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

For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Whoever thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men. Romans 14.17, 18

The Spirit of God, who grooves with the Law of God, is the Spirit Who brings the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven. When we walk in the Spirit we submit to God’s Law – to its proper place in our lives – so that the Spirit can transform us into the image of Jesus Christ. Paul says we have been called to the Kingdom of God (1 Thess. 2.12), for this is the domain in which the Spirit is exerting power for making the knowledge of God and His glory cover the earth as the waters cover the seas.

Jesus said that greatness in the Kingdom is directly connected to reading, obeying, and teaching the Law of God (Matt. 5.17-19). Paul says we are called to this Kingdom, where the Spirit is bringing righteousness, peace, and joy to light in a world dark with sin, doubt, fear, unbelief, and anxiousness. And, as we have seen, He is doing this, at least in part, by working with the Law of God in the souls of those who believe.

The Law of God is thus integral, not only to our lives as followers of Jesus Christ, but to the progress and extension of God’s Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.

So in order to fulfill our calling to God’s Kingdom and glory, we must submit to the Spirit and His way of forming us as Kingdom citizens and ambassadors. And as this requires, as we have seen, the right use of the Law of God, it cannot be so that when Paul says we are under grace and not Law, that the Law of God is, for the believer, “a dead and a useless thing.”

But what precisely does Paul mean by this?

T. M. Moore

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