Understanding Law and Grace

LAW AND GRACE

Grace is divine favor extended to those who stand guilty and condemned to die before divine law. The necessity for divine grace arises from the sinner’s inability to satisfy the demands of the law, except by his or her own death. Were it possible to change or abolish the divine law, there would be no need for grace. The sinner cannot bridge the gulf that his or her transgression of the law has made; the sinner cannot restore himself or herself to favor with God.

Law and grace are not contrary to each other. They are not mutually exclusive. Grace offers salvation from the penalty of the law, through the righteousness of Christ. It preserves both the honor and the majesty of the divine law and government, while giving life to those who have violated the law and rebelled against the government of heaven. Grace is not emancipation from the law, but it is emancipation from sin and from the penalty of the law. Grace provides salvation not by canceling the requirements of the law, but by cooperating with the law. The law condemns the transgressor; grace meets the penalty and sets the sinner free. Grace honors the law by presenting the perfect obedience of Christ in place of the sinner’s disobedience. Grace does not lessen the authority of the law, but recognizes and maintains its authority by satisfying its claims. Grace forgives, but it leads those who have been forgiven to serve God in newness of life, according to His righteous will. Grace delivers the sinner from the condemnation of the law in order that he or she may obey and honor the law by a new and holy life. The Christian is to “grow” within the sphere of God’s grace.

Of the relationship between law and grace as determining a person’s preparation for eternal life, M. B. Smith wrote: “In this life we are justified freely by His grace. . . . But in the judgment grace is not the rule by which men are justified, but they will then be judged ‘according to their works, whether they be good or bad” (Review and Herald 20:15, June 10, 1862).

To some who misunderstood the Seventh-day Adventist concept of law and grace, James White replied: “Those who represent Sabbathkeepers as going away from Jesus, the only source of justification, and rejecting His atoning blood, and seeking justification by the law, do it either ignorantly or wickedly. . . . One may observe the letter of all ten of them [the Ten Commandments]and, if he is not justified by faith in Jesus Christ, never have right to the tree of life. The gospel arrangement is plain. God’s law convicts of sin, and shows the sinner exposed to the wrath of God, and leads him to Christ, where justification for past offenses can be found alone through faith in His blood. The law of God has no power to pardon past offenses, its attribute being justice, therefore the convicted transgressor must flee to Jesus” (ibid. 3:24, June 10, 1852).

While believing that the born-again Christian will obey all of God’s requirements, motivated by love, SDAs have always repudiated the idea that their obedience is a means to salvation, and clearly affirm that this is by grace alone: “Let it be distinctly understood that there is no salvation in the law. There is no redeeming quality in law. Redemption is through the blood of Christ” (Signs of the Times 3:378, Dec. 20, 1877).

“You may observe all these precepts, to the best of your ability, conscientiously; but if you look no further than the law for salvation, you can never be saved. The hope of eternal salvation hangs upon Christ” (ibid. 379). See also Faith and Works; Justification; Law; Legalism; Sanctification.

The Nobility of the Moral Law

LAW

 Seventh-day Adventists have always distinguished the moral law, or Ten Commandments, from the ceremonial law, or the ritual requirements of the Jewish religious system. The moral law is a transcript in human language of the character and will of God, and of the principles by which His creatures are to live. Because the moral law comes from God and expresses His character, and because God’s character is changeless, the principles this law sets forth are likewise eternal.

Both the OT and the NT sum up the 10 precepts of the moral law, though often worded in the form of two great commandments-love to God (the first four), and love to our fellowman (the last six; Deut. 6:5; Lev. 19:18; Matt. 22:34–40). In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ explained some of the principles of the moral law and made a practical explanation of them to life situations. Originally God implanted these principles in the very fiber and being of Adam and Eve, together with a natural inclination to live in harmony with them. The Creator also endowed humanity with the faculty of free choice; people might choose to acknowledge the lordship of the Creator by voluntary obedience, or they might choose to disobey. Obedience would guarantee eternal life; disobedience would incur condemnation and death. Humanity would find true liberty through obedience motivated by love. The moral law has never been against humanity; it is our guarantee of freedom in Christ.

The moral law requires righteousness and condemns unrighteousness. By His perfect life as a man, Christ met all the requirements of the law and demonstrated that it is just and good. By His vicarious death on the cross He satisfied the righteous demands of the law upon transgressors. By His grace He exchanges His own perfect righteousness for humankind’s unrighteousness, and enables people to overcome every sinful tendency and to grow up, point by point, into the fullness of Christ’s perfect character. All of this is accomplished by faith, apart from works of law.

