How to Live the Christian Life by Grace, Not Law
The same grace that saved you is the grace that teaches you, strengthens you, and carries you every day. Here is what that looks like when we rightly divide the Word of Truth.
Many believers can tell you, without hesitation, that they were saved by grace through faith. Ask them how they are supposed to live now, though, and the answer often changes. Suddenly the Christian life becomes a list of rules to keep, a quiet fear of disappointing God, and a constant cycle of trying harder, failing, feeling guilty, and starting over. Grace got them in the door; performance, they assume, keeps them in the house.
The apostle Paul confronted this exact problem. Writing to believers in Galatia who had begun well but were being drawn back toward the law, he asked a pointed question: “Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?” (Galatians 3:3). His answer runs through all thirteen of his letters. God does not save us by grace and then sanctify us by law. He saves us by grace, and then grace itself becomes our teacher, our power, and our motive.
In this article we will open the Scriptures, rightly divided, to see what it means to be “not under the law, but under grace,” why the law cannot produce a godly life, and how the believer actually walks in the Spirit day by day.
Key Takeaways
- The Law of Moses was given to Israel; the believer today lives under the dispensation of the grace of God revealed through Paul (Ephesians 3:2).
- The law is holy and good, but it was never designed to give life or to subdue the flesh (Romans 7:12; 8:3).
- Grace is not permission to sin; it is the very thing that teaches us to say no to ungodliness (Titus 2:11–12).
- Godly living flows from who you already are in Christ, not from striving to become acceptable to God.
- The power to live is the indwelling Holy Spirit, and the motive is the love of Christ (Galatians 5:16; 2 Corinthians 5:14).
What “Under Grace, Not Under Law” Means
Romans 6:14 is one of the most freeing sentences in the Bible, and one of the most misunderstood. Notice what Paul actually says. He does not say, “Sin no longer matters because you are under grace.” He says the opposite: sin shall not have dominion over you, and the reason it will not rule you is that you are not under law.
To be “under” something is to live under its governing principle. Being under the law meant living within a covenant arrangement in which blessing depended on obedience. At Sinai, God told Israel, “if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me” (Exodus 19:5). Moses later summarized it plainly: “it shall be our righteousness, if we observe to do all these commandments” (Deuteronomy 6:25). The “if” sat at the center of the arrangement.
Being under grace means living under an entirely different principle. Grace is God’s undeserved favor, given freely on the basis of what Christ has already accomplished. The believer is not working toward acceptance; he is “accepted in the beloved” (Ephesians 1:6). Under law, God says, “Do, and you will be blessed.” Under grace, God says, “You have been blessed with all spiritual blessings in Christ, now walk worthy of that calling” (Ephesians 1:3; 4:1).
Paul’s logic in Romans 6:14 is surprising: the law, which demands holiness, actually gives sin a foothold in the flesh, while grace, which demands nothing to earn favor, is what breaks sin’s rule.
Rightly Dividing Law and Grace
Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
2 Timothy 2:15Much confusion about Christian living comes from reading every instruction in the Bible as though it were written directly to us, in our dispensation. Rightly dividing the Word means asking not only “What does this passage say?” but also “To whom was it written, and under what program of God?”
The Law of Moses was given to the nation of Israel. Paul identifies the Israelites as the people “to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law” (Romans 9:4). The Lord Jesus Himself, in His earthly ministry, was “made under the law” (Galatians 4:4) and served as “a minister of the circumcision for the truth of the promises made unto the fathers” (Romans 15:8).
After Israel’s rejection of her Messiah, the risen Lord revealed something new through the apostle Paul. Paul calls himself “the apostle of the Gentiles” (Romans 11:13), says his gospel came “by the revelation of Jesus Christ” (Galatians 1:12), and describes his ministry as “the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to you-ward” (Ephesians 3:2). That is why the believer today finds the doctrine, position, and daily walk of the Body of Christ most directly in Paul’s letters, Romans through Philemon.
