The Gospel of Grace — David Wilkerson

This message is one of the Times Square Church pulpit series. It was recorded in the sanctuary of Times Square Church in Manhattan, New York City. Other tapes are available by writing World Challenge, Post Office Box 260, Lindale, Texas, 75771, or by calling 903 -963 -8626.

None of these messages are copyrighted and you are welcome to make copies for free distribution to friends.

Justification by Faith and Peace with God

Turn to Romans, the fifth chapter. Romans, the fifth chapter. The gospel of grace, beginning with verse one. Therefore being justified by faith. Justified by what? Justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

By whom also we have access by faith under this grace wherein we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Verse 15. But not as the offense so also as the free gift. For through the offense of one man many be dead.

Much more the grace of God and the gift of grace which is by one man Jesus Christ is bounded unto many. Verse 17. For if one man's offense doth reign by one, much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one Jesus Christ.

Look this way if you will please. Beloved, I'd like you to think back at that time just before you were saved. Before you gave your life to Jesus Christ. Back to that time when you were an enemy to God.

You were lost. You were in blindness. You had the wrath of God abiding on you according to the scripture. Now how did you find peace with God? How is it that the wrath of God was dispelled from your life?

In what way were you made right with God? In what way were you pardoned from your sins so that you can sit here tonight rejoicing in the love of Jesus Christ? Was there something good in you that Jesus saw and responded to?

Was there some inherent righteousness in you? And the Lord said, I see something in you, I'm going to come down and I'm going to do something for you. I'm going to save you because I see goodness in you.

Was it your good works? Did you start doing something very special for God? Did you become specially obedient and faithful to God? And because you were faithful, God came down and rewarded you with the gift of salvation?

Is that how you were saved? No. We are not saved by our works. The Bible said that we all are as an unclean thing and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. All of our good works, all of our obedience in the flesh, all of that in order to please God or merit our salvation is in vain.

Grace as God's Unearned Favor

Now, the theological definition of grace is the unearned pardon, mercy and favor of God. Now, here's what the Bible says. But of Him are you in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness, which is justification, and sanctification and redemption.

Now, don't get turned off by those theological terms. I don't understand them all myself. No one will fully understand all of these terms. We only see through a glass darkly now. But it says Jesus Christ, who is sent to us from God, has been made to us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption.

Now, in simple terms, what the Bible is saying, grace includes everything God has done for us through Jesus to bring us back to Himself. It includes everything that you find in this book. Grace covers it all.

Grace is that cover-all definition of every good thing God has done for us in Jesus Christ to redeem us from the power of the devil and put us into the kingdom of light. That's grace. All of it. Now, justification is the cornerstone of grace.

Now, listen to the word justification. I want you to say it. Justification. Again. Justification. Now, some have made it easy and said that means being made just right before God. Justification means to be acquitted of God.

It means to be forgiven of all of our sins and all of our guilt removed and to be considered holy and righteous before God, accepted by God by faith alone in what Jesus did on the cross. To be justified means to be made right before God, accepted before God, forgiven, cleansed by nothing that you have done by your own hands or your own goodness or your own merit, but simply by what Jesus did by going to the cross, dying and being resurrected and ascended to the Father.

That is called justification. You cannot become holy by good deeds, simply by obedience and faithfulness alone. Now, obedience, faithfulness, good works are all the result of justifying faith. Now, I want you to follow me, please.

The scripture says, filled by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It's the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. That's Ephesians 2, 8 and 9. 2 Corinthians 5, 21.

Don't turn, but listen closely. For He hath made... that's God has made Him to be sin for us. Christ was made sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. Galatians 2, 16.

Knowing that a man is not justified, he's not made right before God by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ. Even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we may be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law.

For by the works of the law shall no flesh, shall no flesh be justified. Acts 13, 39. By Him, all that believe are justified from all things, from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses.

Beloved, listen to me, please. This is the foundation of our faith. This is the foundation of your Christian walk. If you don't know how you're made right before God, you can have no peace with God. The peace I have in my heart with God is not based on anything I have ever done.

It's based on my faith in the absolute, complete work of Jesus for me, and wiping out my sins, and making me acceptable before God. Folks, I'm so glad He didn't tie my salvation to my feelings. He didn't tie it to my temptations.

