Grace and Truth Through Christ

Scripture carefully distinguishes the law, which reveals sin, from grace, which offers salvation in Christ. "For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ" (John 1:17). The law brings the holiness of God to light and shows the true measure of our need: "for by the law is the knowledge of sin" (Romans 3:20). It does not save, but accuses; it exposes the disease without being able to heal it. Grace, however, supplies the remedy that the law could never provide. "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God" (Ephesians 2:8). The believer is no longer under condemnation, for "sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace" (Romans 6:14). Yet this deliverance is no license to sin, but a new life led by the Spirit and animated by love. These verses help us understand how law and grace answer one another: the first prepares the heart by revealing its misery, the second lifts it up by offering forgiveness. The faithful thus live free through faith, and not through the works of the law, walking in the grateful obedience of those who have received everything freely from God.