grace.

A person once said to Spurgeon, “If I believed your doctrine of eternal security, I would live like the Devil.” Spurgeon replied, “Of course you would. That’s because you are a devil.” A true ambassador of a foreign country will live a law-abiding life in the United States simply because that is his or her sincere desire. The diplomat lives as he or she does so we Americans will think well of his or her home country. An ambassador obeys our laws for the sake of the ambassador’s own country. An ambassador of Christ will seek with all his or her strength to live a law-abiding life on earth because he or she wants the Father in heaven to be glorified. That is what sovereign grace accomplishes in those who truly receive it. Law preaching can never accomplish the same thing in anyone. If your heart does not earnestly want to obey every known duty to God, then your heart is not under grace. If you can be a true Christian and not earnestly want to obey God, then grace is as much a total failure as is law. Grace makes men and women to be law keepers. Law stimulates sin in a believer (cf. 1 Cor. 15:56) and actually is used by sin to push a person to be a lawbreaker.

The most joyful and happy people are always the most holy, and likewise, the most holy people are also the most truly contented and happy. This means that a person professing to love God’s grace while living in sin is the worst of liars. Those two things are impossible if grace is God’s power unto salvation. Likewise, a person who says that he or she loves God’s grace, while living in fear, defeat, and morbid doubt, is just as much a liar. Both combinations—love/sin and love/fear—are impossible, unless God’s grace is powerless. We have his testimony that grace is just the opposite. It is the power of God to remove alienation and suspicion and to produce love for God and for other human beings.

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