He didn't tie it to my feelings. Otherwise, every time I was tempted, I'd think I was going to hell. Every time I had a moment of temptation, I would feel that I had lost my salvation. Folks, some of you lose your salvation 20 times a day.

And that is totally unscriptural. He's not waiting around for you to trip and fall and say, I caught you. No, He went to the cross and shed His own blood to justify you before God by His own blood. And I believe and I stand on the power of the blood of Jesus Christ.

Paul's Righteousness and the Sufficiency of Christ

On righteousness by faith. Hallelujah. Paul did not want to be found standing before Christ having his own righteousness. Well, he was a good man. He was a Pharisee. His name was Saul first. He diligently kept all the numerous rules and regulations of the law of Moses.

He paid tithes faithfully. He loved God with all his heart. He attended all the functions of the synagogue. He studied the Word of God faithfully. He went about doing good. He loved his fellow man. He was a perfect man according to the law.

But he said, when I saw what Christ did for me, that all became dumb. He said, I counted that all loss. Because when the law came to me, when I saw the law of God, that I could not be holy by all these things that I would call to.

I thought I was a holy man. But God showed me His commandments. He showed me what He required. And if I was going to be saved by the law and by good works, I had to keep every one of them. I had to keep the 3 ,000 some precepts.

And if I fell in one, I was going to go to hell. He said that I realized the law came home to me and it killed me. It slew me. Folks, I know what that's like. I know what it's like to go along in just a little bit of a lazy Christianity, being a minister preaching to thousands, and not praying as I should, not seeking God, and just getting spiritually lazy, and have a man put a book in my hand, a Christian in complete armor by the Puritan William Grinnell.

And I wasn't 20 pages into that book when the law of God exposed my heart and my spiritual laziness. And it slew me. It literally killed me. And what I mean is that it came home to my heart, exposed the sinful attitude in my heart, and I was slain by the Spirit of God.

Convicted. And Paul said, but what things were gained to me, I then counted lost for Christ. And I do count them all, but doubt that I may win Christ, and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.

The righteousness of God which comes to us by faith. Hallelujah. Well, to make righteous by faith is the hardest thing in the world for our flesh to accept. The flesh hates it, because the flesh wants to help God.

The flesh can say, well, look, now wait a minute, my obedience has to count for something. All this hard work, you know, we don't mind getting saved by faith, but we don't want to live by faith. It's almost a thank you, Lord, but I'll take it from here.

I'll be by faith, but now let me do it. And there's so many of us saying, well, God, you mean I'm going to believe and I'll be made righteous? And so, we don't want that. We want to bite the bullet, and then temptation comes and overwhelms us.

Bless God, I'll get victory! If it kills me, then I will kill you! That's not the path to victory. The obedience to faithfulness comes as a result of being steadfastly on that rock of justification by faith alone.

Legalism and the Outward Display of Holiness

Now, I'm going to show in just a minute that all faith is not justifying faith. We have many sincere believers in this church who have not yet submitted to the righteousness of Christ, still going about trying to please God by their good deeds.

They have a zeal for God, the Scripture says. They're very zealous, they're sincere, they love God. Paul loved God before he came into the righteousness of Christ. But it's not according to knowledge.

For they, being ignorant of God's righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believe it.

Now, look, it says they tried to establish their own righteousness. Now, that's been called legalism. Legalism. Now, folks, we really don't understand legalism. We use the term, and I don't think many ministers understand it.

I don't think I understood it until the Holy Ghost began to reveal it to me. I've been studying it for many, many years, trying to get a handle on it. I believe the Lord has shown me something about it.

I used to believe that legalism had to do with man-made rules and regulations, sincere, godly people trying to be holy by just a code of dress, restrictions on dress, and rules and regulations trying to become holy before God.

I used to call that legalism because it had to do with dos and don'ts. But, folks, legalism is much more subtle than that. It's far beyond that. When I was a boy, a young man, I used to go to camp meeting, Living Waters Campground in Cherry Tree, Pennsylvania.

And I'd hear evangelists thunder against the sins of the day. And, you know, I still remember when evangelists were preaching against bobbed hair. That's when permanence had just come out. I'm trying to tell you how old I am right now.