None of this means the rest of the Bible is unimportant. “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable” (2 Timothy 3:16). All of it is for us; not all of it is to us. The table below shows how sharply Scripture itself contrasts the two arrangements.
| Question | Under the Law | Under Grace |
|---|---|---|
| Given through | Moses at SinaiJohn 1:17 | The risen Christ, revealed to PaulGalatians 1:11–12; Ephesians 3:2 |
| Addressed to | The nation of IsraelRomans 9:4 | The Body of Christ, Jew and Gentile alikeGalatians 3:28; Ephesians 2:16 |
| Basis of standing | “If ye will obey”Exodus 19:5 | “Accepted in the beloved”Ephesians 1:6 |
| Written on | Tables of stone2 Corinthians 3:3, 7 | The heart, by the Spirit2 Corinthians 3:3 |
| Result in the flesh | Knowledge of sin, condemnationRomans 3:20; 2 Corinthians 3:9 | No condemnation, new lifeRomans 8:1–2 |
| Source of power | Human effort, “weak through the flesh”Romans 8:3 | God working withinPhilippians 2:13 |
| Order of things | Obey in order to be blessed | Blessed, therefore walk worthyEphesians 1:3; 4:1 |
What the Law Does, and What It Cannot Do
Living by grace never requires us to speak badly of the law. Paul is emphatic: “the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good” (Romans 7:12). The problem has never been the law. The problem is the flesh that the law confronts.
What the law does
Reveals sin
“By the law is the knowledge of sin.” It works like a mirror, showing what is wrong without fixing it.Makes the offence abound
The law entered so that sin would be exposed for what it is, so that grace might abound even more.Leads to Christ
The law served as a schoolmaster to bring people to Christ, and after faith came, that schoolmaster’s role ended.Restrains the lawless
Used lawfully, the law is aimed at the lawless and disobedient, not at the man made righteous.What the law cannot do
The law cannot justify: “by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified” (Galatians 2:16). It cannot give life: “if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law” (Galatians 3:21). And, crucially for Christian living, it cannot conquer the flesh. Paul says the law was “weak through the flesh” (Romans 8:3), and that the motions of sins were actually stirred by the law (Romans 7:5). Tell the flesh “thou shalt not,” and it immediately wants to.
Romans 7 describes a sincere man trying to live a holy life by the law, and failing. His cry is not “What rule am I missing?” but “Who shall deliver me?” The answer is a Person, not a program: “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 7:24–25).
This is why returning to the law as a method of sanctification is not a step toward holiness. It is a step back into the very arrangement that empowers sin in the flesh.
Grace Is Your Teacher
A common fear is that if we take away the law, Christians will have no reason to live righteously. Paul answers that fear in one of the richest passages in his letters:
For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world.
Titus 2:11–12Grace does not merely forgive; it instructs. Look at the full lesson plan in Titus 2:11–14:
A firm no
Grace teaches us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts.A positive yes
To live soberly toward ourselves, righteously toward others, and godly toward God.A living hope
To look for “that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing” of our Saviour.A clear purpose
Christ gave Himself to purify a people of His own, “zealous of good works.”Paul lived this. He called himself the chief of sinners, yet wrote, “by the grace of God I am what I am… I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me” (1 Corinthians 15:10). Grace did not make Paul lazy. It made him the hardest-working servant in the early church, and it gave God all the credit.
Live From Your Identity in Christ
Under law, a person behaves in order to become something. Under grace, a believer behaves in keeping with what he already is. Paul’s letters consistently follow this order: position first, then practice. Ephesians 1–3 tells you who you are in Christ; only in chapter 4 does Paul say, “walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called” (Ephesians 4:1). Romans spends five chapters on justification before it ever addresses daily living in chapter 6.
What is true of every believer right now?
- You are a new creature: “old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
- Your old man was crucified with Christ, so that the body of sin might be rendered powerless (Romans 6:6).
