{"id":3235,"date":"2018-06-01T14:38:24","date_gmt":"2018-06-01T14:38:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thescripturecache.com\/?p=3235"},"modified":"2022-01-12T18:19:59","modified_gmt":"2022-01-12T18:19:59","slug":"jesus-has-a-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thescripturecache.com\/?p=3235","title":{"rendered":"Jesus Has a Law"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Views: 0<\/p><p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif;\">[<strong>Note: <\/strong>This MS is available in larger font on our <strong>Brief Articles 1<\/strong> page.] <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-left: -5.05pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif;\">The affirmation of my title is offensive to many theologians and pulpiteers. Those offended often hurl the <em>legalist<\/em> epithet at the affirmers. \u201cNo,\u201d they say, \u201cWe are not under law, but under grace, in the Gospel age.\u201d Is Christianity an <em>all grace, no law<\/em> system, or is this a mantra men repeat without due consideration of what the inspired writers refer to as \u201cthe Gospel,\u201d \u201cthe Faith,\u201d \u201cthe Truth,\u201d and other like terms? Do these antinomians have no consciousness of the consequences of their denial?<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-left: -5.05pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif;\">Let us study this subject of eternal implications by means of some questions:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif;\"><strong>Why do we need God\u2019s grace?<\/strong> All accountable persons end up sinners: \u201cFor all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God\u201d (Rom. 3:23). Sin, if unforgiven, pays the awful \u201cwages\u201d of eternal separation from God (6:23). We cannot earn our forgiveness\/salvation; God\u2019s grace, manifested in the sending of the Christ and His death upon the cross, have alone made salvation possible (Eph. 2:8\u20139; Tit. 2:11\u201314).<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif;\"><strong>How do we become sinners? <\/strong>We become sinners not by birth or inheritance, but by our own transgression\/violation of God\u2019s law (1 John 3:4).<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif;\"><strong>Does the existence of sin imply the existence of law?<\/strong> Reason answers that it is <strong>impossible<\/strong> to violate non-existent law (whether under Moses or under Jesus). However, the New Testament explicitly answers this question: \u201cBut where there is no law, neither is there transgression\u201d (Rom. 4:15b; cf. 5:13b).<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif;\"><strong>Would the absence of law under Christ obviate the need for grace? <\/strong>Indeed: No law\u2014no sin; no sin\u2014no grace needed. Those who assert that under Christ we have \u201call grace and no law\u201d thereby eliminate the very need for grace.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif;\"><strong>Does <em>all grace, no law<\/em> imply universal salvation?<\/strong> Most certainly. Without law, there is no sin. Without sin, there is no condemnation. Thus all will be saved. This heretical consequence is quite sufficient to expose the fallacy of the <em>no law<\/em> assertion.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif;\">Some seem never to have read the apostle Paul\u2019s references to the Gospel as the \u201claw of Christ\u201d (Rom. 8:2; 1 Cor. 9:21; Gal. 6:2). Moreover, James twice calls it the \u201claw of liberty\u201d and says we will be judged by it (1:25; 2:12).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif;\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The favorite passage of those who strip the Gospel of its legal character is Romans 6:4b: \u201cFor ye are not under law, but under grace.\u201d Their misuse of this passage makes Paul contradict himself. They miss his use of the figure of speech (enthymeme) in which he mitigates one element so as to emphasize the other, with <em>only<\/em> understood in the negation and <em>also<\/em> understood in the affirmation: \u201cFor ye are not [only] under law, but [also] under grace.\u201d Jesus, John, Peter, and Paul also employed this same figure (e.g., Mat. 10:34; John 12:44; Acts 5:4b; 1 John 3:18; et al.). <strong>Jesus has a law. It is His New Testament (Heb. 9:16\u201317), by which all who have lived since Calvary shall be judged at last (John 12:48).<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif;\">[<strong>Note:<\/strong> I wrote this article for and it appeared in the <em>Denton Record-Chronicle, <\/em>Denton, TX, November 30, 2012.]<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif;\"><strong>Attribution: <\/strong>From <em>TheScripturecache.com<\/em>, owned and administered by Dub McClish.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Views: 0[Note: This MS is available in larger font on our Brief Articles 1 page.] The affirmation of my title is offensive to many theologians and pulpiteers. Those offended often hurl the legalist epithet at the affirmers. \u201cNo,\u201d they say, \u201cWe are not under law,&#8230;<\/p>\n<div class=\"easywp-readmore\"><a class=\"read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/thescripturecache.com\/?p=3235\">Continue Reading&#8230;<span class=\"easywp-sr-only\">  Jesus Has a Law<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[131,68,18,70,44,80,45,173,23,51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-antinomianism","category-christ-authority","category-false-teachersdoctrine","category-figures-of-speech","category-grace","category-hermeneutics","category-law","category-law-of","category-liberalism","category-sin","wpcat-131-id","wpcat-68-id","wpcat-18-id","wpcat-70-id","wpcat-44-id","wpcat-80-id","wpcat-45-id","wpcat-173-id","wpcat-23-id","wpcat-51-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thescripturecache.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thescripturecache.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thescripturecache.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thescripturecache.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thescripturecache.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3235"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thescripturecache.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3235\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17564,"href":"https:\/\/thescripturecache.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3235\/revisions\/17564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thescripturecache.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thescripturecache.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thescripturecache.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}