Sabbath: Law and Grace

Image © Pacific Press

Sabbath Afternoon

Read for This Week’s Study: Ezekiel 28.15-16; Deuteronomy 4:44; Romans 3:20; Deuteronomy 10:1-15; Deuteronomy 5:6-22; Deuteronomy 9:1-6.

Memory Text: “I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain” (Galatians 2:21).

Christians of most denominations talk about law and grace and understand the relationship between the two. The law is God’s standard of holiness and righteousness, and violation of that law is sin. “Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness” (1 John 3:4). And because we all have violated that law — “But the Scripture has confined all under sin” (Galatians 3:22) — it’s only God’s grace that can save us. “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8).

(Of course, there is the “slight detail” of the seventh-day Sabbath as part of the law. Yet, for various reasons, many Christians are determined, at least for now, to reject the seventh-day Sabbath, coming up with all sorts of weak excuses to justify their rejection. But that’s all another topic.)

Even if expressed in different ways and in various scenarios, the theme of law and grace certainly is found all through the Bible, including the book of Deuteronomy. Yes, Deuteronomy, too, presents the relationship between law and grace but in a unique context.