I don’t think the grace empowered believer should throw out the Ten Commandments.
Several times, Paul mentions the Ten Commandments. For example in Ephesians 6:2, Paul tells children to honor their parents. If the Ten Commandments were passed away, why would Paul be mentioning them? However, our understanding of the Ten Commandments is to be rooted in love.
We could express the law of grace by saying, “Love God, Love people.” This is our new version of the Ten Commandments. However, it is impossible to do this until after you have a revelation about how much God loves you. The more you focus on how much God loves you, the more you will love Him. The more you love Him, the better you will be at loving those around you.
How will you do it? Just as God saved you by grace, He now empowers you to walk the love-walk by grace. Why do you obey God? Is it because you fear He is going to strike you dead? Or is it because you love Him and are thankful for everything He has done for you? 1 John 4:18 says, “perfect love casts out fear.” We obey God’s laws, but now our motive is completely different. We are not scared of punishment, we obey God’s laws because of our love for Him.
St. Augustine said, “Love God and do as you please.” He understood that once you love God everything else in your life falls into its proper place. If you truly love God, you will not want to sin any longer. Love is the driving force behind grace.
Because of grace, we now have the freedom (liberty) to serve God through love. “For you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another” (Galatians 5:13). Liberty from the Law is not an excuse to sin, instead it empowers us to live above the Law: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law” (Galatians 5:22-23).
While we are indeed free from the requirements of the old covenant, we are only freed from a lesser law so that we can serve a higher one. There is no law against love because there is simply no higher law. By this means, love is able to do what the Law could never do: make us blameless and holy before God. How much then should our heart’s cries echo those of Paul when he wrote, “And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love to one another and to all, just as we do to you, so that He may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints” (1 Thessalonians 3:12-13).
