In eleven texts in English translations of the Bible, the phrases "under the law" or "under law" are used fourteen times to translate the Greek terms "hupo nomon" (literally, "under law"), "en nomon" (literally, "in law" but translated "under law" in the English translations I consulted), and "en to nomon" (literally, "in the law" but translated "under the law" in the English translations I consulted[1]). In some of these same passages, the terms "under law" or "under the law" are set in contrast to the term "under grace" (Greek, hupo charin).
Some interpreters understand the phrases "under law" and "under grace" to refer to two historical periods divided by Christ's institution of the new covenant in the days of His sojourn among us in the flesh. They believe the term "under law" represents God's requirement that those in covenant relation with Him (particularly the Jews) during the Old Testament historical period had to live by all the laws He gave at Sinai. They interpret the term "under grace" to mean that in the New Testament historical period new covenant believers have been liberated from those "bondage-producing" Old Testament laws and set free in Christ to live by faith with an eye single to the great commandments of love to God and others.
This study concludes that rather than referring to the historical divide separated by the coming of Jesus, the New Testament terms "under law" and "under grace" testify primarily to experiential truths that are timeless and universal.
The following discussion will first note each of the texts in question with brief comments on their meaning, experientially understood. Then the contributions of these texts to understanding of the spiritual life will be described by integrating them into a suggested model of the plan of salvation.
The "Under Law" / "Under Grace" Texts
Romans 2:12
All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law.
In this passage those to whom God has given His special revelation in Scripture, those who are "under the law,"[2] are compared to those who have not been privileged to have God's word in Scripture available to them, those "apart from the law." A few verses later Paul testified to the "advantage [possessed]...in every way" by those who have "been entrusted with the very words of God" (Rom. 3:1-2). But he also left no doubt that when people who have God's revelation in Scripture, those "under the law," fail to live up to the righteous standard revealed therein, they are under the same, if not greater, condemnation than that deserved by the abject heathen who transgress the Spirit's witness to their consciences as to what is right and wrong (Rom. 3:1-2). "For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God's sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous" (Rom. 2:13). Merely being acquainted with--"hearing" or possessing a copy of--the scriptural revelation of God's righteous standard for eternal life is not enough. One must either perfectly live up to it, or have a faith that "submit[s] to God's righteousness" and "obtain[s] it by faith" (Rom. 3:22; 9:30-32; 10:3). This truth is timeless and universal.
Romans 3:19
Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. (italics added)
The extended passage that includes this text begins this way: "We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin" (Rom. 3:9). It then proceeds with a long list of Old Testament texts that graphically depict the sinner's hopeless condition apart from divine intervention (3:10-18). And it ends with these words: "Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law [the teachings of Scriptur[3]]; rather, through the law [Scripture] we become conscious of sin" (3:20).
The phrase "those who are under the law" as used in Romans 3:19 applies to "the whole world held accountable to God." God's law reveals His perfect standard of righteousness which we cannot attain on our own. All humankind is hopelessly and eternally lost without God's gracious intervention on our behalf. This is a timeless and universal truth.
Romans 6:14-15
For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!
The two uses of the term "under law" in these texts occur in an extended passage that calls baptized believers to live the new quality of life that they were raised up out of the baptismal waters to live--"no longer slaves to sin" (Rom. 6:1-9). The verses immediately preceding these two texts read: "The death [Jesus] died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness" (Rom. 6:10-13).
After affirming the Old Testament revelation that all humankind stands "under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God" (Rom. 3:19), Paul dedicated the next two and a half chapters of Romans to amplifying the even more dominant Old Testament revelation that the righteousness all sinners need to attain to God's perfect standard and its consequence, eternal life, would be provided by God. In Romans 5:19 he assured his readers that this righteousness can, by faith, be credited to their account "through the obedience of the one man," Jesus Christ.