- You are complete in Him (Colossians 2:10), lacking nothing for your standing before God.
- You are sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise (Ephesians 1:13).
From that foundation, Paul gives two practical commands in Romans 6:
Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Romans 6:11Reckon is an accounting word. An auditor does not invent the numbers; he counts as true what the records already show. In the same way, you do not make yourself dead to sin by effort. You count on what God says is already true because of the cross. Then, yield: “yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God” (Romans 6:13). Reckoning settles the mind; yielding puts the body at God’s disposal.
I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
Galatians 2:20Walking in the Spirit, Not the Flesh
If the law cannot empower holy living, what does? The answer is the Holy Spirit who indwells every believer. “This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16). Paul does not say, “Stop fulfilling the lust of the flesh, and then you will walk in the Spirit.” He puts the walk first. Victory over the flesh is the result, not the requirement.
Notice too the language Paul uses in Galatians 5. The flesh produces works (verse 19), plural and laborious. The Spirit produces fruit (verse 22), singular and organic:
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
Galatians 5:22–23“Against such there is no law.” A life marked by this fruit never violates God’s righteous standard. In fact, Paul says that what the law could not do, God accomplished in Christ, “That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit” (Romans 8:4). Grace does not lower God’s standard; it is the only way that standard is ever met in human experience.
How does a believer walk in the Spirit?
Paul connects the Spirit’s work to the Word. We are transformed “by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2). As we behold the glory of the Lord in Scripture, we “are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Corinthians 3:18). Compare Ephesians 5:18–20 with Colossians 3:16–17: being “filled with the Spirit” and letting “the word of Christ dwell in you richly” produce the same results, thankful hearts, songs of praise, and godly relationships. The Spirit works through the Word, rightly divided and believed.
The New Motive: Love, Not Fear
Two people can do the same good deed for completely different reasons. One serves because he is afraid of what will happen if he does not. The other serves because he has been loved beyond measure. Only the second reflects life under grace.
For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again.
2 Corinthians 5:14–15To be “constrained” is to be compelled, held on course. The believer’s life is driven not by the threat of punishment, but by the overwhelming fact of Calvary. That is why Paul’s great appeal for dedicated living begins with God’s mercy, not God’s demands: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice” (Romans 12:1).
And love turns out to accomplish what the law required. “Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law” (Romans 13:10; see also Galatians 5:14). Someone who truly loves his neighbor does not need a list forbidding him to steal from, lie to, or covet from that neighbor.
Law says, “Do this, and live.” Grace says, “Live, and you will do this.” The order changes everything.
Liberty Without License
Paul anticipated that some would twist grace into an excuse. Twice in Romans 6 he raises the objection himself, and twice he answers with the strongest negative in his vocabulary:
What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?
Romans 6:1–2 (see also 6:15)Grace is not soft on sin. Grace dealt with sin more severely than the law ever did, by judging it fully at the cross. The believer who understands that will not treat sin lightly. Paul gives several safeguards for Christian liberty:
Liberty is for serving
“Use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.”You are not your own
Your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost; you were bought with a price, so glorify God in it.Not everything edifies
Some things are lawful but not helpful; ask whether a choice builds up.Sowing still reaps
Sin carries real consequences in this life, even for the forgiven believer.True liberty is not freedom to do whatever we want; it is freedom from sin’s mastery so that we can do what pleases God. “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage” (Galatians 5:1). Legalism and license are both forms of bondage. Grace is the narrow road between them.
Seven Daily Habits of a Grace-Filled Walk
Grace is not a feeling we wait for; it is truth we live in. These are not rules to earn God’s favor but practical ways of setting our minds on what He has already given.
- Begin with the finished workBefore you think about what you must do today, give thanks for what Christ has already done: redemption through His blood and the forgiveness of all trespasses (Ephesians 1:7; Colossians 2:13–14).
