The Ways of the Heart
Frank Allnutt

Section 8: The Ways of Law vs. The Ways of Grace

Page 4: The New Covenant and the Law

What is the proper response to God’s Law?

Under the New Covenant, God promises that: “I will put My law within them, and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people” (Jeremiah 31:33). “Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statues, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances” (Ezekiel 36:26, 27).

As I have previously discussed, the “new spirit” promised by God is the spiritual gift of godly love. Andrew Murray had this in mind when he wrote:

But what, you ask, is meant by “the law written in the heart”? First, it means that God has implanted in the new heart a love of God’s law and a readiness to do His will. Further, it means that in planting this principle in you, God has taken all that you know of God’s will and inspired that new heart with a readiness to obey it. The next thing implied is that you have accepted all God’s will, even what you do not yet know, as the delight of your heart. You may not feel this is true, but be assured that this is what God has said. God has taken away the stony heart and implanted a new heart that says, “Oh, how I love thy law!” Believe it and do not be afraid to say it. (The Believer’s New Covenant, Bethany House Publishers, 1984, page 29.)

The consequences of Christian disobedience
When we lovingly obey God, we abide in Him and walk in His Spirit. When we turn from fellowship with Him in favor of walking according to the flesh and in the ways of Satan, sin, the world, and wrong regard for God’s law, we commit spiritual adultery (James 4:4) and quench the Spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:19). Such conduct places us in conditional, though not positional, relational, or ontological bondage to those former spiritual masters. Paul writes: “For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace” (Romans 6:14). The same holds true for all former spiritual masters.

So what happens after a believer sins?

For the nonbeliever, the “wages of sin is death”—inherent spiritual death and eventual mortal death, but also everlasting separation from God. However, sin or disobedience on the part of the believer does not result in the loss of eternal life. Paul writes in Romans 8:2 that the love and life of Christ have set us free from the principle of sin and death. (This is the “perfect law [principle], the law of liberty” written about in James 1:22-25.) However, actual sin committed by the believer does result in a kind of “death” that is separation, in that it functionally divides the believer’s soul from his spirit, and separates him from fellowship (but not relationship) with the indwelling Holy Spirit.

Some Christians ignore the fact that they sin and do not take restorative action. God, however, does not ignore disobedience by His children. He does not possess the permissive disposition of a Dr. Spock! If we sin and ignore doing anything about it, God disciplines us (Hebrews 12:6)—He takes loving and corrective measures to train us in ways that lead to our contriteness, repentance, and spiritual growth.

While our souls can be cleansed of the content and affects of sin-debt, other consequences of sin may remain to be reckoned with; for example: financial loss as a result of greed and mismanagement; health problems associated with drug abuse, gluttony, and licentiousness; and other forms of loss and suffering. Even so, God lovingly allows such consequences for the sake of our spiritual growth and submission to Himself and His ways.

God may discipline a believer, but He never punishes or turns His back on a believer. His love for us is perfect, and therefore unconditional, consistent, and constant. His limitless grace is always available to us and is sufficient in any and all circumstances (2 Corinthians 12:9).

When God gave you a new spiritual heart, He made you alive to His grace. Grace is love (agape) in action. It is expressed through His Son.

The old man (who was “in Adam”) was crucified with Christ to the authority and curse of the law, and the new man (who is “in Christ”) was resurrected with Him and made alive to the grace of God. You experienced being made dead to the law at the time of your salvation, when God baptized you into Christ’s death and removed your old-man spiritual heart, and you experienced being made alive to grace when He baptized you into Christ’s resurrection and gave you a new-man spiritual heart and a “new spirit” of love (Ezekiel 36:26). Read again what Paul wrote about this: “For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law, but under grace” (Romans 6:14). “For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline” (2 Timothy 1:7).

The law condemned us for who we were in Adam; grace makes us the ontological fulfillment of the law in Christ, and empowers us with the potential to functionally fulfill the law in Christ. God gave His law to us, not that He expected us to attain righteousness, His acceptance, and our salvation through observing it, but that it would convict us of our unrighteousness and separation from Him, and thus guide us into experiential grace, righteousness, and freedom in Christ.

We can understand how a hard-hearted person might look at the law and see it as his enemy. However, we should realize that the law guided us to Christ and into knowing and experiencing God’s perfect will for us. God gave man the law, not out of wrath, but out of love.

What is grace?
Grace is love in action. Yet, grace defies definition in a single word, phrase, sentence, or even a book. There are “grace words” that give us glimpses of grace, but are not the equivalent in meaning: “goodness,” “kindness,” “love,” “lovingkindness,” and “mercy.” We have heard attempted short definitions such as “God’s unmerited favor” and the “grace acrostic”: G-R-A-C-E, which is derived from the expression, “God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense.”

“Grace” is translated from the Greek term charis, which Strong’s defines as, “graciousness, of manner or act; literal, figurative, or spiritual: especially the divine influence upon the heart, and its reflection in the life.”

The “divine influence” mentioned above is the Holy Spirit’s empowering—filling of the heart’s soul with love. When this love is expressed through the soul of the united or whole heart, the dynamic in attitude and conduct is grace.

These definitions are helpful, but they fall short of defining the grandeur of God’s grace. This is understandable, because grace so characterizes God’s nature that to comprehend it calls for comprehending the nature of infinite God.

