The Bible says more than you've been told.

Week 24 | Issue #24 | Spiritual vs. Legalism Series (4 of 4)

The first thing to settle is whether grace lowers the bar. Paul takes that question head on, because somebody asked him.

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? — Romans 6:1-2 (ESV)

"By no means" is a translation of two Greek words that are about as strong as the language gets. Me genoito. May it never be. Absolutely not. Do not even say that out loud. So grace is not permission. Fine. But Paul goes further than that in his letter to Titus, and this is the verse that ends the argument.

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age. — Titus 2:11-12 (ESV)

Grace is the subject of that sentence. And look at the verb. Grace is training us. The Greek word is paideuo. It means to raise a child. To instruct, correct, discipline, bring up. It is the word for what a father does over years, not what a judge does in an afternoon.

Grace is not the thing that excuses you from obedience. Grace is the thing that teaches you to obey. It showed up and started raising you. That is why "I am under grace, so it does not matter what I do" is not a half-truth. It is backwards. The grace is the reason it matters.

John says something that sounds impossible until you have lived it.

For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. — 1 John 5:3 (ESV)

Not burdensome. Now compare that with Matthew 23:4, which we looked at last week. The Pharisees "tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people's shoulders." Same idea, opposite verdict. God's commands are not heavy. The Pharisees' additions were.

Which tells you something useful. If what you are carrying feels crushing, there is a decent chance some of it is not God's. The weight is a clue. Jesus said it Himself. "My yoke is easy, and my burden is light" (Matthew 11:30, ESV). A yoke is still a yoke. He did not say you walk around unhitched. He said the one He puts on you fits.

Here is the thing this whole series has been building toward, and it is simple enough to say in a paragraph. Two men get up on Sunday. Both go to worship. Both put money in. Both stay away from things they want. Both read Scripture that week. From the outside you cannot tell them apart.

One of them is working. He is trying to get God to approve of him. He keeps a running total, and when he has a bad week he feels further away. His obedience is payment.

The other one already knows where he stands. He is not buying anything. He obeys the way a son does chores in a house he already lives in. Same actions. Opposite religions. And Paul names the difference by naming two spirits.

For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, "Abba! Father!" — Romans 8:15 (ESV)

Slavery and fear on one side. Adoption and "Father" on the other. A slave obeys to avoid the lash. A son obeys because of who is at the head of the table. Both of them do the dishes.

Paul says something to the Galatians that gets used in ways he would not recognize.

For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery — Galatians 5:1 (ESV). People stop there. Read eight verses on.

For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another — Galatians 5:3 (ESV).

Same chapter. Freedom, then a boundary on what the freedom is for. And then, in the middle of the chapter, the line that sums up the whole book:

For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. — Galatians 5:6 (ESV)

Faith working through love. Not faith instead of works. Not works instead of faith. Faith that works, and the engine is love. Paul spent five chapters demolishing a system of earning, and his summary of what replaces it still has a verb in it.

Summaries, not direct quotes.

John Gill on Titus 2:12: Gill takes the teaching function of grace seriously, holding that the same grace that saves also instructs the saved in how to live, and that the two cannot be separated.

Albert Barnes on Titus 2:11-12: Barnes stresses that grace is represented as a teacher, and argues that any claim to grace that does not produce this training is a claim without evidence.

Matthew Henry on John 14:15: Henry reads the verse as making obedience the test and evidence of love rather than its price, and says love is the root while keeping the commandments is the fruit.

Romans 6:1-2 — "Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means!" (ESV). Paul had the objection put to him and refused it in the strongest words Greek has.

Titus 2:11-12 — Grace "training us" (ESV). The verb is the one for raising a child. Grace is not a pass. It is an upbringing.

1 John 5:3 — "His commandments are not burdensome" (ESV). Set this beside Matthew 23:4 and you can tell whose rules you are carrying.

Galatians 5:6 — "Faith working through love" (ESV). Paul's own summary after five chapters against earning.