- Feed on Paul’s letters, rightly dividedRead the whole Bible, but anchor your daily instruction in Romans through Philemon, where God speaks directly to the Body of Christ. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly (Colossians 3:16).
- Reckon and yieldWhen temptation comes, remind yourself what is true: you are dead to sin and alive to God. Then consciously offer your eyes, hands, and words to Him (Romans 6:11–13).
- Pray with thanksgiving, not bargainingYou do not need to negotiate for God’s favor. Bring every need with thanksgiving, and His peace will guard your heart and mind (Philippians 4:6–7).
- When you stumble, return to the truthDo not punish yourself or try to “make it up” to God. Acknowledge the sin honestly, turn from it, rest in the fact that there is no condemnation in Christ, and keep walking (Romans 8:1; Ephesians 4:32).
- Serve someone by loveGrace always moves outward. Bear another’s burden, encourage a weaker brother, and be careful to maintain good works (Galatians 6:2; Titus 3:8).
- Keep your eyes on the blessed hopeSet your affection on things above and live in expectation of Christ’s appearing. Hope purifies the present (Colossians 3:1–4; Titus 2:13; 1 Thessalonians 4:16–18).
Common Misunderstandings Corrected
Frequently Asked Questions
Are Christians today required to keep the Ten Commandments?
Believers today are not under the Law of Moses as the basis of their standing or the rule of their life (Romans 6:14; Galatians 3:24–25). God’s righteous character has not changed, however, and Paul’s letters clearly call murder, theft, lying, and adultery sin. Those who walk after the Spirit fulfill the righteousness the law pointed to (Romans 8:4; 13:8–10). Paul specifically says no one should judge believers regarding sabbath days (Colossians 2:16).
If I live by grace, will I stop struggling with sin?
No. The flesh remains until the redemption of the body, and Paul describes the ongoing conflict between flesh and Spirit (Galatians 5:17; Romans 8:23). What changes is the outcome: as we walk in the Spirit, we will not fulfill the lust of the flesh (Galatians 5:16).
Does living by grace change how I give to the church?
Yes. Paul teaches grace giving rather than a fixed legal requirement: each person gives as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity, for God loves a cheerful giver (2 Corinthians 9:7). Generous, willing, and regular giving flows from gratitude.
Why emphasize Paul’s letters for Christian living?
Because the risen Christ appointed Paul as the apostle of the Gentiles and revealed through him the dispensation of the grace of God (Romans 11:13; Ephesians 3:2). Paul wrote that the things he wrote were the commandments of the Lord (1 Corinthians 14:37), and he urged believers to follow him as he followed Christ (1 Corinthians 11:1).
How can I tell whether I am walking in the Spirit?
Look for the fruit of the Spirit growing over time: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance (Galatians 5:22–23). A mind set on the things of the Spirit is marked by life and peace (Romans 8:5–6).
Conclusion: Walk the Way You Were Saved
The Christian life is not a second exam after a free first one. It is the outworking of a life God has already given. The law served its holy purpose: it showed us our sin and pointed us to Christ. But it was never able to make us holy. Grace can, and grace does.
When we rightly divide the Word of Truth, we stop trying to live under a covenant that was never addressed to us, and we begin to enjoy what God has freely given the Body of Christ: a secure standing, a new identity, the indwelling Spirit, the love of Christ as our motive, and the blessed hope before us. That is not a weaker way to live. It is the only way to truly live “soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world.”
For Personal Reflection
- In what area of my life am I still trying to earn God’s approval rather than resting in it?
- What does it look like for me to “reckon” myself dead to sin this week?
- Is my service to God driven more by fear and guilt, or by gratitude for His love?
- Which of Paul’s letters will I read through slowly this month?
A Prayer of Thanksgiving
Father, thank You that I stand accepted in the Beloved, not because of what I do, but because of what Christ has done. Teach me by Your grace to deny ungodliness and to live soberly, righteously, and godly. Let the love of Christ constrain me, and help me walk in the Spirit today, for Your glory. In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.