Our justification before God by grace through faith begs the question, "Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace?" (Rom. 6:15). In other words, is it necessary for us to be concerned about obedience anymore, now that Jesus's perfect obedience has been graciously credited to our account and we have accepted it by faith?
Paul's answer: Absolutely! Don't you realize that God has not only granted you justifying grace, but sanctifying grace as well. God not only credits you with Jesus's perfect righteousness. He also enables and empowers you to live a life patterned after Jesus's life.[4] "Just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life" (Rom. 6:4).
There is no question but that Paul used the terms "under law" and "under grace" in Romans 6:14-15 to convey a spiritual message that is applicable and essential to the covenant people of God in every age.
1 Corinthians 9:20-21
To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law), so as to win those not having the law.
Many have used this text as the key to interpret Paul's uses of the term "under law" to mean "obligated to keep all the laws of the Old Testament" and more specifically "all the laws given to Moses on Mount Sinai." This, they contend, shows that Paul, a new covenant believer who boasts, "though I myself am not under the law," did not consider himself accountable to laws God gave His covenant people during the Old Testament period. Some have further attempted to suggest that Paul's use of the terms "God's law" and "Christ's law" in this text reveals a distinction he recognized between the laws given to Israel at Sinai ("God's law") and the New Testament emphasis on love ("Christ's law"). However, the attempt to create two different laws out of the New Testament references to the law of God and the law of Christ is as artificial as attempting to create two different spiritual kingdoms from the New Testament references to "the kingdom of God" (e.g., Gal. 5:21; 2 Thess. 1:5) and "the kingdom of Christ" (e.g., Eph. 5:5; 2 Pet. 1:11)."[5] "There is only one Lawgiver and Judge" (James 4:12).
In 1 Corinthians 9:20-21 Paul uses "under law" to include the practices of Jews who still observed ceremonial provisions of Old Testament law that had been fulfilled with the substitutionary living and dying of Christ on our behalf. Paul taught that nothing in his understanding of the gospel forbade Jewish Christians from continuing such practices (Romans 14). In Jerusalem he, as a Jewish Christian himself, observed ceremonial "purification rites" to deflect Jewish criticism "by living in obedience to the law," even though he may have felt under no spiritual obligation to do so before God, other than the obligation of love to those he was trying to reach (Acts 21:24). He who taught, "If you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all," himself had Greek-born Timothy circumcised at Lystra "because of the Jews who lived in that area" (Acts 16:1-3). When Paul preached to "a group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers" in Athens, he did not quote Scripture to those who did not acknowledge its authority (thus, "not having the law"), but gave a philosophical presentation of the gospel with the result that "a few men became followers of Paul and believed" (Acts 17:16-34). Paul would do whatever it took, apart from disobedience to God, to reach people, all kinds of people, with the gospel.[6]
But while these examples match the context of Paul's use of the term "under law" in this passage, they do not exhaust its meaning. Paul lived "under grace," under the justifying position and sanctifying power of God. Thus he could say, "I myself am not under the law." His obedience, even to the great commandments of love to God and others, was no longer motivated as it once was by an anxious desire to gain a positive verdict from God in the judgment, but by a love for all that God had done, and was doing, for him through Christ. Living "under grace," Paul could render wholehearted obedience to "God's law" and "Christ's law" as a service and allegiance of love because "God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us" (Rom. 5:5).
Galatians 3:23
Before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law [literally, "under the law"], locked up until faith should be revealed.
If the references in this text to "under law" and "until faith should be revealed" are construed to represent two spiritual dispensations, namely the Old and New Testament historical periods respectively, then it must be concluded that faith did not come until the New Testament era. That would leave the entire Old Testament era without faith, something Scripture does not do. This dilemma is resolved when this text is understood experientially. "Until faith should be revealed" in the life of anyone who has ever lived, that person remains "under law" as the only means of pursuing salvation, and thus hopelessly under the curse.
Galatians 4:4-5
But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons.
