[64] Rom. vii. 12, 14; 2 Thess. ii. 4-8; comp. 1 John iii. 4.
[65] Rom. iii. 20; iv. 15; v. 20; vii. 5, 24; Gal. ii. 16; iii. 10, 11, 19.
While sin is the reply which man's nature makes to the demands of law, _faith_ is the response elicited by grace; it is the door of the heart opening to grace.[66] Grace and Faith go hand in hand, as Law and Transgression. Limiting the domain of faith, Peter virtually denied the sovereignty of grace. He belied his confession made at the Council of Jerusalem: "By _the grace_ of the Lord Jesus we _trust_ to be saved, even as the Gentiles" (Acts xv. 11). With Law are joined such terms as Works, Debt, Reward, Glorying, proper to a "righteousness of one's own."[67] With Grace we associate Gift, Promise, Predestination, Call, Election, Adoption, Inheritance, belonging to the dialect of "the righteousness which is of God by faith."[68] Grace operates in the region of "the Spirit," making for freedom; but law, however spiritual in origin, has come to seek its accomplishment in the sphere of the flesh, where it "gendereth to bondage" (ch. iv. 23-v. 5; 2 Cor. iii. 6, 17).
[66] Rom. iii. 24, 25; Eph. ii. 8; etc.
[67] Rom. iv. 1-4; xi. 6; Gal. ii. 16; iii. 12.
[68] Rom. iv. 16; viii. 28-39; xi. 5; Eph. i. 4-6; Tit. iii. 7; Acts xx. 32; Gal. iii. 18: δι' ἐπαγγελίας κεχάρισται ὁ Θεός.
Grace appears, however, in another class of passages in Paul's Epistles, of which ch. i. 15, ii. 9 are examples. To the Divine grace Paul ascribes _his personal salvation and Apostolic call_. The revelation which made him a Christian and an Apostle, was above all things a manifestation of grace. Wearing this aspect, "the glory of God" appeared to him "in the face of Jesus Christ." The splendour that blinded and overwhelmed Saul on his way to Damascus, was "the glory of His grace." The voice of Jesus that fell on the persecutor's ear spoke in the accents of grace. No scourge of the Law, no thunders of Sinai, could have smitten down the proud Pharisee, and beaten or scorched out of him his strong self-will, like the complaint of Jesus. All the circumstances tended to stamp upon his soul, fused into penitence in that hour, the ineffaceable impression of "the grace of God and of our Saviour Jesus Christ." Such confessions as those of 1 Cor. xv. 8-10, and Eph. ii. 7, iii. 7, 8, show how constantly this remembrance was present with the Apostle Paul and suffused his views of revelation, giving to his ministry its peculiar tenderness of humility and ardour of gratitude. This sentiment of boundless obligation to the grace of God, with its pervasive effect upon the Pauline doctrine, is strikingly expressed in the doxology of 1 Tim. i. 11-17,--words which it is almost a sacrilege to put into the mouth of a _falsarius_: "According to the gospel of the glory of the blessed God, wherewith _I_ was intrusted, ... who was aforetime a blasphemer and persecutor.... But the grace of our Lord abounded even more exceedingly. Faithful is the saying, worthy to be received of all, 'Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners'--of whom _I_ am chief.... In me as chief Christ Jesus showed forth all His long-suffering.... Now to the King of the ages be honour and glory for ever. Amen." Who, reading the Apostle's story, does not echo that _Amen_? No wonder that Paul became the Apostle of _grace_; even as John, "the disciple whom Jesus loved," must perforce be the Apostle of _love_. First to him was God's grace revealed in its largest affluence, that through him it might be known to all men and to all ages.
II. Side by side with the grace of God, we find in ver. 21 _the death of Christ_. He sets aside the former, the Apostle argues, who by admitting legal righteousness nullifies the latter.