What is grace, how does it relate to law, and what does it mean to be under grace not law?

Grace is God's unmerited favor, providing spiritual salvation and guidance. Law represents God's absolute standard and perfect will, acting as a blueprint for perfection. This teaching affirms that grace and law are complementary forces, essential for restoration. Humanity has a 5% responsibility to respond to God's 95% grace through effort and obedience, fostering true love and guiding us back to our original state of perfection.

The relationship between grace and law is foundational to understanding humanity's connection with God, revealing how divine provision and human responsibility converge for salvation and perfection. This clarity dispels theological confusion, empowering believers to participate actively in God's plan.

The Biblical Foundation: Grace as Unmerited Favor, Law as Divine Standard

The Holy Bible presents both grace and law as central to God's interaction with humanity, a dynamic that has long perplexed adherents. Grace is God's unmerited favor, His freely given love and provision, without which humanity cannot attain salvation. As stated by the Apostle Paul, "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast" (Ephesians 2:8-9). This verse emphasizes salvation as a divine initiative, a gift received through faith, not earned through human effort. Likewise, "But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace" (Romans 11:6).

Conversely, law represents God's absolute standard of righteousness, His perfect will for humanity. This is evident from the Ten Commandments ("You shall have no other gods before me... You shall not murder... You shall not steal," Exodus 20:3, 13, 15) to Jesus's elevation of the law's spirit in the Sermon on the Mount ("You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment," Matthew 5:21-22). Jesus Himself affirmed, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them" (Matthew 5:17), underscoring the law's enduring validity.

Despite grace being unmerited, the New Testament also highlights the necessity of human action and obedience. Paul lamented, "So then I of myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin" (Romans 7:25), indicating that spiritual salvation through grace does not fully free one from the law of sin in the flesh. John also confessed, "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us" (1 John 1:8). This biblical tension—salvation as a gift versus the requirement of works—necessitates a harmonized understanding.

Divine Principle's Clarification: Complementary Forces for Restoration

Divine Principle integrates grace and law, presenting them not as conflicting but as complementary forces essential for God's Providence of Restoration. Both are expressions of God's love and His desire to restore humanity to its original state of perfection.

Grace, in Divine Principle, is God's enduring, unconditional love and restorative action, continually drawing fallen humanity toward Him. It encompasses all divine assistance, guidance, and forgiveness necessary to overcome the consequences of the Fall. The grace of redemption through the cross is great, bringing spiritual salvation, yet it does not entirely free us of Original Sin or completely restore us. This aligns with the Principle of Creation, which explains that God endowed humanity with the potential for perfection ("Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect," Matthew 5:48) but also a period for growth to achieve this autonomously. The Fall necessitated grace for recovery.

The law, in turn, represents God's unchanging absolute standard for creation's purpose. It outlines the path to realizing the three great blessings (Genesis 1:28): individual perfection, true family, and dominion over creation. After the Fall, laws like the Mosaic law were given to guide humanity, providing external standards and a path to repent, preparing for the Messiah. God's creation itself works through order, law, and principle. The commonalities across creation, from dual characteristics (internal character and external form) to the formation of atoms, all display law or order and principle, reflecting God's own attributes.

Crucially, Divine Principle introduces the concept of the human responsibility portion. God provides 95% of everything necessary for salvation and perfection through His absolute power and grace. However, humanity has a crucial 5% responsibility to fulfill through free will and effort. This 5% is not about earning salvation but about responding to God's grace and love. While God’s grace is boundless, it requires a human response—faith, obedience, effort, and prayer—for actualization.

Understanding the Deeper Meaning: The Heart of Love

The ultimate purpose of the law is not mere rigid adherence to regulations but the cultivation of true love—love for God and love for humankind. Divine Principle explains that original sin distorted humanity's original nature, impeding the direct experience of God's love. Thus, grace becomes the divine aid to purify this fallen nature, while the law guides humanity back to the path where that love can optimally flow. Jesus summarized the entire law as love: "’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets" (Matthew 22:37-40). This reveals that the heart of the law is love, and grace is the divine power enabling its actualization.

Divine Principle’s explanation of the Restoration through Indemnity clarifies how God's continuous work of grace is met by human effort to undo the consequences of the Fall. This is a redemptive process, involving paying conditions to regain lost ground, not a punitive one.

What It Means to Be Under Grace and Not Law

Being under grace does not mean the law has been abolished; it means our standing no longer rests on our record of keeping it. The change is a change of position. Under law, a person approaches God as a defendant whose acceptance depends on performance. Under grace, a person approaches as a child already received, whose obedience now flows from relationship rather than towards it.

The reason the change was necessary is that law can restrain conduct but cannot alter lineage or heart. It tells a person what is right and leaves him with the same nature that failed. "For the law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did" (Hebrews 7:19). Grace supplies what the law lacked: a new position, a new relationship, and the power to grow into it.

That is also why grace does not lower the standard. It raises it. The law forbade murder and adultery; Jesus went to anger and to the look of the eye, which no legal system can reach. A person under grace is not held to less but is enabled to more, and is judged by love rather than by statute. The difference between the two conditions is not permission; it is the direction in which obedience moves.

Living the Principle

Understanding grace and law provides practical spiritual guidance, urging an active faith.

1. Embrace God's Grace: Recognize salvation, forgiveness, and strength as God's gifts. Pray for guidance and intervention: "I can do all this through him who gives me strength" (Philippians 4:13). 2. Fulfill Your Responsibility: Actively respond to grace with effort and obedience. Strive to live God's moral standards, practice forgiveness, and serve others, aligning with the Principle of Creation's blueprint for human perfection. 3. Active Repentance and Change: Grace offers forgiveness, but law demands change. True repentance involves sorrow for wrongs and determined effort to reform. 4. Strive for Perfection: Grace empowers growth towards God's ideal; the law provides the blueprint. Daily spiritual practices and ethical choices are our responsibility portion for growth to become perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect (Matthew 5:48).

These answers explain the Bible in the light of the Divine Principle, the teachings of Reverend Sun Myung Moon. .

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