Jesus was "born under law." "Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity ... made like his brothers in every way" (Heb. 2:14,17). He, like us, was "under law" as a fellow brother of "the whole world [that is] held accountable to God" and to the perfect standard of righteousness revealed in God's character and His holy word (Rom. 3:19). And yet, unlike the rest of us, "he committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth" (Isa. 53:9; 1 Pet. 2:22). This qualified Him "to redeem those under law"--all Adam's descendants of every historical era who are unable to fulfill the righteous requirement of God, who futilely pursue "the hope of eternal life ... promised before the beginning of time" "until faith should be revealed" in their experience and they "be found in him, not having a righteousness of [their] own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ--the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith" (Titus 1:1; Gal. 3:23; Phil. 3:9). "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Cor. 5:21). Thus Christ who was Himself "born under law" redeemed "those under law."
Galatians 4:21
Tell me, you who want to be under the law, are you not aware of what the law says?"
Paul here chides legalists ("you who want to be under the law") for misunderstanding and misconstruing the essence of the gospel as taught in the Old Testament Scriptures as well as in the New ("are you not aware of what the law says?").
Paul's gospel of salvation by grace through faith was rooted and grounded in the Old Testament, as the numerous references in his epistles to those Scriptures on this subject attest (e.g., Rom. 4:6-7; 10:6-16; Gal. 3:6-11). "For we also [in the New Testament era] have had the gospel preached to us, just as they [the Israelites of old] did" (Heb. 4:2). It was unthinkable to Paul that anyone could have the Scriptures at their disposal and still "want to be under the law." The only way Paul could make any sense of it was to conclude that these people remained unconverted-"the god of this age has blinded [their] minds" to the point that "when Moses [God's grace-based, gospel-bearing, faith-inducing, mission-directed covenant with Israel] is read, a veil covers their hearts. But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away" (2 Cor. 4:4; 3:15-16).
Paul warned that those who continue to live "under law" (Gal. 4:21) are "born in the ordinary way" (literally, "according to the flesh," 4:23,29), and "will never share in the inheritance with the free woman's son" (4:30), which put even more straightforwardly and bluntly means that they are not converted and will not be saved (John 3:3-6; Rom. 8:5-8; Phil. 3:4-6; Gal. 5:19-21). This is not a dispensational issue, wherein the people who lived "under law" in the Old Testament period were saved while those who live "under law" in the New Testament period will not be. It is a salvation issue that is timeless and universal. There is no salvation "under law" and no one since the fall of Adam has been saved "under law" (Jesus perhaps excepted). "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God"-only and always (Eph. 2:8).
Galatians 5:18
But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.
Were believers in the Old Testament led by the Spirit? If not, by what means were they convicted of sin, led to repentance, convinced of the gospel, gifted with faith in the Messiah to come, converted and born again? Without this experience no one will see the kingdom of God (John 3:3-5). And by what means did God expect them to become a nation of priests (Exod. 19:5-6), to "be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy" (Lev. 19:2), to become a people through whom His "ways may be known on the earth, [His] salvation among all nations" (Ps. 67:1-2) and through whom He, as He expressed His intention, could "show myself holy through you before [the surrounding nations'] eyes" (Ezek. 36:23)? By what means if not by His Spirit? Galatians 5:18 cannot be understood dispensationally. If a child of Adam has been born again of the Spirit and is being led by the Spirit, he or she is no longer "under law," that is, no longer dependent on living a life of perfect righteousness to merit life in the kingdom of God and no longer condemned for failure to have done so. That person has been accepted on the basis of faith in Jesus and has been set free to live a life of holiness--likeness to Jesus--by the power of the Spirit, as God writes His law on his or her heart.[7] This is a timeless, universal truth.
Old Testament believers were surely "led by the Spirit." And it is a spiritual law, universal and timeless, that "if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law." Scripture rightly read does not teach, nor even suggest, that if you are led by the Spirit as an Old Testament believer you are under law, but if you are led by the Spirit as a New Testament believer you aren't. The same grace-based, gospel-bearing covenant prevailed throughout.
