Living by the Grace of God, Part 3

Galatians 2:20-21: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.”

Some assume the truth of living by the grace of God to be giving license to live in sin. This is a wrong assumption. In fact, according to the Scriptures’ teaching on grace, living by the grace of God is fallen man’s only hope and means to live a life of God’s righteousness. It is true that the grace of God makes freely available to us the mercy, forgiveness, and renewal of God if we sin. But the grace of God in no way assumes permission to sin or fosters in a true child of God indifference to sin.

Living by the grace of God empowers us to live in God’s righteousness. The righteousness of God cannot be manufactured by human works. The righteousness of God is a fruit of the life of God. Because the righteousness of God is a fruit of the life of God it can only be produced by those who possess the life of God. John says just that in 1 John 2:29: “If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone who practices righteousness is born of Him.” When we are born of God we are partakers of the life of God. And Paul tells us of “being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God” (Philippians 1:11).

Fallen humanity bound by sin and death cannot attain to God’s righteousness by any form of human endeavor but by being raised into the life of God by the miracle of the new birth through the grace of God in Christ. This is why the Law which demands good works of righteousness from fallen man could not bring man into the righteousness of God. Powerless in bringing fallen man from death into life to produce true righteousness, the Law simply brings continual condemnation to those who pursue God’s righteousness according to its demands. We read in Galatians 3:21-22: “Is the law then against the promises of God? Certainly not! For if there had been a law given which could have given life, truly righteousness would have been by the law. But the Scripture has confined all under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.”

Thus, the Law cannot legislate or command a sinful person into being righteous. What a sinful human being actually needs is power rather than rules to be changed into a righteous nature. And that is what God provides by grace in the life of Christ through His love and mercy for us. This is the message of the Gospel of Christ and it certainly brings hope to fallen humanity and points us to the real source of God’s righteousness in us.

The Law emphasizes fallen humanity’s need for God’s righteousness and hopelessly appeals to humanity’s good works as a means of fulfilling God’s righteousness. But the Law cannot give fallen man, dead in sins and trespasses, the life which can produce the righteousness of God. In this way the Law rightly points to the significance of the promise of God to bring fallen man from death into life as the only means for man to attain the righteousness of God. Eternal life, the life of the righteousness of God in Christ, is God’s great promise to be received by all who believe.

As John points out in 1 John 2:25: “And this is the promise that He has promised us--eternal life.” Moreover, John assures us that we receive the promise of this life by grace. God freely gives it to us in Christ. 1 John 5:11-12: “And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.”

We know by Scriptural definition of grace whatever we receive freely from God is given by grace and not as debt owed to our good works (Romans 11:6). We receive eternal life by the grace of God and not as a debt paid for our good works because eternal life is God’s promise to us.

Paul identifies the mystery of the miraculous operation of the grace of God which imparts the righteousness of God in the life of Christ into fallen man with the crucifixion of Christ. To him it would be folly to refuse the amazing grace of God manifested in such great a sacrifice as the death of Christ on behalf of fallen man as God’s way of bringing him life and righteousness and go on trying to establish his own righteousness by his good deeds according to the Law. The death of Christ would be a vanity and a monumental one indeed, Paul points out, if the righteousness of God could come by the Law, which essentially means by the good deeds of fallen humanity without the resurrection life of Christ imparted by the grace of God.

But having accepted the grace that brought him life and righteousness in Christ, Paul testifies, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.”