In the heart of the repentant, forgiven sinner, transformed by divine grace, there will be a sincere desire, motivated by love, to live in harmony with all the divine requirements-not in order to be saved by any supposed works of merit on his or her part, but because he or she has already found salvation by faith in the infinite grace of Christ. “Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law” (Rom. 3:31). Forgiveness for past transgressions of the divine law does not carry with it a plenary indulgence to keep on transgressing that law. “God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?” (Rom. 6:2).

The principles set forth in the moral law are eternal. As we have seen, the Creator implanted these principles in the hearts of our first parents when He created them. At Mount Sinai He set forth these principles in the form of 10 explicit commands, in language suitable to the condition of humanity, fallen in sin. These commands He uttered with His own voice and inscribed with His own finger upon two tables of stone.

Subsequently He revealed to Moses the ceremonial code, whose types and symbols were designed to point forward to Christ and to help humanity understand and lay firm hold on redemption through the infinite sacrifice of Christ. Its rites and sacrifices could neither actually take away sin nor set the conscience free, but they could lead to faith in the coming Redeemer, in whom they all met fulfillment and reality. Without faith in that one great Sacrifice, divinely provided and promised, they were meaningless (Heb 9:8–15).

The moral law is spiritual and can be kept only by those whose hearts have been renewed by the Spirit of God. Never in any age has its Author sought from humanity a mere outward response to the letter of the law. The moral law exercises its authority upon the inner person. It reveals sin as a conscious violation of the known will of God, thereby compelling sinners  to acknowledge themselves as such, and thus to prepare to seek for, and receive, the mercy of God in Christ. It forbids not only outward acts of transgression, but every thought and motive that would lead to such acts. It requires submission of heart as well as life to God, and in so doing exposes sin at its source and in all its forms, and points the sinner to Christ for forgiveness. All attempts to earn righteousness by adhering scrupulously to legal requirements, even those of the moral law, are futile.

Christ’s life and His teachings were altogether in harmony with the moral law. He vindicated this law, established it, confirmed it, and honored it by perfect obedience to its requirements. Those who choose to follow Christ will seek to become like Him. God’s moral law will be written on their hearts and minds. All who have been truly converted and saved by grace will find their supreme joy in loving submission to the divine authority of the moral law, for in acknowledging that authority they acknowledge the authority of its Author, Jesus Christ.

The proper function of the moral law is to make a clear-cut distinction between right and wrong, to make known to humanity the standard of conduct of which God approves, to condemn all conduct that falls short of that standard, to convict those guilty of such conduct, and to convince sinners of their need for salvation by faith in the grace of Christ. But the moral law cannot justify sinners who violate it, nor can it provide either the desire or the ability to live in harmony with its precepts, nor does observance of it ingratiate a person with God. These are improper uses of the moral law and constitute what is known as legalism, which is the belief and attempt to find salvation and acceptance with God by one’s own effort to keep the law, in contradistinction to salvation by grace alone. SDAs insist that there can be no salvation by works of law (see Legalism).

The gospel brings a change, but that change is not in the moral law. It is the transformation of believers by virtue of their new relationship to Christ. The gospel releases believers from the penalty of the law, but not from their obligation to live in harmony with its precepts.

In general, Protestants have affirmed belief in the binding force of the moral law, or Ten Commandments (see SB, Nos. 970–986), a position SDAs recognize as being in harmony with the teachings of Scripture. But when SDAs insisted that the fourth commandment requires observance of the seventh day of the week as the Sabbath as a logically inevitable corollary, they encountered the vigorous assaults of certain groups who insisted that such Pauline passages as Col. 2:14–17 indicate the abolition of all OT law in the Christian Era, including the moral law. SDAs, in turn, called attention to the sharp distinction between the moral and the ceremonial law, as to character, function, and binding force in the Christian Era. For instance, in a book entitled The Law of God (1854) J. H. Waggoner called attention to the following: “Under the Jewish dispensation were incorporated two kinds of laws. One was founded on obligations growing out of the nature of men, and their relations to God and one another, obligations binding before they were written, and which will continue to be binding upon all who shall know them, to the end of time. Such are the laws which were written by the finger of God on the tables of stone, and are called moral laws.

“The other kind, called ceremonial laws, related to various outward observances which were not obligatory till they were commanded, and then were binding only on the Jews till the death of Christ” (pp. 120, 121).

Elsewhere he says of these two laws: “By comparison, we find that two different laws are spoken of in the New Testament: one which is not made void through faith in Christ, which he came not to destroy; and another which he blotted out, and nailed to his cross” (ibid., p. 73; cites Matt. 5:17, 18 and Col. 2:14–16 to illustrate this distinction).