A Suggested Model of the Plan of Salvation from an Experiential "Under Law" / "Under Grace" Perspective
God's timeless and universal standard for His creation is perfect love, perfect righteousness, perfect holiness--patterned after God's own character (Matt. 5:48). When God created the angels, and subsequently humankind, He placed them under the jurisdiction of His law: "obey and live, disobey and die" (Gen. 2:17; Ezek. 28:14-19). He also inclined and enabled them to live in harmony with the spiritual laws of His kingdom. This moral/spiritual endowment included a human nature "in the image and likeness of God" (Gen. 1:26-27)--naturally loving God and obedient to His will.
At the moment He created Adam and Eve, God embedded His law in their hearts (provision 1 of the new covenant--sanctification), established Himself as theirs and them as His (provision 2 of the new covenant--reconciliation), and made Himself known to them as their Creator/Sustainer who loved them (provision 3 of the new covenant-mission).[8] This is in part what it means that God created them "in our image, in our likeness" and "very good" (Gen. 1:26-31). At that point they no doubt understood God's law as the loving way He related to them rather than as a list of specific commandments. They were created with a love song already playing in their souls--a love song for God and their fellow creatures. Their "hope of eternal life which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time" (Titus 1:2) depended on their continued obedience, motivated by a deep love for God and others that had been implanted in their "very good" natures (Gen. 1:31). Because they were both accountable to God and His standard of perfect righteousness and equipped by God with a nature that loved and obeyed Him, Adam and Eve were "under law." In their sinless state they could live "under law" in loving relationship with their Creator and one another forever.
God never changes. His standard for His kingdom children is the same today as ever--perfect righteousness, perfect holiness, enabled by and through a loving relationship with Himself.
But something has changed, and drastically so. "Sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned" (Rom. 5:12). Adam's sinful choice, violating his sinless nature through disobedience to God, fundamentally changed human nature, bending it away from God. Sin rendered humankind incapable, apart from divine intervention, of acting out the great principle of divine love with perfectly righteous, holy lives. Humanity is still "under the law," under the jurisdiction of God's law, accountable to the divine standard of perfect love, perfect righteousness, and perfect holiness to have eternal life (Rom. 3:19). But subsequent to Adam's fall, all of his children have been born into this world without the enabling endowment bequeathed to Adam at creation to live up to the divine standard of perfect righteousness to gain eternal life. They are in need, in a way that sinless Adam was not, of "the grace that brings salvation" (Titus 2:11)--the unmerited interposition of God to grant them a perfect righteousness not of their own making, a righteousness wrought by God Himself living and dying in Christ on humanity's behalf.
Jesus came among us as one "born under law" (Gal. 4:4). The Lawgiver subjected Himself to the jurisdiction of His own law ("obey and live, disobey and die"--cf. Lev. 18:5). In Gethsemane He subjected Himself to the condemnation of the law as "the Lord ... laid on him the iniquity of us all" and He became "a curse for us" (Isa. 53:6; Gal. 3:13). Though He was "tempted in every way, just as we are"[9] (Heb. 4:15), He lived a sinless life so that by His substitutionary life of righteousness and His sacrificial death on our behalf, He might "redeem those under law" (those still held accountable to a perfect standard of righteousness but condemned for having failed to achieve it), "that we might receive the full rights of sons" (Gal. 4:5). Through Him "the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men" (Titus 2:11). The perfect righteousness, perfect holiness, without sin, that Jesus lived out in the flesh was credited to every human being to be received by faith "so that in him we might become the righteousness of God," inheritors of the "eternal life which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time" (Titus 1:1; 2 Cor. 5:21; cf. Rom. 3:22-24). "Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men" (Rom. 5:18). "For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive" (1 Cor. 15:22). "We have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, and especially of those who believe" (1 Tim. 4:10).
