What is the relationship between law and grace?
Question 7081
This question goes right to the heart of how we understand God’s dealings with humanity throughout history. The relationship between law and grace is not one of contradiction but of progression and purpose. To understand this properly, we need to let Scripture speak for itself and trace how God has revealed His plan across the ages.
The Biblical Foundation
John’s Gospel gives us one of the clearest statements on this matter. In John 1:17 we read: “For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” Notice John does not say the law was bad and grace is good. He is marking a transition point in redemptive history. The law came through one channel—Moses—while grace and truth came through another—Jesus. Both are from God, but they serve different purposes in God’s unfolding plan.
Paul develops this extensively in his letters. In Romans 6:14 he writes: “For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.” This verse has caused much confusion, but Paul is not suggesting the law was sinful or that grace means lawlessness. He is describing the change of administration under which believers now live. Under the Mosaic covenant, the law defined sin and pronounced its penalty. Under the new covenant, grace provides what the law could only demand.
The law, as Paul tells us in Galatians 3:24, served as a παιδαγωγός (paidagōgos)—a guardian or tutor—to lead us to Jesus. The paidagōgos in the ancient world was not a teacher but a household slave who escorted children to school and ensured their proper conduct. The law performed this function for Israel, guiding them, restraining them, and ultimately showing them their need for something beyond themselves. As Galatians 3:24-25 states: “So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.”
The Purpose of the Law
To understand the law-grace relationship, we must grasp what the law was designed to do. Paul addresses this directly in Romans 3:20: “For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.” The law was never given as a means of salvation. It was given to reveal sin, to show humanity its desperate condition before a holy God.
Think of it this way: a mirror shows you that your face is dirty, but the mirror cannot wash your face. Similarly, the law reveals our spiritual condition but cannot remedy it. Romans 7:7 makes this personal: “What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, ‘You shall not covet.'” The law functions as a divine diagnostic tool, exposing the disease of sin that infects every human heart.
Furthermore, Galatians 3:19 tells us the law “was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made.” Notice the temporal language—”until.” The law had a built-in expiry date in terms of its administrative function over God’s people. It was added 430 years after the Abrahamic promise and would serve its purpose until the Promised Seed came.
Grace Predates the Law
Here is something that surprises many people: grace did not begin at the cross. Grace has always been the basis of God’s saving work. Abraham was justified by faith, not by law (Genesis 15:6; Romans 4:3). Noah found grace (חֵן, chen) in the eyes of the Lord (Genesis 6:8). Even the giving of the law itself was an act of grace—God choosing Israel to be His special people and revealing His will to them when He revealed Himself to no other nation in the same way.
The covenant with Abraham in Genesis 12, 15, and 17 was entirely gracious. God made promises that depended on His faithfulness, not Abraham’s performance. When God passed between the animal pieces in Genesis 15 while Abraham slept, He was saying, in effect, “This covenant depends on Me alone.” This is pure grace.
What changed at Sinai was not that grace disappeared but that a new administration was introduced—one that would govern Israel as a nation and prepare the way for Messiah. The Mosaic law was a temporary, national covenant that operated alongside the eternal, gracious Abrahamic covenant. As Paul argues in Galatians 3:17: “This is what I mean: the law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void.”
The Dispensational Understanding
From a dispensational perspective, we recognise that God has administered His purposes differently throughout history while maintaining His single eternal plan of redemption. Charles Ryrie helpfully defines a dispensation as “a distinguishable economy in the outworking of God’s purpose.” The law and grace represent two such economies or administrations.
During the dispensation of Law (Sinai to Calvary), Israel was under the Mosaic covenant with its 613 commandments. This included moral, civil, and ceremonial regulations that governed every aspect of Israelite life. The blessings and curses of Deuteronomy 28 demonstrate the conditional nature of this covenant—obedience brought blessing, disobedience brought cursing.
With the death and resurrection of Jesus, a new dispensation began—the dispensation of Grace or the Church Age. This is what Paul calls the “dispensation of the grace of God” in Ephesians 3:2 (οἰκονομίαν τῆς χάριτος τοῦ θεοῦ, oikonomian tēs charitos tou theou). Under this administration, believers are indwelt by the Holy Spirit and empowered to live righteously—something the law could never produce.
Not Antithetical but Progressive
It would be a serious error to set law and grace against each other as if they were contradictory. Both reveal God’s character. The law reveals His holiness and righteousness; grace reveals His love and mercy. Both are needed to understand who God is and what He requires.
Romans 3:31 settles this: “Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.” Grace does not abolish the law’s moral demands but fulfils them. When we trust in Jesus, His righteousness is credited to us, and the Holy Spirit works within us to produce the very righteousness the law demanded but could never create.
Jesus Himself said in Matthew 5:17: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfil them.” Every sacrifice pointed to Him. Every requirement was met in Him. Every curse was borne by Him. The law is not nullified; it is gloriously completed in Jesus.
Practical Implications
So what does this mean for us today? First, we must never approach God on the basis of our own performance. The moment we think our obedience earns us standing before God, we have stepped out of grace and back under law—not in the sense of the Mosaic covenant, but in the sense of trying to merit what can only be received as a gift.
Second, grace does not mean we are without moral guidance. We are under what Paul calls “the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2; 1 Corinthians 9:21). This is not a new legal code but the principle of love working through the indwelling Spirit. As Romans 13:10 says: “Love does no wrong to a neighbour; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.”
Third, we should be deeply grateful for both law and grace. The law showed us our desperate need; grace met that need in Jesus. Without the law, we would not understand the depth of our sin. Without grace, we would have no remedy for it. Together, they display the wisdom and love of God in redemption.
Conclusion
The law condemns, but grace saves. Romans 8:1-4 brings it all together: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”
The law’s righteous requirement is fulfilled in us—not by us trying harder but by the Spirit working in us. This is the glory of the new covenant. What the law demanded externally, the Spirit produces internally. What was written on stone is now written on hearts (Jeremiah 31:33; 2 Corinthians 3:3). If you have never trusted Jesus, the law still stands over you as a standard you cannot meet and a condemnation you cannot escape. But grace offers what you could never earn—full forgiveness, complete acceptance, and eternal life. The same God who gave the law now offers His Son. Will you receive Him?
“For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” John 1:17
Bibliography
- Chafer, Lewis Sperry. Grace: An Exposition of God’s Marvellous Gift. Zondervan, 1922.
- Constable, Thomas L. Notes on Romans. Sonic Light, 2024.
- Feinberg, John S., ed. Continuity and Discontinuity: Perspectives on the Relationship Between the Old and New Testaments. Crossway, 1988.
- Kaiser, Walter C. Toward an Old Testament Theology. Zondervan, 1978.
- Moo, Douglas J. The Epistle to the Romans. New International Commentary on the New Testament. Eerdmans, 1996.
- Pentecost, J. Dwight. Things to Come: A Study in Biblical Eschatology. Zondervan, 1958.
- Ryrie, Charles C. Dispensationalism. Moody Press, 1995.
- Saucy, Robert L. The Case for Progressive Dispensationalism. Zondervan, 1993.
- Stott, John R.W. The Message of Romans. Inter-Varsity Press, 1994.
- Walvoord, John F. The Holy Spirit. Zondervan, 1991.
