Law versus grace

Have you ever thought about the fact that most people that live in this world are living under law or grace, whether they want to or not. Generally speaking, the ones that have chosen grace live under grace and law can be chosen or it is the default position for humanity.  Every human has the option to continue living under law or choose to live under grace. What’s the difference you may ask? I don’t like following laws. Well, to start with, we follow laws everyday whether we want to or not. We are under the law of gravity and the laws of time. We can’t just decide to turn one or the other of them off. So , the question still stands, what’s the difference?

To find that out, we need to look in the Bible at the story of Judas and Peter. Both stories that we are going to consider centre on these men’s action and therefore, belief system on the day of Jesus’ betrayal. Let’s look at Judas first – he is going to represent our law.

In Matthew 27: 3 to 5, we read the story of Judas. Just before this, Judas betrayed Jesus to the religious leaders who wanted to kill Him. We don’t know the reason he did this but most likely it was greed – they were going to pay him money. Only a disciple could have betrayed Jesus because only they knew where He hung out and the places He liked to go. Judas betrayed Jesus for the money and not because he wanted him to die. He probably reasoned that Jesus had enough power to get away from them because he had seen him do it before, when they were going to throw Him off a cliff and Jesus just walked through the middle of them.

In the verses mentioned above, Judas realised that Jesus had been condemned to die and it was brought on by his actions. The verse is really interesting as it says Judas felt remorse and then told the leading priests and elders that he had sinned. There was no forgiveness through them. So Judas went and died. The law will do that to a person – condemn them because they are a sinner and offer no way out.

The law never offered the Israelites a way out. It gave them a bunch of rules and regulations to live by and it was apparent they were never going to keep them all. The law was sent not to condemn us but to show us what sin looked like and it was not the best way to live.  Romans 5: 13 tells us there was no sin before the law because there was nothing to break. 

Why anyone would want to live under the law is beyond me as it offers no way out? But there is a way out. The thing I like about Judas was that he knew that he had sinned. The thing that gets me is that he walked with Jesus and didn’t get the message after witnessing miracles of healing and forgiveness in others lives.

If you are dealing with this same issue, don’t despair, there is a way out and it is called grace. We will cover that in the next blog. Just so you don’t get too discouraged, seek Jesus out this week. His grace is more than you will ever need to cover anything you have ever done. Don’t be a Judas and refuse the gift. By accepting the gift, your life will never be the same and that’s a good thing. Keep living the life God intended for you. You can do it by the grace of God.