"The whole world" is "under the law" in the sense of being "held accountable to God" and His standard of perfect righteousness that has never changed for the subjects of His eternal kingdom (Rom. 3:19; Matt. 5:48). But since no human being has lived such a life, all who attempt to live "under law"--"rely[ing] on observing the law" as a basis for their eternal salvation unto eternal life--"are under a curse" and condemnation for their failure to observe it perfectly (Gal. 3:10).
Those who have not been born again--born of the spirit into the spiritual kingdom of God--have no alternative than to rely on their own good works, that is, to live "under law." Those who do "not know the righteousness that comes from God" and do not "submit to God's righteousness" by the reception of the vicarious perfect life and atoning death of Jesus Christ on their behalf have no alternative than to try to "establish their own" righteousness by the good things they do, or the bad things they refrain from doing, and then hope for the best (Rom. 10:3).[10] Unless we are converted, born again by God's Spirit into the spiritual kingdom of God, we must "rely on observing the law" (Gal. 3:10), rely on the good we do and the bad we refrain from doing, as our hope of eternal life. "Before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law [literally, 'under the law']" (Gal. 3:23).
The New Testament speaks of people "who want to be under the law" (Gal. 4:21). Much of the world fits into this category today. Many secular, professed non-believers boast about living a sufficiently morally-upstanding life to merit a positive verdict on their behalf in a final judgment, "should there even be such." Most, if not all, non-Christian religions assume that people are born with an innate goodness that needs only to be nurtured by religious practices in order to live a sufficiently moral life to gain a store of good karma that will serve them well in the afterlife. Even Israel, God's covenant people, "pursued a law of righteousness [the perfect righteousness required by God for eternal life] ... not by faith but as if it were by works," and thus "has not attained it" (Rom. 9:31).
The Old Testament prophets characterized all such human-generated righteousness as worthless, even sinful--"all our righteous acts are like filthy rags...our sins sweep us away"--the remedy for which was reliance on God alone and His righteousness: "[God] has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness" (Isa. 61:10; 64:6; cf. Zech. 3:1-5). Similarly, the New Testament characterizes people who fail to rely on the righteousness of God as people who are living "under law," "slaves to sin, which leads to death" (Rom. 6:14, 16). The apostle Paul himself was educated as a Pharisee to consider his own "legalistic righteousness" as "faultless" before God (Phil. 3:6). Only after conversion did he regard such a life as having been lived "in the flesh," the same term he used to describe immoral, idolatrous people who "will not inherit the kingdom of God" (Phil. 3:3-4; Gal. 5:19-21). Before they are converted, "good" people have "a veil [that] covers their hearts," rendering them incapable of assessing their own righteousness or morality as "filthy rags" insufficient of meeting God's standard (Isa. 64:6; 2 Cor. 3:15). "But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away" (2 Cor. 3:15- 16). Through the conversion process the Holy Spirit convicts them that to "rely on observing the law" is to be "under a curse," i.e., lost! (Gal. 3:10).
When people are converted, born again of water and the spirit, they are no longer "under law" in the sense of having to rely on their own goodness or lack of badness as the basis of their hope for the future. Rather, those who yield to the converting power of the Holy Spirit live by faith, "under grace." Living "under grace" means 1) being credited with the perfect righteousness, perfect holiness, and forgiveness of sins wrought out by Jesus's life and death as the basis of one's salvation, and 2) being divinely endowed with the inclination and ability to live lives of love and "obedience that comes from faith," as "slaves ... to obedience, which leads to righteousness" (Rom. 1:5; 6:15-16). And "if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law" (Gal. 5:18). The freedom thus provided grace-based, Spirit-led believers allows, enables, and motivates them to adapt to the nonbinding religious scruples of others for the purpose of identifying with them and reaching them with the gospel (1 Cor. 9:20-21).
This understanding provides an integrated and coherent interpretation of the "under law" and "under grace" texts of the New Testament. The theological truths represented by the phrases "under law" and "under grace" are timeless and universal, with application to all humankind from Adam's fall to the second coming of Jesus.
