Question: Dear Sir, Please comment on the idea that we are no longer under law but under grace.

Answer: This idea is basic to the epistles of Paul to the Galatians and to the Romans (explicitly, Romans 6:14, 15). Paul cannot mean that the Old Testament is no longer a source of divine instruction (cf. 2 Timothy 3:14-17). The Old Testament was the only Bible of the earliest Christians, and Paul quotes from the Old Testament frequently to prove his doctrinal points and to emphasize moral principles. When Paul states that we are no longer under law but under grace, he is thinking of the law specifically as a system of justification. Universal experience showed that by works of law no one could be justified (Romans 8:3; Galatians 2:16; 3:11). With the coming of Christ and his atoning death by which he paid the penalty for sin, justification is purely on the basis of faith in him (inclusive of all divinely ordained expressions of faith in response to the gospel). See Romans 3:21-26; Galatians 3:26-29; Ephesians 2:1-10; Titus 3:3-5. Justification is a matter of being in relationship to Christ rather than of justifying oneself.