When permanence first came out, permanent ways, bobbed hair, women started coming to church with their hair bobbed. And I'd hear preachers were thundering against it. That was worldly. Open-toed shoes came for women.

And that was added to the list. Oh, I heard some strong messages on those naked toes. Almost everybody in those days, many, many preachers in Pentecost were preaching against makeup. The red kind. Now, you could use all the white powder you wanted, and so the church is full of white-faced women, but no red.

And what you had, finally it ended up in a bunch of spiffy-dressed preachers with grabbed wives with beehive handkerchiefs and painted white. And I thought that was legalism. I thought that's legalism.

I remember speaking at a church upstate New York years ago when I was a young evangelist. And a very godly man, very sincere people, but the pastor and the elders had taped a yardstick at the entrance.

They had one entrance at the door, and he taped a yardstick on the doorpost. And every service, either the pastor or an elder, stood there and watched the women come by. And they had amazingly the length of the dress, and they couldn't come in if they weren't at least, they could be no more than six inches or so off the ground.

That's the truth. And they'd be talking and said, your dress is too short. Now, a lot of preaching is short dresses. And I may preach against short dresses if it keeps getting worse. But I thought that was legalism.

Very sincere, but I thought that was, in those days it was called holiness preaching. In fact, when I first came to New York City, I was shocked by all the rigid rules in Hispanic Pentecostal churches.

Oh, I was shocked. We would go out in the street with our workers, and we'd get these fellas and girls right off the street that were drug addicts, and they'd cry and pray, and we'd take them into local Hispanic Pentecostal church, and the girls had jeans and makeup, and the pastor, caressing out as a deacon, said, you can't come in here.

And I remember one pastor said, go home, lady, and dress like a woman and come back. We'll allow wilderness in this church. That was holiness, the way you looked. If you had jeans, you didn't ever go to church.

Now, I'm not going to get into that. That's another message. But you see, that was called legalism. Legalism. Folks, just a few months ago, we had a young couple from England come to this church. They'd been getting our tapes, and they responded to the message of holiness, and they made a trip over here, and after a Sunday morning service, they approached us in the back, and they were hurt.

They were crushed. There were tears in their eyes, and they said, how could you do it? Your women didn't have a coven on their heads. The Holy Ghost will work in this church when you are not obeying the commandment of the Lord to have the heads of the women covered.

They were shocked. They left the church hurt. Went back to England. I guess they're telling people, the Holy Ghost is not a task for a church because our women don't have beanies. Now, folks, I can show you from the Scripture where that is a form of legalism, but that's not the heart of it.

We're making fun of that because you have to see the whole picture of that. That's a whole other area that I don't have the time to get into right now. I have been hearing in the past few months from all kinds of people who attend prayer groups and small charismatic churches, and they write to me, and they call us on the telephone, and they're confused by all the teachers coming by with all these various rules and regulations.

One couple tearfully told us last week, said, you know, we had a pastor, a teacher come by our church a few months ago and he told us that the only way God can hear prayer in the church is when you kneel.

So we all started kneeling all the time. We knelt every time you prayed. A month later another comes and says, you don't have to kneel. That's Catholic. So we started to sit around the table of the Lord.

Now here I don't know whether to sit or stand because one preacher is saying this, another preacher is saying this. One group said, we were told that when the Scripture is read, you stand. You have to stand to honor the Word of the Lord.

It's disrespect if you don't stand. When the preacher gets up to preach, if you don't stand, and many churches stand when the Word is read. Another evangelist came and said, you don't do that because when Jesus gave the Word, He made us sit.

I know some of you have been judging this church because we don't stand at the time you think we should stand or sit when we think we should sit or don't have something on our head. Or somebody got earrings too long for you.

You like the short ones, but you don't like the long ones. Folks, we can produce a list that long of people who are offended by these things. That's been called legalism. Folks, legalism is much more subtle.

It's far worse than that. And I'm going to tell you that you and I and everybody in this house have been living with legalism. We all have a bit in us, and I want God to knock it all out of us tonight.

