Grace And Law ~ OR ~ Grace Upon Grace?

The article below "Grace And Law" is an interesting read.  I received it today in an e-mail from Israel Bible Center.  And it made me think back to dialogues in the past regarding the phrase "and grace upon grace" found in John 1:16.  What does God mean when He puts "grace upon grace"?

In Matthew 5:17 (nkjv), Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells the multitude, and us, "Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill."  I believe this is better read, "I did not come to destroy the Law, but to fulfill the Law."  Christ came “...not to abolish the Law, but to fulfill the Law” (nasb).

The meaning of God's Grace is, "unmerited favor" toward we sinners.  We can never earn God's Grace, but He gives it freely.  In the Old Testament God's Justice demanded death as a payment for sin, the shedding of life-giving blood to satisfy offenses against God. 

But in the Old Testament, God's Grace provided a means for the faithful to have asubstitutionary atonement from the wrath of God's Justice, through the shed blood of near-perfect animals.  Because they were only near-perfect, this sacrifice had to be repeated over and over again.  God's Grace, through His Mercy, provided this sacrifice as a temporal atonement.

God's ultimate Grace came to fruition in the birth and death of Jesus Christ as our "once for all" substitutionary atonement from the wrath of God.

John 1:16-17, "For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace.  For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ."

Sitting upon the Grace of God provided by the sacrificing of animals in the Old Testament - in the New Testament God's Grace provided the ultimate sacrifice, His Son, as the Perfect Sacrifice, once for all time.  There are no more sacrifices necessary, we only have to claim the "full pardon" from the wrath of God's Justice - by receiving His Son, Jesus Christ, as our personal Lord and Savior.  That is the meaning of "grace upon grace" in John 1:16.

GRACE AND LAW
Israel Bible Center
By Dr. Eli Lizorkin-Eyzenberg, January 20, 2018
https://israelbiblecenter.com/grace-and-law/-

 “For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.  For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.  No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known” - Gospel of John 1:16-18.

As the Protestant Christian movement emerged, one of the biggest disagreements between those who would one day become Protestants and those who would remain Roman Catholic was the issue of the law’s function in the life of the believer. 

One of the five most important theological “shortcut” phrases (Five Solas: Sola Fide, by faith alone ~ Sola Scriptura, by Scripture alone ~ Solus Christus, through Christ alone ~ Sola Gratia, by grace alone ~ Soli Deo Gloria, glory to God alone) of the Reformation was, “solo fide” which means, “by faith alone.”  This phrase indicated how one was “saved” from God’s eternal judgment. 

Bill Gray Note:  Parenthetical emphasis in the paragraph above is mine.

This 15th-16th century conflict between Protestants and Catholics was later read back into the Pauline writings and projected back into Paul’s own words.  Today, hardly anyone will object to that fact that Paul must be read through a first century Israelite interpretive lens and not through the later lenses of a Catholic-vs-Protestant conflict historically unrelated to Paul.

While the juxtaposition of "the law" and "the Gospel" was present in the Church Fathers, it is not until the time of the Reformation that the juxtaposing of law and grace became so pronounced.  This became a dominant emphasis of the Reformation.  The opposite of grace became law; the opposite of law became grace.  However, scripturally the opposite of law was never grace but lawlessness.  Just as the opposite of grace was never law but disgrace.

Like Paul, John has also been greatly misunderstood and interpreted anachronistically.  In John 1:17, for example, some important English Bible translations (such as KJV and NET Bible) insert the additional word – “but.”  This word is not present in the original Greek. 

Moreover, even when modern translations do not add the word “but” (see the ESV quoted above) the verse is normally understood as if the “but” is implied.  It is almost impossible for us to read this text and not juxtapose law and grace in our contemporary minds (Try it!  You too will have a hard time.)

If one ignores the negative reading and instead interprets the phrase (in verse 17) positively – “The Law came through Moses; (and) grace and truth comes through Jesus Christ” – then the text flows organically. 

In this case, it is obviously connected with the previous confession by the Gospel’s author that grace was given in addition to the grace already provided.  John 1:16, “For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.” Perhaps a translation that can help us get rid of this inbred dichotomy would read like this:

“For the Torah was given through Moses and grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”

The moment we see that the Greek word "Nomos" (νόμος) does not need to be translated as “law” - but rather can be translated as Law only in the sense of the Torah of Moses (which included law, but was was filled with incredible stories of faith!), then more interpretive options become available.

So, in the future when someone tells you that Jesus Christ came to replace the Law, tell them, "No, He came to fulfill the Law" (Matthew 5:17).    

And, you can explain that, as shown in John 1:16, Jesus Christ left the temporal Old Testament Grace of God intact - and only added the "once for all" New Testament Grace upon its foundation - "grace upon grace."

God bless, have a wonderful, blessed day,

Bill