Some people use the following verse to say that God's grace has annulled His Law.

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Romans 6:14 "For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace."

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Is this true? Does God's grace annul His Law?

Please use the Bible to back up your answers.

To annul something means to put an end to it, to make it void.
Romans 3:31 Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.
We establish the law, the inference being that we have it as a part of us, it is established in us.
Jeremiah 31:33 But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Jesus said He didn't come to destroy the law :
Matthew 5:17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.
To fulfil, to establish, that all sounds like it is still in effect.
'Til heaven and earth pass away'-
Matthew 5:18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.

Paul himself typically begins his letters with Grace-type theology and ends them with a string of things to do that clarifies what it means to live under Grace.

The problem is that many "New Testament" Christians are one-verse Christians or they don't read to the end of Paul's letters to see what he's getting at.

Some people think that Romans has only 8 chapters. Paul actually takes 11 chapters to talk about Grace, Justification, Sanctification, Election, etc. (all that Theology) and then talks about giving our bodies entirely to God as a living sacrifice (ie. obedience).

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Be glad for all God is planning for you. Be patient in trouble, and always be prayerful. Rom. 12:12 NLT

I'm back. Was away on business. To answer the question regarding law and grace - to me it means that we are no longer "under" the condemnation of the law as lawbreakers (providing we are connected to Christ). Grace cancels condemnation - not the law.

But grace is conditional upon obedience, which in turn is conditional upon abiding in Christ. It all comes back to Jesus. Thank you, Lord!

In one sense grace does do away with the law, in that it gets our eyes on Jesus and off the law. We can never comply with the law by focusing on the law (you end up with a stoney heart). The ticket to law keeping is making Jesus number one in our lives. If we imitate His loving example the law will be satisfied by default.

WWJD is nice, but I prefer JWWD - Jesus, what would you do? The focus is Jesus instead of the law. I like talking to Jesus rather than talking about Him. He's our best friend and loves it when we talk to Him.

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Originally posted by Gerry Buck:
To annul something means to put an end to it, to make it void.

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I'm having some trouble with this definition. To annul does mean "1. to make formally void or null. 2. to reduce to nothing." (Random House Dictionary, I don't know the rest of the biblio 'cause the cover is torn off.) But I don't think it means "to put an end to" as in "stop doing something." To me it seems to cancel what has gone before.

Just hair-splitting, really.

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Originally posted by Mike Lowe:
But grace is conditional upon obedience, which in turn is conditional upon abiding in Christ. It all comes back to Jesus. Thank you, Lord!

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Hi Mike. Welcome back! Can you give me a few references on the above quote, or at least clarify your position. It seems to me that grace is conditional upon acceptance (of what Christ has done.)

Durk,

Good point. But isn't "accepting Jesus" the beginning of obedience? If we fail to accept Jesus as our personal Saviour what good is grace?

I like Hebrews 12:28 (KJV) for a working definition of grace - "Let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear." I also like Romans 1:5 (KJV) - "We have received grace... for obedience to the faith."

As I see it, grace is the power of God that empowers us to imitate the example of Jesus, who lived to please the Father. This sounds like an unmerited, undeserved gift to me. Yes, grace includes pardon, but it also involves power. I don't see how we can separate pardon and the power to obey.

What do you think?

Actually, when I stop to think about it, (which SHOULD HAVE BEEN the first step) I don't think grace is conditional upon anything. If it were, it would no longer be a gift, but a reward, and grace by its very definition is "unmerrited favor". ie: no conditions.

We must do something to ACCESS this grace, but there are no CONDITIONS to recieving it.

Although I quibble with your first post, I really like your second one. The more I think about it the more sense it makes. Thanks.

Perhaps grace has multiple functions, with each function having conditions of access and use as well as multiple purposes or goals grace is working to achieve.

However looking at the big picture, redeeming grace is always conditional. Grace that in mercy euthanizes sin is also conditional.

Looking at a simplistic programing loop illustrates my point.

Can the people or persons be reached or worked upon or redeemed by God - yes - no .

The answer either yes or no is a condition that then determines the direction and purposes or goals of grace. Before the decisions are made that permanently align a person either toward God or against Him, grace works to align a person into harmony with God.

When final polarization is reached (ie: sealing one way or the other), grace now focuses to gather into Heaven or permanently remove sin. The appropriate steps are then started. Talking about conditions of grace on this scale is usually beyond personal points of discussion being made when talking about grace. The condition of grace existing at all is the love of the entire Godhead taking upon themselves the burden and expense of grace for all eternity.

We see such fragments of the big picture it is difficult for us to visualize the actual story of redemption and it's scope. Like Martha we choke up and quibble or even argue with the Lord or revealed facts from His messengers. She did not want the people to see her dead decaying brother. She wanted to keep the stone in place. Jesus had a different plan, one that moved the stone away using human co-operation and His Father's power after the stone was moved. Human muscles and action did not annul grace, it complimented and prepared the way for grace to do it's available it's intended work.

The situation made a way of availability for God, because none of the involved parties wanted Lazarus to be dead and turning to dirt. No one's conscience and power of choice was being violated. Martha just didn't look at the big picture, but she trusted what she could not see and understand to the Lord she could see. Jesus did not want Lazarus to be a stinky topic of gossip and dead dirt either. He accessed His Father's power through His Father's permission and Martha's real wish was granted in a better fashion than she supposed. That's what grace does, it operates according to God's requirements, following God's plans for it, using human co-operation to prepare the way, and surprises the people with something better than the expected water or sour wine or boiled down raisin juice. God loves to give grace according to His imagination, not our limited stilted plans.

For your consideration:
a wedding feast, where something better than either Earnest & Julio Gallo or Welch's was created by grace and the way prepared for and the aftermath served up by human power to the delight of the guests and families & host. It wasn't science fiction, it wasn't slight of hand, it was real and in this case; grace was drinkable and you could see the rich color and smell the aroma. It's reality and excellence would draw you to the One who had already left the occasion and to the words about Him that His disciples were now telling the crowd, as their first official witnessing efforts as a group. Grace had even planned for their needs of growth too.

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Edward F Sutton

[This message has been edited by Edward F Sutton (edited May 06, 2001).]

Edward, you're rambling.