To be under law

under law is to treat lawkeeping

as part of the righteousness that makes me acceptable to God.

To be under grace, on the other hand,

is to have grace providing for me a righteousness in Christ which is not my own, which in him I

receive by faith so that God sees me as complete as Christ is complete and as righteous as Christ is righteous

so that all his benefits can now freely flow toward me as an acceptable one in the beloved.

How crucial is Christ's righteousness to our acceptance by the Father. In this episode of Light and Truth, John Piper turns

Sir Romans 6, 14 to 19, to examine how the righteousness of Christ determines our relationship with God.

This sermon was originally preached

at Bethlehem Baptist Church on November 26, 2000.

We're going to take two weeks on this text, versus 15 to 19. So what I want to do today is very limited, very simple and utterly crucial.

Talk about what it means to be under grace and under law.

Verse 14, for sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.

That's what I want to talk about this morning. What's that mean?

Because the reason it's so important is because look, look how the second half of the verse grounds the first half of the verse which is a

promise it's not a command it's a promise it's grounding a command in verse 13

but here it's a promise sin Sin shall not be master over you, you justified saint. Sin will not master you. Why not? Because you're not under law. You're under grace. Now I'm not going to talk about how that

logic works this morning.

Next week I will talk about that, God willing.

This morning I just want to know what is it to be under law

and what is it to be under grace okay nowhere else in all the new

...