When we were resurrected with Christ, we were resurrected into newness of life in grace. We were placed into a relationship with grace that involves all that we are and all that we experience in Christ Jesus. Knowing grace involves more than our minds; it involves our whole heart; the faculties of mind, emotion, and will of our soul united with our spirit, and functioning in and out of the grace of Christ Jesus.

1. Grace came to us at Christ’s expense: “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9).
   
   
2. Grace comes to us by faith, through Jesus: “Therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God” (Romans 5:1, 2).
   
   
3. Salvation came to us by grace and our acknowledgment of that truth through faith: “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast” (Ephesians 2:8, 9).
   
   
4. New life in Christ came to us with God’s gift of saving grace: “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me. I do not nullify the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died needlessly” (Galatians 2:20, 21).
   

“GraceLife”
I hope you are beginning to see that grace is not something to dream for, search for, work for, or beg for. You already have it—by inheritance. It is a gift from God to those of us who are born again and have the right to be called His children and His heirs (Romans 8:16–17). God gave us both grace and eternal life through His Son Christ Jesus who is “full of grace” (John 1:14) and who is eternal life (1 John 1:1,2).

Eternal life was given to us through grace, and grace was given to us through eternal life. In 1 Peter 3:7, we find the literal phrase, “grace life,” which is usually translated “grace of life” or “gracious gift of life.” Since God intends that we experience grace and life together, I combine the two words into one: “GraceLife.

Amazing grace
I’ve had the wonderful privilege of witnessing people come to the realization of what it truly means to be loved by God. No longer do they wrongly believe that their relationship with God is based on following a legalistic list of do’s and don’ts. No longer do they wrongly fear God’s rejection and wrath because of their mistakes. No longer do they wrongly believe they must work for His acceptance, feel bound to attain or maintain salvation out of their own sufficiency through the misinterpreted “be perfect” demands of the law, and strive to become righteous through their own strength. They leave that all behind and enter into the freedom and victory, and the peace and joy of relating with God through Christ on the basis of love through grace.

This gives us a whole new perspective of the purpose of God’s law. No longer do we see His law as a harsh master that is impossible to please, but rather as an instrument of God’s love through grace.

God intended for His law to guide us into GraceLife in Christ Jesus, as well as to protect us, and in other ways to bless us along the way. Now, as His chosen children, we grow to discover His overwhelming love for us and need to understand that He never intended for us to relate to Him on a legal basis, but rather in His love, and through His amazing grace.

Law Under Grace
Once we taste the grace of God—experience the love, freedom, peace, and joy of His fellowship—He becomes our heart’s desire and the central focus of our life. Paul expressed this with simple eloquence when he wrote, “For me to live is Christ” (Philippians 1:21).

William Cowper, more than two centuries ago, expressed freedom in the context of law under grace in this poem:

How long beneath the law I lay
In bondage and distress;
I toiled the precept to obey,
But toiled without success.
Then all my servile works, were done
A righteousness to raise;
Now, freely chosen in the Son,
I freely choose His way.
To see the law by Christ fulfilled,
And hear His pardoning voice,
Changes a slave into a child,
And duty into choice.

—William Cowper
Love Constraining to Obedience (1777)

Paul wrote to the Galatians: “Bear one other’s burdens, and thus fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2). And to the Corinthians he wrote: “What matters is the keeping of the commandments of God” (1 Corinthians 7:19). Jesus said, “If [because] you love Me, you will keep My commandments” (John 14:15).

As Christians we are under grace and no longer under the authority and death curse of the managing principle of the law, nor are we beholden to obey the law in order to attain or maintain our righteousness and standing with God. We have been chosen, saved and made righteous through grace and by faith (Ephesians 2:8, 9). Yet we have an obligation to obey the New Covenant laws of God and commandments of Jesus; not to recognize this is to reject the sovereignty of God and the Lordship of Jesus. This obligation is met in us when we walk in love (Ephesians 5:2) and demonstrate love toward God and others as Jesus commanded us (Matthew 22:37-40). This is the motivating principle of love in action. It is “the spirit of life in Christ Jesus” that is expressed in us and through us (Romans 8:2) and which sets us free from sin, conditionally and functionally. (Christ’s blood ontologically cleansed us from sin at the time of our salvation.)

Loving obedience is a characteristic of the Whole-Hearted Christian. Disobedience is a characteristic of the Half-Hearted Christian. And, as John asserts in his first epistle, disobedience may also characterize the person who professes to be a Christian, but, in fact, is not: “And by this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep his commandments. The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected; the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked” (1 John 2:3-6).

God’s New Covenant law can be seen as the expression of His perfect love in our new hearts, as well as His desire for us to conduct ourselves out of love. As Christians, we should view God’s law as His will for us, revealed to us for guidance in personal conduct, and for fellowship with Him and with other believers. If we walk in love, we will desire to walk in His loving ways and thus fulfill the law in practical terms.

Paul acknowledged that he was “under the law of Christ”: “And to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews; to those who are under the law, as under the law, though not being myself under the law, that I might win those who are under the law; to those who are without law, as without law, though not being without the law of God but under the law of Christ, that I might win those who are without law” (1 Corinthians 9:20, 21, NIV).

God’s will for us is to live under His grace—to obediently walk in His ways, out of a heart that is made functionally whole by love: “I will give you a new heart and put a new [loving] spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh, and I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances” (Ezekiel 36:26, 27).

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