Concerning these two laws, J. N. Andrews wrote: “The law within the ark was that which demanded atonement; the ceremonial law which ordained the Levitical priesthood and the sacrifices for sin was that which taught men how the atonement could be made” (The Two Laws, p. 28).

“Surely these two codes should not be confounded. The one was magnified, made honorable, established, and is holy, just, spiritual, good, royal; the other was carnal, shadowy, burdensome; and was abolished, broken down, taken out of the way, nailed to the cross, changed, and disannulled on account of the weakness and unprofitableness thereof. Those who rightly divide the Word of truth will never confound these essentially different codes, nor will they apply to God’s royal law the language employed respecting the handwriting of ordinances” (ibid., pp. 31, 32).

See also Faith and Works; Law and Grace; Legalism; Justification; Righteousness by Faith; Sanctification.

For a discussion of the Hebrew and Greek terms translated “law” (tôrah and nomos) see SDADic. 641, 642.

Faith and Works in the Old and New Testaments

FAITH AND WORKS

 In the NT the believer’s confidence in and acceptance of what Christ has done to make reconciliation with God possible is called faith. Conversely, what someone may attempt to do, through compliance with ritual requirements or by charitable deeds, to earn merit with God as a means of salvation is called works. In this sense, faith and works are seen as mutually exclusive, as are light and darkness. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians is the apostle’s classic reply to the theory that Christians, who presumably have found salvation by faith in Christ, can better their standing with God and become more eligible for His grace by efforts of their own—specifically, by complying with the ritual requirements of the Jewish religious system. Paul’s categorical censure of the Galatians’ attempt to find salvation by adding the works of the Jewish ritual law to faith in Christ is applicable to all in every age who suppose that they can earn merit toward salvation by compliance with any legal requirements, even those of the moral law.

In later centuries, however, the idea that ritual performance, penance, and charitable deeds sufficed to expiate a person’s sins, and entitled that individual to salvation, eclipsed the NT concept of righteousness by faith alone. This great truth—that men and women are wholly dependent upon faith in Christ and His righteousness-was restored by the Reformation of the sixteenth century, and constitutes the very essence of Seventh-day Adventist belief and practice today.

Walking on earth as a man, Jesus exemplified perfect righteousness. Dying on the cross, He satisfied the law’s demand, so that through faith repentant sinners may come into a right relationship to Christ. Outside of Christ, trusting in their own works, they would be confronted with the full demand of the law as the standard by which character is to be judged, and would be wholly unable to satisfy its claims upon them. Even perfect compliance with God’s moral requirements subsequent to conversion, if such were possible, would not atone for a past life of sin; hence the sinner’s need of faith in and utter dependence upon the vicarious death of Christ and His enabling power to live in harmony with the will of God. Christ’s saving righteousness is complete and sufficient; humans can add nothing to it.

If the Galatians would abandon the works—righteousness prescribed by the ritual law and find salvation by faith in Christ, says Paul, the good works of the Holy Spirit would be manifest in their lives (Gal. 5:22, 23; 6:2), not as a means to salvation but as the result of it. And, as James explains, faith unaccompanied by this kind of works is dead (James 2:20; 3:13). Such “good works” are the inevitable product of genuine salvation by faith (Eph. 2:10; Heb. 8:10). They are the works of faith, not of the law. Without them a person’s faith is utterly vain. Faith works by love to produce a life of obedience and fruits unto holiness. Faith results not only in a right relationship to God but also in a cooperation with Him that makes possible a likeness to Christ in both spirit and conduct. Where living faith exists there will always be corresponding works. Good works of faith manifest in the life of the believer prepare him or her to enjoy the fellowship of heavenly beings. They demonstrate that he or she chooses to walk in loving obedience to God here and so can be trusted in a perfect world (Review and Herald 92:10, Sept. 23, 1915). Such a life proves that the believer’s  profession of faith in Christ is not in vain. The absence of good works in a professing Christian’s life is evidence that he or she is still under the dominion of sin, despite profession of faith in Christ. The loving and obedient response of good works reveals a sincere and complete surrender to God and to His will (ibid. 67:612, Oct. 7, 1890). The Holy Spirit is said to write God’s moral law upon the heart (Heb. 8:10).

