Therefore let it be known to you, brethren, that through this Man [Jesus] is preached to you the forgiveness of sins; and by Him everyone who believes is justified from all things from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses. Acts 13:38-39.
For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. John 1:17.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God (אלהים) says:
Grace is very different from the Law. Sin created a dividing wall between us. Grace has taken down that wall, which the Law could not do. For what the Law could not do to remedy sin in mankind, in that it was weak through the flesh, I did by sending My own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: I condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in you who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. Romans 8:2-4.
Today as we continue our series on the surpassing riches of grace, we are on Life Lesson No. 7: How is grace different from the Law? For if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly. Galatians 2:21.
Under the Law you start as a sinner and try to attain righteousness on your own, that is, a righteousness of your own, by the keeping of the Law. Under grace you start as a righteous person and go on to sanctification in truth, My Word is truth. For once you have confessed Jesus as your Lord, you are made righteous with My own righteousness. And this is not by works of righteousness on your part, but a free gift of what Jesus died to give you.
This means that under grace, you start from the finish line to go forward to ever greater levels of promotion and reward, but under the Law you are always trying for righteousness but never attain it, and even if you did, the first time you sinned again, your righteousness would be gone. For if you kept My entire Law you were a righteous person. The problem was that no one was able to keep the entire Law every day all day and every night all night, for the flesh had been weakened by Adam’s disobedience, and if you broke one commandment your condemnation was the same as if you had broken them all in the sense that you had separated yourself from Me by sin, which is lawlessness, which makes you unrighteous. My eyes are too pure to gaze upon sin. In Heaven, all have to be righteous to stay in the purity of My presence.
Sin emptied you and left you naked, but grace has filled you and clothed you in Christ. In Christ you have been made complete. He is the only man that ever kept My Law completely. And yet I made Him to be sin on your behalf so that in Him you could become righteous with My own righteousness—the righteousness of God. 2 Corinthians 5:21.
Grace is the best thing that ever happened to you, and it continues as a never ending flow. That is why the preaching of Jesus is good news, the best news there is for mankind.
That is why the sky filled with glory the night Jesus was born according to the flesh in Bethlehem, and Heaven opened up in a prelude of the good things to come as the angel announced, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” Luke ;10-11. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising Me for this awesome reconciliation of God and man, saying: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men!” Luke 2:13-14. Jesus to save you from your sins and give you eternal life. He did this by making peace between us through the blood of His cross and tearing down the dividing wall between us created by sin. He came to bring you who were dead in your sins and trespasses out of the darkness of death into the light of life by making you holy, blameless and beyond reproach before Me so that you could come into the very presence of My majesty in the Holy of Holies without fear of condemnation and rejection.
After giving My servant Peter a vision that I was cleansing all people by the Blood of Jesus, not just My people Israel to whom I had given the Law, I sent him to the house of a gentile who believed in Me named Cornelius. Peter shared with them the good news of Jesus and concluded saying about My Son Jesus, “Of Him all the prophets bear witness that through His Name everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins.” Acts 10:43. And as they heard this good news of the forgiveness of sins, My Holy Spirit fell upon all those who were listening to the Word. All the Jewish believers who came with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles also. And that is what grace does. My grace appeared offering salvation to all mankind. No one who comes to Him will He ever reject for He did not come down from Heaven to do His own will but Mine. And My Will is that all people be saved and come to know the truth, and the means by which I give you the ability to do that is in the Person of Jesus.
My apostle Paul, by revelation from Me, understood grace better than any man. He had indeed experienced it. And he summed up how grace is different from the Law very well by revelation of My Spirit, “Therefore let it be known to you, brethren, that through this Man [Jesus] is preached to you the forgiveness of sins; and by Him everyone who believes is justified from all things from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses.” Acts 13:38-39. Under the offerings of the Law, the sacrifices of the burnt offering, grain offering, sin offering, peace offering, and guilt offering were all only for unintentional sins. And they did not actually take the sin away but covered it under the blood of the sacrificial animals offered in atonement like a credit card payment which would have to be paid in full before you became free from the sin debt as if it had never been.
And intentional sins against the Law, such as adultery, murder, witchcraft, breaking of the Shabbat, dishonoring your parents, the offender was stoned to death once convicted by two or three witnesses. Leviticus 20. The cities of refuge were only for those whose sin of murder was unintentional, such as accidental.
But grace came and upon the Cross dying as sin for your sins He spoke, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.” And before Him as He hung there were the gentiles (the Roman soldiers), the Jews (the Pharisees and scribes and the crowd), and the believers (John, Mary, and the other believers present to be with Him who believed in Him as My Son and Messiah) and He qualified you all for the burnt offering, grain offering, sin offering, peace offering, and guilt offering. And He fulfilled every one of those offerings not by the blood of bulls and goats, but His own eternal blood that had no taint of Adam’s bloodline in it since He was born of the imperishable seed of My Word in the womb of the virgin Mary. He gave His eternal indestructible life to pay your debt in full for the eternal life that Adam murdered by sin for himself and all his descendants according to the flesh. He became sin and subject to death (the wages of sin is death) for you and took the divine justice in your place thereby justifying you of all wrong doing as if you had NEVER sinned. He rolled back sin, descending from Adam bringing death to all men, as if it never been. Joshua 3:14-16.
Sin kept you out of My presence but grace ushered you back in as if sin had never been between us. Because Jesus took them all, your sins and offenses I remember no more. That is grace. And I have created a clean heart in you and put My Spirit within you. And that was what David prayed for when he sinned, he prayed for grace, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Your presence and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation and sustain me with a willing spirit.” Psalm 51:10-12. And in Christ I have fulfilled that prayer. It is yours if you just take it by faith. Everyone who believes in Him is justified from all things from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses. When the Israelites in the desert spoke against My Word, even to the point of saying I had deceived them, at the edge of the Promised Land, that was it. Those who spoke against My Word never got to go in, though the next day they tried to do so. That was Law. But it is not like that under grace, when you miss it by sin and you repent, I cleanse you of all unrighteousness and put you right back on track. Grace lets you keep playing until you win by the help of My grace.
Through Adam’s sin, all men became dead to Me and alive to sin. By Jesus death and resurrection, all who receive Him become alive to Me and dead to sin. How? Grace always brings the Holy Spirit, My divine life in you. He joins us as one Spirit.
Come to Me and live. Jesus told the religious leaders, “You pore over the Scriptures because you presume that by them you possess eternal life. These are the very Words that testify about Me, yet you refuse to come to Me to have life.” John 5:39-40. Do not refuse so great an invitation. Do not ignore so great a salvation. It cost My Son so much to obtain it for you, do not receive so much grace in vain. If you are attempting to be justified by the Law, you have fallen from grace.
I love you. There is a huge difference between Law and grace, just know this: grace is what I do for you in the Person of Jesus Christ as your Redeemer, Helper, Sanctifier, Savior, and Healer. Grace is resting in My arms as I raise you up to Me in the perfection of My own righteousness. The Law is you trying to climb the stairs to Me through your own strength and efforts, which means you go up a few and then back a few, trying to obtain the righteousness I have already given you in Christ. Grace makes it, but faith takes it. And grace always brings you the Holy Spirit. And that is when your life goes up to a whole new level.