I'm going to show you what legalism is. Hopefully. That may be a part of it. You see, legalism is based on pride. It's an outward show. It's a facade. It's a pretending of holiness to impress people. Legalism is not trying to impress God, but people.

It's not trying to be justified before God, but before men. Now that's the heart of legalism. Wanting to have an aura of holiness. An aura of being a prophet. Of being a man of prayer. A woman of intercession.

And foster that image. And feed that image. Amen. But you see, the legalist is not out trying to earn righteousness. He's trying to keep up the facade and appearance impressing other Christians that he's devoted, pious, he's serious.

He's all out for God. I am a deeply religious person and everybody ought to see it. Now, the Talmudic writers listed seven classes of Pharisees. Among them were the Shechemites. The Shechemites were Pharisees who said long prayers in public to be considered holy, but on the side they were robbing widows' houses.

They were stealing widows' estates. But to cover things, they said these long prayers. They were called Shechemites. They had another group, a class of Pharisees called the Stumblers. These were Pharisees who were so mock-humble they went shuffling along, looking this way and that.

They are so holy they dare not lift their feet before a holy God so they are shuffling along. The Stumblers. It's in the Talmud. They had another group called the Bleeders. These were so mock-modest, so mock-humble they dare not lift their eyes lest they look at something evil.

And the reason they called them Bleeders they were always walking in the walls. And the more blind, the more holy. They hit a wall back off. Glory to God. The Stumblers and Bleeders are through the Church of Jesus Christ.

They are sitting there and they are so holy they don't want to worship with us. They are sitting there stumbling and walking in the walls. They don't want to lift their hands they don't want to clap because you see they are shut in with God.

They are shut in with God. Holy. Above everybody else. Oh, come off your high horse. Come down off the tree. That's the reason I'm laughing. We play such legalistic games to feed this idea this concept that we have really arrived.

Boy, did God show it to me. I'm going to say something. My wife never heard this before. She's going to learn it for the first time. I warned her tonight that I had to make a confession. She said, what's it about, David?

I said, wait. See, we play games to try to foster this impression this Bible calls it an outward show that we are holy. That we are something. I thank God for sending Gwen into my life. God sent her into my life to knock the pride and pomposity out of me.

I wouldn't be here tonight without my wife. God, when he let her walk down the aisle gave her a Holy Ghost pin to put in my balloon. She's been picking balloons ever since she married me. I remember when I first came to New York City I weighed 115 pounds and I'm not a prophet.

You know that. You know I've made some prophets that haven't happened. I'm not a prophet. I'm a watchman, but not a prophet. But in those days they were calling me a prophet way, way back. I weighed 115 pounds.

My cheeks were sunken. And we were at a businessman's luncheon at the United Nations dining hall. Sponsored by Mrs. Hoving. Mr. and Mrs. Hoving were millionaires who had major stock in Tiffany's. And I had just spoken and people were crying and I sat down and Mrs. Hoving was sitting next to Gwen, my wife.

And she said, Gwen, I like my prophets. I like to see prophets gaunt, which means skinny, holy, and dressed in black just like David. And with that twinkle in her eye Gwen said, Mrs. Hoving, have you ever tried to live with a prophet just like David?

Humility Exposes Religious Pretension

The pin. Let me tell you exactly what legalism is. There's no question about it. Let me explain how the Lord showed it to me. Last year we were on a vacation with some friends down in Florida. Dr. Rice and his wife, dear friends of ours.

And we were staying in Orlando at a hotel. And this was vacation time and after the second week after we'd seen Disney World and Epcot, they had a night off and we had a night off and Gwen said, let's go to the Rice's room and let's play dominoes.

And right in front of Rice's because, you know, Rice's have always considered me a righteous man and I figured I don't want to blow it. We were in the lobby of the hotel and I said, because you see, we'd been to Disney World and they hadn't seen me go off and pray yet for a whole week.

How am I supposed to be holy in front of these people if they don't see me go pray? So I said, I'm sorry, I can't play dominoes. I need to go to my room and touch God. You all go. You know what I'm really saying?

I don't have time to waste like you poor earthlings. You worldly minded ones, you go and tinkle around with those dominoes, the prophet's going to get shot in with God. I'm sure going up to the elevator they must start, boy, that's something.