The gospel saves from sin and unto righteousness. Those who would dwell with God and the angels will not love darkness, nor will they indulge in works that are evil. The good works of faith are an expression of loving gratitude to God (John 14:15, 23). No one can give evidence of a living faith if there is an absence of good works, of victory over sin (Matt. 7:16–20). A professed Christian destitute of good works gives no evidence of having been saved by Christ, or of union with Christ.

In no small measure the debate about the relationship between faith and works is a matter of semantics—of differing definitions read into the words “works” and “law,” of neglect to ascertain from the context of passages of Scripture cited the sense in which the terms are used, and of failure on the part of those in dialogue to recognize these differences. Often, for instance, there is failure to recognize that by “law” the Bible writers usually mean the revelation of God’s will as recorded in Scripture, particularly the Pentateuch (Ps. 119; Luke 24:44), but also at times (as in Gal. 3:2, 4) the Jewish religious system of rites and ceremonies (which is an integral part of “the law” in the former sense). Similarly “works” and “works of law,” when used in the context of the Jewish religious system, always refer to the ritual requirements of this “law” (e.g., Gal. 2:16; 3:2). Often those on one side or the other of the law-grace, faith-works dialogue restrict the word “law” to the Decalogue. This is the sense in which SDAs usually speak of the “law.” A discussion involving the terms “faith,” “works,” and “law” should begin with a clear definition of these words and a recognition of the sense in which the various Bible writers use them. In each use of one of these words, those in dialogue should make clear the sense intended.

Finding many passages of Scripture in which “the law” is spoken of in a favorable sense as “holy,” “just,” “good,” and “perfect,” and as enduring forever (for example, Ps. 34:7; Matt. 5:17, 18; Rom. 7:12, 14), Seventh-day Adventists usually think of “works” as voluntary obedience to the moral law, or Decalogue, on the part of one who has already found salvation by faith in Christ. Sometimes the antinomian in dialogue also uses the word “law” in the sense of “Decalogue.” But reading the depreciative declarations of Paul in Galatians about “the law” (the apostle’s term for the Jewish religious system), the antinomian mistakenly concludes that obedience to the commands of the Decalogue must be the “works of the law” against which Paul inveighs so vehemently (Gal. 2:16, 21; 5:1–4). At other times the antinomian in dialogue understands “law” in the same sense in which Paul uses it, but leaps to the erroneous conclusion that because the moral principles enunciated in the Decalogue were incorporated into the old covenant ritual system at Mount Sinai, the Decalogue itself must have lapsed with that system at the cross. This person forgets that these principles were also to be incorporated into the new covenant (Heb. 8:10, 11). Antinomians seem to be blind to the fact that the moral principles set forth in the Decalogue have always had an independent existence apart from the Jewish religious system, and were never dependent upon it nor subordinate to it. This independent existence, apart from the Jewish or any other religious system, is based on the fact that the commands of the Decalogue express God’s infinite, righteous character and will in terms adapted to humanity’s understanding in its fallen condition. These principles are not relative to anything else, but absolute in the same sense that God Himself is absolute. See Law.

In Galatians the idea of “law” as the Jewish religious system merges imperceptibly into that of law in an abstract sense to mean any law, and “works of law” to mean legalism as a way of salvation. When “law” is used to mean the Jewish religious system with its rites and ceremonies, which became obsolete at the cross, and “works” to mean compliance with these ritual requirements, SDAs agree that faith and works (in this sense, as Paul uses the words in Galatians) are mutually exclusive. The same would be true if the principle set forth in the Epistle to the Galatians is applied to the Ten Commandments, and “works of law” is construed to mean a legalistic compliance with the moral principles of the Decalogue as a means to salvation. But when, as Seventh-day Adventists usually use the words, “law” is a synonym for the Decalogue and “works” is understood to mean compliance with its moral precepts—not as a means of salvation but as willing obedience rendered by a grateful son to the expressed will of a beneficent Father—then the two words are complementary, not contradictory. This agrees with Paul’s teaching in Gal. 5:22, 23; 6:2. It was in this sense that C. M. Snow wrote: “Thus we see that there is no conflict between the law and the gospel [faith]. The one reveals sin, the other reveals the remedy. The one reveals the character of God, the other reveals the only arrangement whereby we can have bestowed upon us a likeness of that character. The one reveals heaven’s rule of government, the other reveals the only arrangement God has made to counteract the effect of Satan’s rebellion against that government. Thus do the two work together and thus will they continue to work together until sin and all the results of sin have been eradicated from the universe. Then will the gospel cease, for salvation will have been completed; but the law will never cease” (Review and Herald 83:6, Oct. 18, 1906). See also Justification; Law; Law and Grace; Legalism; Righteousness by Faith; Sanctification.