Law Vs. Grace
Many Christians focus on the laws of God. Their concept of victorious Christian living is to avoid wrong actions and do right ones. They often study God’s Word, learning all the things they must stop and the things they must start. They are focused on the rules of the Christian life. They want to be told where they can stand and not stand and still be okay in the eyes of God. They believe that if they can only do the right things, they will grow spiritually and enjoy a victorious Christian walk.
However, any approach to Christian living that focuses on keeping rules as a means of experiencing victory or growing spiritually is legalism. Legalism is a system in which a person seeks to gain God’s acceptance or blessings by what he does. People who live this way are called legalists. Can an unsaved person be a legalist? Of course. Is it possible for a Christian to be a legalist? Yes! Is your concept of the Christian life one which suggests that God’s primary concern with you is your behavior? If so, you are a card-carrying member of the Legalist Lodge. God’s concern with you isn’t about rules but relationship. When you properly understand your relationship to God, the rules tend to take care of themselves. But when your focus is on the rules, spiritual failure is certain.
Focusing on rules will never lead to obedience, but will stimulate a person to disobedience. Paul made this truth very clear.
One reason for inconsistency in the life of many Christians is that they don’t really understand that they are dead to the law. The law says, “You must, you ought,” while grace causes a person to say, “I want to!”
If you have the impression that I am minimizing the place of the Bible in the life of the Christian, you are missing my point. I know the Bible speaks about the importance of feeding from God’s Word daily. However when a person’s goal is simply to read the Bible, he isn’t seeing the big picture. We should read the Bible because we want to know Christ in a more intimate way, not just to fulfill a religious duty.
Nobody in the New Testament was more committed to studying the Bible than the Pharisees. They could quote long passages from memory. They knew the content of their Bible because they pored over it daily. But Jesus had a word to say about their kind of Bible study:
What separates Christian ministry from empty religious activity? Life! Much activity takes place in the modern church that has no real life in it. Many Christians are trying hard to work for God in the church and finding absolutely no joy in it at all. They are focusing on doing all the right things, but are missing the life of Christ in what they do because their perspective is based on law.
When our focus is on the things we ought to do, we find ourselves struggling to be obedient. We feel bound to do certain things. When we begin to experience Christ as our life on a daily basis, all the matters of Christian living that before were law now become a natural expression and an overflow of His life. We aren’t bound to the law anymore. We died to the law when our old nature was put to death with Christ. We are now bound only to a person—the Lord Jesus.
The Christian is dead to the law! Our old self was subject to the law, but we have already discovered in chapter 4 that our old man—the person we used to be—is dead! The life we have now is the life of Christ. We now live by a new law called the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.
A person who focuses on keeping rules will experience constant frustration. The purpose of the law is to show that a right relationship to God is not the result of conforming to external regulations. Now we live by this new law, which is not based on external demands, but rather on internal desire. When we understand that Christ is our life, we are motivated by His desires within us. We want to do the things that glorify God. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus motivates and empowers us to live a godly lifestyle. We no longer focus on rules, but on our relationship to Him. “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:2).
Legalism activates “the law of sin and death” because the law arouses the desire to sin (Romans 7:5) and sin leads to death (Romans 6:23).
So a person who takes a legalistic approach to the Christian life can never find victory by trying to keep the law.
As Watchman Nee explains,
Grace means that God does something for me; law means that I do something for God. God has certain holy and righteous demands which He places upon me: that is law. Now if law means that God requires something of me for their fulfillment, then deliverance from law means that He no longer requires that from me, but Himself provides it. Law implies that God requires me to do something for Him; deliverance from law implies that He exempts me from doing it, and that in grace He does it Himself. I need do nothing for God: that is deliverance from law.
What a relief to discover that God isn’t interested in what we can do for Him. He can do anything that. He needs done! He doesn’t want what we can do—He just wants us! When Christ is allowed to express His life through us, it will be a ministry of supernatural life, not a religious routine, which leaves us frustrated and unfulfilled.
The core of the Christian life doesn’t revolve around doing, but is grounded in being. The Christian life is the life of Christ. Our focus is a person, not the performance of religious activities. As we experience the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, godly action is the consequence of His life flowing from us. It is not the result of dedicated effort on our part.
Good question! The only thing we did to enter into the Christian life was to trust Christ. Does God require something different now that we have become Christians? Is it possible that, while obeying certain rules had nothing to do with being saved, it becomes very important to God after we are saved? Of course not! Then why do so many Christians believe that they must repeatedly rededicate themselves to follow God’s rules? It is because Satan knows that the best way to defeat Christians is make them believe that obeying the law is the pathway to victory.
It is impossible for you to fulfill the law. If you really want to live a godly lifestyle, the focus of your life must be Him. Not church, not religious activity, not a moral lifestyle, not obeying His commands. Just Him! The only one who can live the Christ-life is Christ.