In summary, the differentiated shades of meaning represented by the New Testament phrases "under law," "under the law," and "under grace" are best understood in the context of the unified thematic development of the plan of salvation throughout Scripture. There is not an Old Testament/"under law" plan of salvation or sanctification, and a different, New Testament/"under grace" plan. There is one timeless, universal plan.
Living "under law" for "the first man Adam" in his sinless state signified a divinely bestowed moral and spiritual endowment bequeathed to him at creation. This endowment enabled him to live and love according to the perfect standard of righteousness and holiness seen in the character of God and required for everlasting life (Gen. 1:27,31; 2:15-17; Matt. 5:48; Titus 1:2). Jesus, "the last Adam," was born "under law" and lived as Adam had originally been endowed to live; thus, He "committed no sin" and "went around doing good" every day of His life on earth (Acts 10:38; 1 Cor. 15:45; Gal. 4:4; 1 Pet. 2:22). (Whether Jesus was born with the pre-fall or post-fall nature of humanity is beyond this study to explore. The clear and un-debatable revelation essential for this study is that He was "tempted in every way, just as we are-yet was without sin" [Heb. 4:16].)
What living "under law" means for Adam's descendants follows this same soteriological thematic development. Just as Adam was at the beginning, so "the whole world" is still "under the law," that is, "held accountable to God" and His standard of perfect righteousness (Rom. 3:19; Matt. 5:48). The sinful nature bequeathed to us by sinful Adam bends us away from God, rendering us incapable of attaining perfection apart from God's gracious interposition on our behalf. Our natural bent to sin expresses itself primarily in the following two ways: in defiance of God's law wherein sin reigns as our "master," making us "slaves to sin" (Rom. 6:14-16; cf. Gal. 5:19-21), and in a legalistic religion that makes one feel fully capable within oneself of living a sufficiently moral life that will put him or her in good stead in the afterlife, and that thereby inclines one to "rely on observing the law" and to "want to be under the law" (Gal. 3:10; 4:21; cf. Phil. 3:3-6).
For Adam's descendants to live "under law" also means that they are "under a curse" and condemnation, namely, the loss of eternal life (Gal. 3:10). This curse seems certainly justifiable with regard to those who live in open defiance of God and His law. But the curse also rests on the most moral among us who do "not submit to God's righteousness" but rather seek "to establish their own" (Rom. 10:3). "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," His perfect standard of righteousness, and are thereby deserving of "the wages of sin [which] is death" (Rom. 3:23; 6:23).
It was precisely from this curse and eternal condemnation that Jesus came "to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons"--under grace (Gal. 4:5). "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God"--under grace (2 Cor. 5:21). "You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ"--under grace (Gal. 3:26-27; cf. Isa. 61:10; Zech. 3:1-6). Living "under grace" means to depend on the righteousness of God as our only sufficiency for our inclusion in God's eternal kingdom, and on His presence with us and within us as that alone which makes it possible for us to love and live according to His perfect righteousness (Rom. 6:14; 8:4).
All children of Adam came into this life "under law"--under the law's jurisdiction, under condemnation for disobeying it, and under the illusion that they could rely on their own goodness and decency and obedience to secure a place in the afterlife. And through conversion by the Spirit, every believer has been redeemed from the curse of the law to live "under grace." The New Testament terms "under law," "under the law," and "under grace" convey these timeless and universal experiential truths of the plan of salvation.[11]
There is but one true gospel. It is the gospel for which Paul contended, for he warned against those who preached "a different gospel--which is really no gospel at all" (Gal. 1:6). This is that gospel about which it was said, "We also have had the gospel preached to us, just as they did" (Heb. 4:2). It is called "the everlasting gospel" (Rev. 14:6). This gospel is not, nor ever has been, the "gospel" of "under law." It is, and always has been, the gospel of "under grace."
Notes: