Under Law or Grace

Fred R. Coulter—April 30, 2016

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Short commercial: if you don't have this book, Judaism: A Revelation of Moses or Religion of Men?, and if you have not read it and if you do not understand it, you cannot understand the New Testament, especially Paul's writings. So, be sure and get it.

In the back section there in one of the appendices we have all kinds of codes of Jewish law. The Jews have their own traditions and when the temple was destroyed, they had no way of being justified through the temple because it didn't exist, and no more animal sacrifices were given.

What replaced all of the rituals for the forgiveness of sin? Jesus Christ and His shed blood! Keep that in mind. Jesus was God of the Old Testament before He came in the flesh. He gave the laws. He is Lawgiver of God's Law. What did He tell the children of Israel concerning the laws of God? 'You shall not add to it or take away from it!' What else did He say concerning other 'religious' laws of the religions of the people of the land? 'You shall not do as they do!'

If someone has a hard time understanding about the commandments of God, tell them to read 1st, 2nd and 3rd John. Remember what we covered on the Passover night. What was it that Jesus said that was conditional to express your love to Him? 'If you love Me, keep the commandments!'

1-John 2:3: "And by this standard we know that we know Him: if we keep His commandments….. [reverse that, as he does here]: …The one who says, 'I know Him,' and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the Truth is not in him." (vs 3-4).

How do you square that with a difficult Scripture that is essentially an absolute magnified mistranslation? What is it that the Protestants say when they find out you keep the commandments? 'We're not under law, but under grace'!

Rom 3 took me years to understand. If you have a King James it is an absolute, complete wrong translation. I will also tell you that any first-year Greek student could figure this out, which shows it is a deliberate mistranslation.

Romans 3:20 (KJV): "Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin." That is an incorrect translation in the phrase "…the deeds of the law…" One of the most important things in the most elementary understanding of Greek is the importance of the article. When the article is not there in critical places, you should not put it in.

If you haven't studied through Appendix Z in The Holy Bible in Its Original Order (2nd edition) (Understanding Paul's Difficult Scriptures Concerning The Law and the Commandments of God) read it and study it. If you have a first edition of the Faithful Version Bible, Appendix Z was not there. You can go online to afaithfulversion.org and download it. It's about 26 pages long, all of Paul's difficult Scriptures.

Let's look at a contradiction, Romans 2:14: "For when the Gentiles, which do not have the Law, practice by nature the things contained in the Law… [they are perfectly acceptable to God]: …these who do not have the Law are a law unto themselves; who show the work of the Law written in their own hearts…" (vs 14-15).

Verse 15 is the only place in all the writings of the Apostle Paul that the definite article should be the work of the law. So, it's a good thing even for Gentiles to keep the Law. God honors that.

What does God say concerning the nations? 'When there's a nation that does evil, I propose to bring evil upon them. If they repent or if they turn from their evil, I will turn from My correction, the evil I intend to bring upon them' (Jer. 18)! God judges all the nations by His laws.

Verse 15: "Who show the work of the Law written in their own hearts…"

Romans 3:20—a literal translation: "Therefore, by works of law there shall no flesh be justified before Him…" Why? Who does the justifying? God!

Remember what Cain did? He brought an offering contrary to God's instructions! He was not accepted. What this shows between the two is that if everything is according to the laws of God and the commandments of God, that is fine. However, what is the only thing that justifies? Christ's sacrifice; His shed blood!

In order to show that you are repentant, what is one of the first things you do when you start coming to the knowledge and understanding of some of the laws and commandments of God? You start keeping them! That's generally before baptism. Baptism has to do with the sacrifice of Christ.

So, you can have law-keeping, but you need something greater than that. Law-keeping is from what you do, even though God says to do it.

Romans 2:13: "Because the hearers of the Law are not just before God, but the doers of the Law shall be justified." You have to be keeping God's laws in order to be justified, but that law-keeping does not do the justifying, only the sacrifice of Christ! To be justified means you're put in right standing with God.

Romans 3:21: "But now the righteousness of God that is separate from law…" I think the King James says 'without law.' So people read that and say that you don't need the Law. It really means separate from, because the justification—which is also called the righteousness of God here, and it's almost spelled the same in the Greek—shows that the justification which comes from God is "…separate from law…" not theLaw.

You have law-keeping, because when you find out about things you repent and you start keeping the law. That brings you to Christ where there is repentance. However, that law-keeping didn't make you righteous before God, nor did it forgive your sins. You're not forgiven until you repent. You can't get up from repentance and go sin again. This took me a long time to figure out, years and years and years.

Verse 22: "Even the righteousness… [justification] … of God that is through the faith of Jesus Christ, toward all and upon all those who believe; for there is no difference. For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; but are being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus" (vs 22-24).

Paul says right here at the end of the chapter, v 31: "Are we, then, abolishing the Law through faith? MAY IT NEVER BE! Rather, we are establishing theLaw."

Why? When you have the forgiveness of sin through Jesus Christ, with the repentance, and then you are baptized, why does that establish the Law? Because God puts them in our hearts and in our minds!

How many times has there been a law out here which said, 'Stop!' Did that law make you stop? Did the sign make you stop? No, you had to choose to stop! This is the whole point: you need the Spirit of God!

You can keep the laws in the letter, that is true. God says He will bless people who do that. But in order for it to be for eternal life and salvation, it's an entirely different process. To be under grace is entirely different from the reading that the Protestants bring to the Bible. Grace to them means no law and one law in particular—the Sabbath.

Grace is entirely different. If you keep the commandments of God, are you under law? or Under grace? Who is under law? They don't even understand what the term under law means. We'll see it in two verses here very clearly.

Romans 7:1: "Are you ignorant, brethren (for I am speaking to those who know law) that the Law… [that means the laws of God, definite article in the Greek] …rules over a man for as long a time as he may live?"

If the Law is ruling over a person as long as he or she lives, are they not under law? They are under law! Their relationship with God is under law. That has nothing to do with salvation! Being under law in the world, you can be a decent, sincere person or you can be an outlandish criminal. You are under law as long as you live.

Under law defines the relationship of people in the world who are not in a relationship with God. Let's see that. After showing all the sins of people here, Paul says:

Romans 3:19: "Now then, we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God."

• Who is under the Law? All the world!
• Who is Lawgiver? God!
• Why then are we not under law?
• How can we keep the laws of God, and yet, not be under law?

That is the question! The Protestants come to this with a preconceived notion in mind when they read it. Then the mistranslation verifies their preconceived notion. Plus, the Jews have all their added laws to it. And they reject Jesus! They don't have salvation.

If they repent—and remember for the first about twelve years of the church, everyone who was converted was a Jew. The apostles taught Christ from the Old Testament with all the prophecies there. How do we solve this problem? What does the Law do for everyone? It shows all are sinners and you're stuck in that position until you repent!

What did Jesus say concerning God the Father and Himself and us? He said, 'I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life and none can come to the Father except through Me'! That has to be God's way. None can come to Christ except through the Father. So it's a joint effort.

How do we come to God? The call goes out to everybody. Before we're forgiven, before we know anything about God, something happens in our life that God deals with us. That's one of the seven Spirits working with God to connect us to God.

God calls! We must answer! When we answer God begins to deal with us and convict us of sin. We need to be put in right standing with God through forgiveness. We need to have the sacrifice of Christ applied to our sins with His shed blood, to have our sins forgiven. We have to come to the point of repentance and baptism, because you cannot be under grace until that occurs. The reason is that Christ came to establish the New Covenant and the New Covenant is God's way of dealing with the people whom He calls.

Remember what Jesus said in speaking about the parables? The disciples said, 'Why do You speak to them in parables?' Christ said, 'Because in seeing they see not, and in hearing they hear not, neither do their understand.' God cuts them off and they are blinded. The ones who answer the call of God, God is involved, and it's a spiritual thing that occurs.

Christ died for the sins of the world and it's applied individually to those who truly repent and are baptized. That's God's part! What is our part? Remember, there are always two parts to the covenant. Just like with Abraham.

• Gen. 15—God's part was done
• Gen. 22—Abraham and Isaac's part was done

Then the promises were made sure. God swore by Himself; the same way with us. You come to God, pour out your heart in repentance, begin keeping the commandments of God. Then you know you need to be baptized because God's Word will convict you of it. That's happened with every one of us.

Paul writes, and we're going to find a difference between under grace and under law. Under law is the whole world, as we read. What did Roger read about we're not of the world? {see sermonette: In the World but not of the World by Roger Tointon} How is it that we do not become part of the world, yet, living in it? We have our part of the covenant death. That's what it is.

Romans 6:1: "What then shall we say? Shall we continue in sin, so that grace may abound?" The more we sin, the more we're forgiven, the greater off God is with more grace.

 Verse 2: "MAY IT NEVER BE! We who died to sin… [Did Christ die for our sins? Yes! Now we have to die to sin.] …how shall we live any longer therein?"

Here's how God does it. Baptism becomes our symbolic death and our literal promise to God that we will be faithful.

Verse 3: "Or are you ignorant that we, as many as were baptized into Christ Jesus, were baptized into His death?" That's because the death of Jesus Christ is applied to every repentant sinner so that they can be baptized.

Verse 4: "Therefore, we were buried with Him through the baptism into the death…" It's individually applied—the death. Notice how personal that this is with us and for us and from God:

"…so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, in the same way, we also should walk in newness of life" (v 4). We're raised out of the watery grave. Baptism is the closest thing to death you can to come and still live. If you were held under water, you would die, but the water is also cleansing. You rise up out of that watery grave to walk in newness of life with God.

Verse 5: "For if we have been conjoined together in the likeness of His death, so also shall we be…"—future; we have something yet to do in this life.

• How do we prove our faith?
• How do we show our love for God?

"…in the likeness of His resurrection. Knowing this, that our old man was co-crucified with Him…" (vs 5-6). That's the covenant conjoining to the death of Christ. That's your relationship with God when you were baptized.

"…in order that the body of sin might be destroyed… [that shows that it is a process of getting rid of the sin within]:…so that we might no longer be enslaved to sin" (v 6). If you're enslaved to sin, that means you can't stop sinning. That's what it is in the world. Is the world enslaved to sin? Yes, indeed!

Verse 7: "Because the one who has died to sin has been justified from sin." This is how the blood of Christ justifies us.

If you say, 'I'm a good Catholic. I take Mass every morning.' There are some that are dedicated to take Mass every morning. All of that is a ritual out here. Doesn't matter what it might be.

You read some of the Code of Jewish Law. What they do when they get up in the morning, they have to wash their hands. They have to do it in a particular way. If they don't do it in a particular way, then they're not right with God. They don't define what you have to do in an emergency, too well, but nevertheless… All of those things out here, if you do something contrary to the will of God, contrary to the commandments of God, that is sin. Can you live in sin? No! Paul says that we are not to live in sin. Sin is the transgression of the Law.

Verse 8: "Now, if we died together… [that's how God looks at baptism] …with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more; death no longer has any dominion over Him. For when He died, He died unto sin once for all… [because He's Creator of everything] …but in that He lives, He lives unto God. In the same way also, you should indeed reckon yourselves to be dead to sin…" (vs 8-11). Let's put it another way. You should also reckon yourselves to be dead to breaking the commandments of God.

"…but alive to God through Christ Jesus our Lord" (v 11).

Notice what it says in v 6: "…that we might no longer be enslaved to sin."

Verse 12: "Therefore, do not let sin rule in your mortal body by obeying it in the lusts thereof."

Without the Spirit of God no one can please God! You can't do it. There are many people out there who live what is called moral lives and they live a good life.

• Are they on the road to salvation? No!
• Do they have the Spirit of God? No!
• Are they blessed in the letter of the Law, because they keep some of the laws of God? Yes!
• Have they been called?
• Have they repented?
• Have they been baptized? No!

There are a lot of people out there today on the Sabbath. They think they're doing 'good.' Some are shopping, some are playing sports, some are driving their cars, some are visiting their relatives.

• How many are worshiping God?
• How many are studying their Bibles? None of them!
• Do they know they're sinning? No!
• But are they enslaved to sin? Yes!

We're in a different category.

Verse12: "Therefore, do not let sin rule in your mortal body by obeying it in the lusts thereof." Why? Because with the Spirit of God we can overcome the sin within! That's why. You can't do it otherwise.

Verse 13: "Likewise, do not yield your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin… [showing the whole process of sin] …rather, yield yourselves to God as those who are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God…. [if you're doing that]: … For sin shall not rule over you because you are not under law, but under grace" (vs 13-14).

How many times do they read that to say don't keep the commandments. The whole world is under law to God. "For sin shall not rule over you because you are not under law…" All the people in the world, the sin rules over them. Some more, some less, but it rules over them. What is one of the greatest graces that we have?

• the Spirit of God
• the laws and commandments of God written in our heart and mind

How do we not let sin rule over us? Because with the Spirit of God and the laws of God written in our hearts and in our minds, when sin in our lives pop up we recognize it and repent of it. That doesn't happen to people in the world. Some may be good enough to have a conscience to know they should do 'good,' but to do the good of God is different than to do the good of human nature.

What was on the tree that Adam and Eve ate of? The knowledge of evil and evil? NO! The knowledge of good and evil! So much of the 'good' that people in the world do is not of God.

Look at all the do-gooder things that they do with Christmas and gather around the Christmas tree and don't even have a clue that they are celebrating the memorial of Adam and Eve eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Not even with the tree all lit up with all the lights and even with the serpentine decorations going to the top with the star on the top. Satan is called the morning star (Isa. 14). They think it's wonderful and good.

Like I said a couple times in the past, when I was growing up and they came out with angel's hair, put that on a Christmas tree, and I think I must have been about 12-years-old, or something like that. I looked at that Christmas tree with the lights on at night and there weren't any other lights on in the house and it was beautiful. I had no clue! I thought that was a good thing. People think it's a good thing.

That's why people like Bernie Sanders so much. It's a good thing to get things free, until the people you tax run out of money.

Sin doesn't rule over you. How do you feel when you sin and you know you've sinned? What do you do? You go repent! That's why it won't rule over you.

1-John 3 becomes important. Here again is another very terrible translation in the King James. Might as well throw the Bible away with that. When you are baptized and come up out of the watery grave and hands are laid on you for the receiving of the Holy Spirit, what do you receive from God as the Holy Spirit? What is another word for that? Begotten with the Spirit of God!

1-John 3:9: "Everyone who has been begotten by God…" Why do we know that is begotten? When is anyone born again? At the resurrection! Are you in the resurrection? No! Christ hasn't returned. So, you can't be born again. They try and explain it away it away and say, 'That's conversion with baptism.' It is not. Christ was the firstborn of Mary in the flesh. He was the firstborn from the dead. That defines born again as the power of the resurrection.

Verse 9: "Everyone who has been begotten by God does not practice sin because His seed… [from God the Father; Greek there is 'sperma'] …of begettal is dwelling within him, and he is not able to practice sin because he has been begotten by God."

That's how sin will not rule over us. The Spirit of God will alert us that this is sin and we can repent. Who alone has that blessing? Only those who have repented, been baptized and received the Spirit of God! Only those people are under grace, nobody else. There may be a lot of people under license to sin, because they think they're under grace, but they're not. Try that with your income tax. You don't pay it, you're hauled before the judge and say, 'I don't have to do that because I'm under grace.' He says, 'I'll help you live under grace.'

Sin shall not rule over rule you because you are not under law but under grace. Under grace is your relationship with God because you have the Holy Spirit of God, not license to sin. That's the whole thing that Paul is writing about here.

Romans 6:15: "What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law, but under grace?…." You watch some of these Sunday-morning preachers. One woman preacher said, 'God's love is unconditional. It doesn't matter what I do, God still loves me.' That's not grace!

"…MAY IT NEVER BE!.... [you are in a relationship with God that the world is not] … Don't you realize that to whom you yield yourselves as servants to obey, you are servants of the one you obey, whether it is of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? (vs 15-16). What is righteousness?

• all Your commandments are righteousness
• the way of God is righteousness
• the Truth of God is righteousness

This is what we're trying to do and overcome. That's why we have the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Our nature needs to be changed and converted from within.

Verse 17: "But thanks be to God, that you were the servants of sin, but you have obeyed… [obedience and obey, amazing words] …from the heart… [because it's written in your heart and mind] …the form of doctrine which was delivered to you." Remember this, to be under grace is your relationship with God because:

• you answered the call of God
• you've been baptized
• you received the Spirit of God

and now you have direct access to God the Father and Jesus Christ directly, spiritually. God, with His Spirit, directly to you so that He can lead you in righteousness! You don't have that in the world. That's why we're here and the world is there. Wherever the people of God are, that's the way it should be. If this is hard for you to understand, we have three series:

• The Grace of God in the Bible
• The Grace of God and Commandment-Keeping
• Grace Upon Grace

Think of that! What does that mean?

All Scriptures from The Holy Bible in Its Original Order, A Faithful Version, except where noted

Scriptural References:

• 1-John 2:3-4
• Romans 3:20
• Romans 2:14-15
• Romans 3:20
• Romans 2:13
• Romans 3:21-24, 31
• Romans 7:1
• Romans 3:19
• Romans 6:1-11, 6, 12-14
• 1-John 3:9
• Romans 6:15-17

Scriptures referenced, not quoted:

• Jeremiah 18
• Genesis 15; 22
• Isaiah 14

Also referenced:

• Books:
• Judaism: A Revelation of Moses or a Religion of Men? by Philip Neal
• Code of Jewish Law by Ganzfried and Goldin
  • from The Holy Bible in Its Original Order: Appendix Z: Understanding Paul's Difficult Scriptures Concerning The Law and the Commandments of God
  • Sermon: In the World but not of the World by Roger Tointon
  • Sermon Series:
• The Grace of God in the Bible
• The Grace of God and Commandment Keeping
• Grace Upon Grace

FRC:lp      Transcribed: 5-9-16       Formatted: bo—5/10/16

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