How do you play dominoes when you know this man's over there pleading with God? I go in the room and it's only 8 o 'clock and I thought, well, just a half an hour CNN news and then I pray. An hour later, CNN announces a special program of the rise and fall of Hitler.

And I said, that's prophecy, I have to see it. It's quarter to ten, I've already seen Hitler rise and fall and I hear Glenn coming down the hall. I think Glenn knew it all the time. And I'm sitting there in this very holy position.

I'm loving that. She comes in, I say, oh, you look good, honey. I'm thinking, here I've been playing the Galism. Folks, I hope you're laughing enough to drive the truth down into your soul. We play games trying to maintain a facade of holiness before people that a true man of God who has the righteousness of Christ doesn't have to put on holy airs.

The common, ordinary people know how to laugh, they know how to enjoy Jesus and the fellowship of the saints. This is the end of side one. You may now turn the tape over to side two. A person doesn't walk around with their nose in their head up in the heavens saying, don't touch me, I'm holier than thou.

Those who are really righteous are involved in other people's burdens and needs. They don't sit there studying, trying to maintain an image. Hallelujah. Now, beyond legalism is the perversion of the gospel of grace.

True Grace Produces Holiness

Grace, as it's being preached in many churches today, is producing a class of Christians who are still lovers of pleasure, still bound by their sins, and going around saying, I am the righteousness of Jesus, which is a lie.

Folks, I've stood outside of churches that are called grace churches. Now, this is not a Baptist doctrine, this is not a Presbyterian doctrine, or a Pentecostal doctrine, the gospel of grace is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

It doesn't belong to any denomination. Folks, listen to me please. I have heard churches, I'm thinking of a town, we lived there for a season, and I would go by that church when I was off in crusades and I'd have a Sunday off, and go past this church on the way to another church.

And I knew these men, these were deacons in this church, and these men were outside, all of them smoking. Some of them were shaking off a hangover from a drunken binge the night before. We knew three of them that were adulterers, the whole city, the whole town knew there were adulterers and fornicators and cheats.

Some were in business and were big cheats. But there were deacons in the church. And this particular church preached what was called a grace message. That simply by faith you're made the righteousness of Christ.

And then to question that pastor who I knew, and I knew he was a good man. It wasn't that he was not a righteous man, but there was something wrong with his gospel. He did not preach in an entire gospel because he kept saying, well, David, I really believe in righteousness.

If you really have the righteousness of the Christ, it will produce holiness in you. And my mind goes on, wait a minute, you've been here eight years. When will it ever happen? When is that going to come forth and fruition in the hearts of your people?

Your young people are dying and going to hell. They're having illegitimate babies. Your young people are going to hell. They're full of the devil. You know what's happening. You know that. Now, I preach without reservation, justification, righteousness by faith alone.

I'm saved by faith. I'm righteous by faith. I'm kept by faith. That's the foundation of the gospel. But, not all faith is justifying faith. The Bible clearly speaks about two kinds of faith. One that justifies and one that's no better than the faith of devils.

Because James said, you believe, he said, good. Even the devils believe and tremble. He was talking about a dead faith. He was talking about a temporary faith. Jesus talked about that temporary faith which they have for a while.

They endure. They accept to joyfully endure and then when temptation and trial comes by the Word, they fall away. It's a temporary faith. It's a dead faith. There is a faith, the Bible said, that purifies the heart.

Acts 15 .9 Simon the magician. The Bible says, believed. Simon himself believed also he was baptized. But you see, this man didn't have the faith that purifies the heart. There's a faith, a true, sanctifying, justifying, purifying faith.

He didn't have that kind of faith. And when he offered a bride to Peter, Peter said, your money perish with you. He said, I perceive that you're in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity. Your heart's still bound by sin.

He believed he was baptized. But what he believed was not with justifying faith. His faith was not a justifying faith. It was not the kind of faith that brings the righteousness of Christ. It said of Jesus, many believed on Him when they saw the miracles which He did.

But Jesus did not commit Himself to them because He knew what was in man. They had a belief in Christ, but they didn't have the kind of faith that receives power to become the sons of God. There's a faith that produces power to become the sons of God.

