Relationship Between the Law and Grace or Faith

In Galatians, the Apostle Paul argues for salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.  He opposes the alternative, adding even one work to grace.  Paul provides several arguments in Galatians 3 for the churches of Galatia to combat corruption of a true gospel.

To understand the right relationship of the law to grace and faith, Paul gives a great clue with a question in Galatians 3:21.

Is the law then against the promises of God?

This is a rhetorical question as seen in his answer in verse 21:  “God forbid.”  The law is not against the promises of God.  It does not conflict with the promises of God.  In saying the law does not conflict with the promises of God, he says that the law does not conflict with grace and faith.

Just as a reminder, “God forbid” is the strongest negative in the Greek language.  “God forbid” in a technical sense is idiomatic.  An idiom is “a phrase or expression that typically presents a figurative, non-literal meaning attached to the phrase.”  The translators decided a literal translation could not convey the original Greek, so they used the idiomatic expression, “God forbid.”  In the context of Galatians 3:21, Paul says no way the law conflicts with the promises of God.

The Law Must Not Conflict with Grace and Faith

For someone to take the correct position on the law, it must not conflict with grace and faith.  What position will create a conflict?  In the second half of verse 21, Paul says that it is the one that makes the law necessary for life or righteousness.  The law does not give life.  Neither does it make someone righteous.  Only grace or faith does that.

Number one, if the law gives life and righteousness, then grace does not.  Number two, if grace gives life and righteousness, then the law does not.  If the law and grace or faith do not conflict, then one must take choice number two.

Paul gives several other related arguments for grace alone and faith alone.  (1)  The salvation of Abraham came by grace alone through faith alone 430 years before the Mosaic law came.  (2)  When the Mosaic law came, it did not replace (“disannul,” verse 17) grace alone through faith alone, but enhanced it.  (3)  When the seed (Jesus) arrived 1500 years after the Mosaic law in fulfillment of the promises, He superseded the law.  Jesus wouldn’t supersede the law if it was necessary for life and righteousness.  It wasn’t.

How Does Jesus Supersede the Law?

Superseding is not abolishing or destroying.  I like the word as a description.  One might use fulfilled or transcended.  The law continues enhancing the promises even with the arrival of the seed.  How?

Galatians 3:22 says.  The law concludes all under sin, so that they will believe in Jesus Christ for life and righteousness.  Galatians 3:23 says that faith does not come to someone until the law locks him up.  The law still concludes a person under sin.  It still locks up a sinner, so that he looks to Jesus Christ as His only possible deliverance, and believes in Him.  Christ comes into the prison of sin and redeems the prisoner who believes in Him.

Unconditional and Unilateral Promises

As you’re reading, you might be asking, what are these “promises” of which I write?  They are the promises of the seed made by God that would bring blessing to Abraham’s descendants and all the nations of the earth (Genesis 12:1-3, cf. Genesis 3:15).  Also, God will impute righteousness to those who believe the promises (Genesis 15:6).

The promises of God of which Paul speaks are unconditional and unilateral.  Abraham was asleep (unconscious) when God made that contract, agreement, or covenant with Abraham.  Abraham did nothing, no works.  This is the point of Galatians that the promises were superior to the law in that they required no mediator.  Angels and Moses were mediators of the law.  The promises involved only one — God.

When denominations say, “No, you’re involved, people,” they conflict with grace and faith.  Now their adherents are required to continue “in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them” (Galatians 3:10, cf. Deuteronomy 27-28).  They add a mediator to the promises, when there are no mediators for the promises.  This brings conflict between the law and grace, to which Paul writes, “God forbid.”

A Right Understanding of the Law

What you hear from me is not a rejection of the law, but a right understanding of it.  The law continues.  Christ superseded it, but it still enhances the promises of God.  The rest of Galatians 3 and into chapter four lays that out.  Everyone still needs and should want the moral law of God and the spirit of the ceremonial and judicial laws.

Galatians 3:19 says the law “was added because of transgressions.”  John Gill wrote that the law

was over and above added unto [the promises], for the sake of restraining transgressions; which had there been no law, men would not have been accountable for them; and they would have gone into them without fear, and with impunity; but the law was given, to lay a restraint on men, by forbidding such and such things, on pain of death; and also for the detecting, discovering, and making known transgressions, what they are, their nature and consequences; these the law charges men with, sets them before them, in their true light and proper colours; and convicts them of them, stops their mouths, and pronounces them guilty before God.

Saved men, those who received the promises of God, are not under the law.  That means they are not under the condemnation of the law.  It does not mean they are free to disobey the law.  Grace frees us from the condemnation of the law, not the law.  Unsaved men still abide under the condemnation of the law.  Since the law does not give life and righteousness, they must receive the promises.  In other words, they must by grace alone believe alone in Christ alone.