Six issues ago we started a question about rules. Here is where it all comes out, and it fits on a card. Legalism is not caring what God said. Legalism is thinking that caring buys you something.

The additions are a separate problem. Taking what God never said and preaching it like He did does not make anybody holier. Paul says it has no value at all, and he says it about rules that looked impressive. And Jesus never faulted the Pharisees for precision. He faulted them for performing, for loading others, for standing in the doorway, and for letting their traditions push God's commands out. Then He raised the standard higher than theirs.

What is left when you clear all of that away is not a shorter list. It is a different reason. Grace found you, and then grace started raising you. The commands are not a bill. They are what a house runs on. And the man who finally understands that does not obey less. He obeys more, and it stops feeling like weight.

So ask yourself the only question that sorts this out, and be honest about the answer. Do you obey so that God will accept you, or because He has? Everything else follows from that.

This camp means well and has a real fear behind it. They have watched people try to buy God's favor and come apart when the bill never clears. So they built a wall that says: Nothing a Christian does can be required, because the moment it is required, grace is for sale.

The trouble is that the wall keeps out the Bible. Paul requires things. Dozens of things, in every letter. So does John, who wrote more about love than anybody. So does Jesus, who said if you love me you will keep my commandments and then handed out commandments.

And the position has a hidden cost. If no obligation can exist without earning, then nobody can ever be called to anything, and a man who will not change has no one to answer to but himself. That is not freedom. Paul had a name for it: using your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh.

The other camp agrees obedience matters, and then starts measuring. It is subtle, because everything they say is true. Faith without works is dead. Obedience is the evidence of love. God's commands are not optional.

But watch where the attention goes. It goes to the tally. How am I doing? How is he doing? Am I ahead? Jesus gave us that man in a prayer and every line of his self-report was accurate. "God, I thank you that I am not like other men." He fasted. He tithed. He went home with nothing. You can hold entirely correct positions about obedience and still be this man. That is the warning in Luke 18 and it is aimed at people think you have to pass an obedience quiz.

Grace is not the opposite of obedience. Grace is what teaches obedience. Titus says so in plain words, and the verb is the one for raising a child. So there is no version of Christianity where a man belongs to Christ and owes Him nothing. That option was never on the table. The question was never whether a Christian obeys. It was what he thinks the obedience is for.

Here is the honest test, and you can run it on yourself in about ten seconds. When you fail, what happens next? The man working a ledger feels further away. He has lost round. He has to make it up. Contrarily, the son feels grieved and goes home. Nothing about his standing changed, and the grief is about who he hurt, not about a number.

Two men. Same failure. One is managing an account. One is in a family. Figure out which one you are, and you will know what you have actually believed all along.

The lesson: Obedience that claims nothing is not legalism, it is sonship. Check the reason, not the length of the list. That is why tools like BibleWord.ai exist.

Transliteration: hoop-ak-o-AY

Strong's Number: G5218

Definition: Obedience. Literally, hearing-under. Attentive listening that results in compliance.

Two pieces. Hupo means under. Akouo means to hear. The same akouo you have met before, the one behind Romans 10:17, faith comes by hearing. So obedience, in Greek, starts with your ears.

In English, "obey" sounds like a boot coming down. Comply. Submit. Do as you are told. The Greek word says something gentler and more demanding at the same time. It says a man positioned himself under what he heard. He listened like somebody who intended to act on it. Which explains a sentence of Paul's that sounds odd in English. He opens and closes Romans with a phrase about bringing the Gentiles to "the obedience of faith" (Romans 1:5 and 16:26, ESV).

The obedience of faith. Not obedience instead of faith. Not faith instead of obedience. Paul built the two words into one phrase and used it as the goal of his whole ministry, at the top and bottom of the letter everybody quotes to prove obedience does not matter. And notice what this does to the legalism question.

A man keeping a ledger is not listening. He is calculating. He already knows what he wants from the transaction and he is working out the price. A man under what he heard is doing something else entirely. He is not negotiating. He heard his Father say something and he put himself beneath it.

That is the whole difference, and it is right there in the construction of the word.

Until next time,