Question: What does Paul mean when he says that we’re not under Law but under grace?

Do we then overthrow the law by faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law. Romans 3.31

Because I write and speak about the Law of God, always in a mode of encouraging greater diligence in studying and obeying it, I’m sometimes confronted by people who declare frankly that they are glad they’re “not under law, but under grace.”

My immediate response is always the same: Me, too.

Of course, such people have a different agenda in mind than what I am promoting, and what I intend in my stock reply to their challenge. They are, of course, only quoting Paul in Romans 6.14: “you are not under law but under grace.” The question is not whether Paul is correct in asserting this. He is. The question is, rather, What does he mean?

And this is the question we will explore, beginning today.

Let’s start by considering what Paul cannot mean. Paul cannot mean that the Law of God has no place in the life of a believer. He cannot mean this in Romans 6.14 because, as we see above, he has already asserted in Romans 3.21 that we do not throw the Law of God overboard just because we have come to faith in Jesus Christ. Then he emphasizes that assertion in two ways. First, by the phrase, “By no means!” Second, by insisting that not only do we not overthrow the Law but we “uphold” it. The word used here is a bit stronger than the ESV’s “uphold.” It means something more like “continue” or “establish.”

We are saved by grace through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, not by the works of the Law, as many Jewish people in Jesus’ day supposed. So, with Paul, we reject the Law as a means of salvation. But just because we attain to saving faith apart from the Law, by grace through faith, does not mean that we throw the Law overboard. Rather, we continue the Law and establish it in its proper place and role in the life of faith.Precisely what that is we shall discover in subsequent installments.

I recall some years ago reading a respected evangelical theologian who, in one of his works, asked the question, What then is the Christian’s relationship to the Law? He answered that the Christian has no relationship to the Law. For the Christian, he continued, the Law is a dead and a useless thing.

Paul, however, insists that faith does not overthrow the Law but rather establishes it. So when Paul says that we are not under Law but under grace, he cannot mean, as some people might like him to mean, that Law has no place in the life of faith. It has a place; the Law is continued into and established within the life of following Jesus by grace through faith. Therefore it’s important for us to understand just what that place is.

T. M. Moore

Got a question about the Law of God? Write to T. M. at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., and your answer might appear in this series of In the Gates columns.

Visit our website, www.ailbe.org, and sign up to receive our thrice-weekly devotional, Crosfigell, featuring writers from the period of the Celtic Revival and T. M.’s reflections on Scripture and the Celtic Christian tradition. Does the Law of God still apply today? Order a copy of T. M.’s book, The Ground for Christian Ethics, and the compilation, The Law of God,and study the question for yourself.