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April 22, 2026 |
| Under Grace | ||
The image you see was generated by an AI from the instructions "Illustrate the concept of being under grace." It doesn't represent being under grace at all, but I think it gives a good representation of the glowy, sparkly understanding that many people have.
I see a lot of people using the phrase "under grace," but it seems they don't know what that means. Mostly, people treat it as a justification for living a less-than-holy life; that is, they don't worry so much about all those laws.
In this study we'll look at what is really meant by "under grace."
The phrase "under grace" comes from Paul's letter to the Romans, where he uses it twice in sequential verses. He doesn't use the phrase in any other letter, and it doesn't appear anywhere else in the Bible.
When it is used in our time, all you hear is "you are not under the Law, but under grace." This is only a part of one of the verses that use this phrase, so we have to be concerned that important context is being lost. In this form, it is used to dismiss the law as a part of the Christian life or to reduce concern for living a holy life.
If we begin to put it back into its context, we can see that Paul's point is not that at all.
And sin has no authority over you, for you are not under the Law (Torah), but under grace. (Romans 6:14)
Right away, we can see that Paul's point is about sin having authority over a person. It's not about the role of the law or holiness.
Now we open the context up to include both verses that use that phrase.
And sin has no authority over you, for you are not under the Law (Torah), but under grace. 15 What, therefore? Shall we sin because we are not under the Law but under grace? God forbid! (Romans 6:14-15)
Now we can see that Paul is actually emphasizing keeping the law (not sinning) and living a holy life, exactly the opposite of how people use that phrase.
Paul uses "under Law" and "under grace." To understand what he is saying, we need to understand what he means by "Law" and "grace." Paul explains this in other places in this letter to the Romans.
Law - when he says "under law" here, he isn't referring to the laws themselves that God gave mankind. He is referring to a system based on those laws that controls us (that we live under).
We know of other systems like this. We have a legal system, which is a way of dealing with people who don't live according to the rules of society. The legal system is how laws are created, enforced, judged, and how people are punished.
Paul talks about the law and grace in other places as well. So when Paul talks about the law, in this context, he is talking about the role of those laws in that system based on the law. He says their purpose is to kill, and that they pronounce death on the person who breaks them.
He says that this is also its limitation. That role is all it can do. It cannot make you a better person. Under the Old Covenant, you had to make yourself a better person. If you used the law lawfully, it would be a guide to restoring your conscience to its full function, by which you would live a holy life.
But we know that the Law is good if a man will be led by it, according to the Law, 9 while he knows that the Law was not appointed for the righteous, but for the evil (1 Timothy 1:8-9)
But we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully (1 Timothy 1:8 NKJV)
Almost all translations render the text with the bland, meaningless "uses," which tells us nothing about how to "use" the law. An alternative choice for the translation is "takes advantage of" which could be "is led by," which tells us more.
Here we see the same thing being said to Timothy that Paul is saying to the Romans. The law says nothing to people who live according to it. The law can only tell evil people that they are evil. Paul makes this point because the Jews had been using the law as the cause of salvation, that is, believing that obeying the law made a person acceptable to God. The law could never do that.
It is faith in God that makes a person acceptable to God, and it has been that way from the start. Once you are acceptable to him, how you live matters, and that's where the law comes in, if you use it lawfully and to your advantage.
Grace - Paul has been explaining part of the Old Covenant system, the Law. He doesn't mention the atonement part of that system, which included sacrifices. Once the law showed a man he was evil, he needed to make an atoning sacrifice to be restored to God.
Under the New Covenant, Jesus makes the atoning sacrifice for us by applying his sacrifice. Therefore the law does not kill us.
I haven't used the word "grace" in that description of grace. The reason is that the grace that Paul refers to is not there. Paul speaks of being "under the law," which means living according to the "system of Law." When he speaks of being "under grace," he means living according to the "system of grace."
The meaning of "grace" that applies here is "A favor rendered by one who need not do so" (American Heritage Dictionary). People think that the grace in the system of grace is the atonement. They treat it like an incantation or an ointment that is applied to sin.
That isn't where the grace is in the system of grace. The grace, the undeserved favor, was sending Jesus to die as a sacrifice. In doing that, he established the system of grace.
Christianity grew from the apostles. God accepted people based only on their faith, not their knowledge. The apostles were needed as authoritative teachers to teach the people the details.
The grace system was very difficult for Jews to grasp. They had become used to the idea that an expensive, effort-laden sacrifice was required for the forgiveness of sin. They believed that was what God wanted and would always want. When Christians said they only needed to ask for forgiveness, it seemed like it couldn't be the same God.
In a quick analysis, they could easily see what seemed like a weakness in the idea. Why wouldn't a person sin and ask for forgiveness, then sin again and ask for forgiveness, and keep doing that? Because there was no cost for forgiveness, why wouldn't a person scam the system in that way? In fact they charged the Christians with doing that.
This is exactly what Paul is arguing against in these verses. We'll expand our verse context one more time to see it.
And sin has no authority over you, for you are not under the Law (Torah), but under grace. 15 What, therefore? Shall we sin because we are not under the Law but under grace? God forbid! 16 Do you not know, that to whomever you give yourselves up to serve in bondage, his [slaves] you are, whom you obey, whether you listen to sin or to righteousness? (Romans 6:14-16)
He is saying that, if a person sins because he believes he is under grace, then he has become a slave to sin. Paul expects his audience to understand some things:
For men have obtained entrance, who from the beginning were written with this guilty verdict: "Evil men who pervert the grace of our God into [immorality] and deny him who is the only Lord Yahweh and Our Lord Yeshua the Messiah." (Jude 1:4)
This accusation by the Jews has described a problem in Christianity from the beginning. Some people don't want to live by the rules all of the time. They want a "get out of jail free" card for when they need to sin. They have found and prospered teachers who teach them what they want to hear. This teaching is most commonly called Hyper-Grace.
Hyper-Grace (also known as the "modern grace message") is a theological perspective within Charismatic Christianity that emphasizes divine grace and eternal security to the extent that ongoing repentance, confession of sin, and personal holiness are deemphasized or dismissed. Proponents argue that because salvation is by grace alone through faith, all sins - past, present, and future - are already forgiven, meaning believers do not need to continually repent or confess to maintain their relationship with God. (Some AI)
It has other names like "cheap grace" as well. Notice what the AI said, "emphasizes divine grace and eternal security". Eternal Security is another name for "One Saved Always Saved (OSAS)." The teachers of that perspective will say they believe in OSAS, but they would never sin, but I knew people in that movement who would find a way to reinterpret God's word so that something wasn't a sin. OSAS gave them an open door to exercise that interpretation, and they became enemies of God, while still believing they were in the kingdom.
In the verses we have studied, Paul clearly says a grace was given to us - Jesus' sacrificial death, so he says not to use that grace as an opportunity to sin. Other Bible authors back him up. To my everlasting amazement, there are people who have twisted these very verses into saying the exact opposite.
They did this by pulling the words out of context, which allowed them to give different meanings to the phrases "under law" and "under grace."
They do this because they hate the confinement they see in the law, and want to make it go away. Paul says the way to make the law go away is to be led by the Holy Spirit and our consciences to live within it. Then it becomes nothing to us. If we slip, forgiveness is immediately and freely available.