Jesus warned that some believed for a while, but they have no root because they don't believe under righteousness. James speaks of this dead faith. You say you have faith, you believe in God, good. The devils also believe and tremble.

Justifying Faith, Sanctification, and Obedience

Now listen please. I said to you, may write before God by faith alone. But let me qualify something here now. And I agree with the great Puritan writer John Owen. I want to quote something from him because he says it better than I could ever say it.

He said, this was written over 250 years ago. We absolutely deny that we're justified by that faith alone which can be alone, which means this, without a principle of life and obedience in all things.

He says no such thing as justifying faith unless in it there's a principle of life and obedience. There has to be a power in it. There has to be an element in it of a desire to obey, to be faithful to God in all things at all times.

He called it a universal obedience. For we recognize, he says, no faith to be of the sanctifying kind but that which virtually, radically contains in it an obedience at all times. Yes, we acknowledge no faith to be justifying which is not itself a spiritual, vital principle of obedience and good works.

Let me explain that to you. He says there's no such thing as justifying faith unless that faith desires at once, in fact, in itself, that faith is an element of obedience and a desire to please God. That's justifying faith.

This other faith is just ascending faith. That means, well, I believe that God is, that He's there, and I believe that His Word is true. But it does not lay hold of God. It does not have that element in it, this desire to obey and to receive the fullness of Jesus Christ.

Purifying faith in itself is a vital force. It's a principle of total, everlasting obedience and love for God. Now, let me put my finger on the problem with much of the grace preaching in America today and around the world.

The Law Convicts and Drives Sinners to Christ

Hear it now. They've done away with the law before they've allowed it to do its work. They have done away with the law before they've allowed it to do its work. Beloved, we're not saved by the law but we're convicted by the law.

Here's what the Scripture says, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. Paul said, I wouldn't have even known I was a sinner. I wouldn't have known the exceeding sinfulness of sin unless I saw the law.

Describe its horror. The law is a mirror to show you what's inside your heart. The Bible said, the question is asked by the apostle, why is there no fear of God before their eyes? Because nobody's preached them under conviction.

They've never had the law. All they've had is this message of love. They've not had this experience with the law. Folks, if you've been attending Times Square Church, you've had the law presented to you.

You have had that law held up. That mirror's been held before you. It's exposed things you never thought you had in your life. The law is holy, Paul said. It's just and it's good. Oh, I cringe when I hear ministers mock the law.

I hear ministers demean and put down the law of God. I thank God for the work of the law in my heart. How God showed me the exceeding sinfulness of sin through the commandments and how I couldn't achieve it on my own.

The law drives you to Jesus and Jesus takes you back to the law to regulate your life. You have been delivered from the law as a way of salvation. But you've not been delivered from the law as a way of conviction.

The law is holy and just and good. Within that which is good may death unto me, God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, works death in me by that which is good. That sin, by the commandment, might become exceedingly sinful.

What's he saying? I couldn't really confess my sins until I knew they were sins. I couldn't seek after the holiness of God until I saw how far from Him I was. And that's the work of the law. Oh, we get accused in times for a church of preaching a hard message.

But you know when Peter stood on the day of Pentecost and he offered the multitudes the grace of God, first of all, he preached the law so much that they were pricked in their heart so much so they cried out, What must we do, brethren, to be saved?

They were pricked in their heart by the law of God because Peter pointed a finger in their face and said, You crucified Him with your own hands. You took the Son of God and murdered Him. And when they saw the law of God hit them in the face, it slew them with conviction.

Slain with conviction. Folks, the modern preaching of grace has no preaching of conviction whatsoever. We have a people that are offered forgiveness from sin who don't even know they're sinful. They're offered justification for sins they never even felt guilty of committing.

They're offered deliverance and freedom when they didn't even know they were bound. They're offered justification for which they do not hunger or thirst after or value. No, the law can't save you, but it's got to expose you so much so that it drives you to Christ.

Grace, Law, and the Spirit of Lawlessness

Another Puritan writer, John Flavel, said, We are freed from the penalty of the law, but not from its precepts. We are no longer under its curse, but we're still under its conduct. The law will send you to Christ to be justified, but Christ will send you the law to be regulated.