For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.
For the Law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. The law is here placed in opposition both to "grace" and to "truth" - but in different respects, of course. The law is opposed to grace only in that sense in which the law contains no grace. "The law," says the apostle, "worketh wrath" (Romans 2:15), that is, against all who break it; pronouncing a curse upon "everyone that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them" (Galatians 3:10). If, then, under Moses, there was any grace for the guilty, it could not issue out of the bosom of the law, as a proclamation of moral duty; because "by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge (Romans 3:20). But the law was not given only to condemn. It "had a shadow of good things to come, though not the very image of the things" (Hebrews 10:1); and it was this shadow of Gospel blessings which was given by Moses, while the "truth" or substance of them came by Jesus Christ. The law was but "a figure for the time then present, that could not make the worshippers perfect as pertaining to the conscience; because it was not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins" (Hebrews 9:9; Hebrews 10:4). All the salvation, therefore, that was gotten under Moses was on the credit of that one offering for sins which perfects forever them that are sanctified; and so they without us could not be made perfect (Hebrews 11:40).