Like it or not we read the Bible through the grid of our preconceptions. As we submit them to the Text, they gradually, bit-by-bit conform to it, to God and His preferences and prerogatives. So the usefulness of pastors and teachers, vocational theologians, is that they should have their preconceptions better conformed to the Bible than those whom they are shepherding. Or better, as a friend would say, we should at least strive for “parity.” Being Christian is not about conforming to the world. Quite the opposite, we are to be conformed to the Word, to the very character of Christ. The peril of our times in Christendom is a world-driven church. The simple antidote to the poison is Word-driven believers.

The Age of Grace Still Has Law

Reading the Text in a straightforward way lends a clear observation that the Law of Moses is not the Law of the Church, God’s out-called collection of human beings in this age called “the Bride of Christ (Eph 5:25-27, 2 Cor 11:2)” and the “Body of Christ (Eph 4:12).” This is an application of Paul’s argument in Galatians 3-4. Yet to say that Christ fulfilled the death-dealing Law of Moses and freed those under it from enslavement to sin is not to say that Christians are without God’s Law.

Nine of the Ten Commandments are restated in the New Testament as binding on us. It still contradicts God’s character to have other gods before Him, or to murder, or to steal, or to covet the property or spouse of another. The ritual and shadow-imagery aspects of the Law have been fulfilled, along with the final and complete sacrifice for sin. So wear polyester if you like, but don’t think for a minute that sin is irrelevant to your post-justification experience!

We should recognize a subtle misunderstanding in the hearts of many concerning the nature of sanctification this side of the Cross. Grace does not mean the absence of law; it means the Divine capacity to comply with the very character of God. We are, for certain, in the “Age of Grace” as Scofield and Chafer put it, but no one seriously thinks that there was no grace in the “Age of Law.” The Law of Moses was God’s gracious provision for Israel and the watching world. Think of Elijah on Mt. Carmel in 1 Kings 18. He knew exactly what his God wanted. In strong relief, the priests of Baal had no clue what would stir their imaginary deity to reveal himself, and so to anyone who reads the account they look forevermore like rioting idiots around their sacrifice, shouting themselves hoarse, cutting themselves, and so on. (1)

People of my theological bent are often mis-characterized as believing in a legalistic way of justification during the tenure of the Mosaic Law and a grace way of justification now that Christ has come. No true Bible-student who can read English with moderate comprehension would think this way, including the great and godly men of my dispensational heritage. This system is an effort to submit to the Bible, nothing more or less. Of course salvation is, has been, will always be “by grace through faith.” So we should be clear about the unchanging expression of God’s loving character in this word grace. Grace has and will always be with us. In this age it is more focal than in the previous one.

We in this age need to remember that God’s grace must correspond perfectly to His righteous character. We should, therefore, not be surprised to find an extension of that righteousness in God’s instructions for us in the New Testament. Many of the commands for believers indwelt by the Holy Spirit are of a different nature than those commanded at Mt. Sinai. Of course you are not to commit murder! Of course idolatry is out-of-bounds of the Bible’s prescriptive spiritual life for Church saints. But the power in which we fulfill our responsibilities is completely different in this age from what God made available to saints before the coming of the Messiah.

What Makes it the “Age of Grace”

The main distinction between the Age of Law and the Age of Grace is the empowering presence of the Holy Spirit in all the saints of this age. This means new power–by the grace of God–to do all that we are called to do (Eph 2:10, Phil 2:13). Galatians 5:16 is a very truly a command in the imperative mood to “walk by the Spirit.” Recognizing this directive as a command which we are responsible to God to obey is not legalism; these are our marching orders. Literally. In the same context, Paul lists the fruit that the Spirit of God produces in us when we walk by Him, vv22-23. Verse 23b highlights the difference between Sinai and Pentecost: “Against such things (the fruit of the Spirit) there is no Law.”

To be sure we have prohibitions that are binding on us now, but their observance is the basement of the believer’s experience of the walk that is “by faith, not by sight.” We’re supposed to live in the president’s suite on the top floor through the Holy Spirit.

Jesus very clearly taught that the Law of Moses and the Prophets who called Israel back to it were not fomenting legalism. God never approves of hypocrisy and pseudo-righteousness. Man saying evil is good and good is evil is always under condemnation from God; for doing so denies the truth. Sinful man always takes God’s instructions and distorts them into a self-worship of idolatrous pseudo-righteousness. This happened to the Law under the Pharisees, and it has happened to Jesus’ correction of that misinterpretation, the Sermon on the Mount, by liberal theologians. “Transgressions,” the product of man’s sinful nature in the face of a righteous standard, were exactly what the Law was designed to demonstrate, according to Galatians 3:19. These would include the subtle source-sins of hypocrisy-inducing arrogance and self-righteousness.

Four Thoughts

1. To the extent that we think God ever advocated or even condoned legalism in the lives of His people, we need to be corrected and conformed to what the Scriptures actually teach. The Law of Sinai was not legalistic.

2. God is always gracious when it comes to the salvation of sinners. There is no other way man can receive eternal life than the all-sufficient grace of God. This is how it has always been since man needed to be justified after the Fall of Genesis 3.

3. All the commands binding on Church age believers directly correspond in some way to the Righteous character of Christ. Sanctification, the Christian’s spiritual life after initial justifying faith in Christ, is a process of growing in our character and actions to conform to that righteousness which is our birthright by God’s gracious imputation. Our salvation is just like Abraham’s, except we look back to the saving Work of Messiah. But our sanctification must be radically different from his, for we are the Temple of the Holy Spirit.

4. An unchanging God with a multi-phased plan that will perfectly achieve His purposes through and despite imperfect persons is exactly the Biblical presentation. Welcome to real dispensationalism or Biblical-systematic theology.

Passage to Pray

Galatians 5

Memory Verse

“But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. ” (Galatians 5:16, NAS)

(1) F0r this insight, my thanks go to Dr. Brian Webster, professor of Old Testament at Dallas Theological Seminary and author of The Cambridge Introduction to Biblical Hebrew, my go-to first-year Hebrew text.