Law, Grace and Accountability

By Michele Rayburn

"The man who has struggled to purify himself and has had nothing but repeated failures will experience real relief when he stops tinkering with his soul and looks away to the perfect One. While he looks at Christ, the very things he has so long been trying to do will be getting done within him. It will be God working in him to will and to do." - A.W. Tozer

Those that live as though they are still under the law will shun accountability for their sins in order to avoid the guilt and condemnation that the law causes them to feel.

And they will strive to maintain a righteous front before God, otherwise known as self-righteousness, that being under the law causes them to do, because they want to "shield" themselves from believing that they sin. They want to believe that they are perfectly keeping the law that they are under.

So, those that live as though they are still under the law will shun accountability for their sins for two reasons:

1. to avoid the guilt and condemnation that they fear will follow in admitting their sin(s), and

2. to maintain what they believe is a righteous "front" before God and before man. They want to believe that they are keeping the law perfectly, and are not sinning. That is what self-righteousness is.

Any attempt to hold a person who lives "under the law", rather than under grace, accountable for any sin they may have committed, threatens their self-righteous standing that they believe they have before God and man. So they will run from being held accountable.

They often become angry, defensive, and exhibit conditional love (which means, they will withdraw their love) toward anyone who would threaten their self-righteousness, because, again, accountability threatens to put them under guilt and condemnation.

But those that are under grace, and not law, do not fear guilt and condemnation because they understand and "reckon" that they are "dead to sin", and "alive to God", and so they do not fear being held accountable for any sin they may have committed.

Instead, they are ready and willing to be "quick repenters", knowing that "there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus" and that Jesus has taken away their guilt "having nailed it to the Cross".

Those that are under grace, since they are not under law, do not strive to prove that they are keeping the law perfectly in order to be proved righteous by both God and man.

But instead, they understand that only Jesus kept and fulfilled the law for them perfectly, and not having a righteousness of their own which is from the law, Jesus declared them righteous by faith in Him, the righteousness which is from God. (Philippians 3:8-9)

Those that are "under the law" are quick to hold others accountable for every "jot and tittle" of the law, while those under grace understand righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. (Rom. 14:17)

But indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ, and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. -Philippians 3:8-11