“In the fullness of time, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive our adoption as sons.” –Galatians 4:4
When the Word of God, Jesus Christ, became man and dwelt among us, He came to fulfill the old law, not to destroy it.[1] In fulfilling the old law, Christ demonstrated that He is its Author as well as the one who perfected it. In doing so, Jesus also established a new law. We call this new law the new “law of grace,” the “law of the Gospel,” or “the law of love.”
What is the New Law?
Generally speaking, the New Law of the Gospel is all that Jesus instructed as being the call of Christians in how to live and act. It “raises the bar,” going beyond what was required under natural law, and even the divine law of the Old Testament. Whereas natural law calls us to live in harmony with each other, the Christian is required by means of divine law to “lay down his life” for his friend, according to the pattern of Jesus.[2]
This pattern was established because Jesus, as God, is the author, perfecter and end of the moral law. He is its ultimate fulfillment as well as its unity. In the person of Jesus Christ, you and I come to understand the perfection of what the moral law teaches and calls us to do. As the scriptures say, “Christ is the end of the law, that every one who has faith may be justified.”[3]
The Content of the New Law
The content of this New Law is Jesus’ teachings, His example and the grace of His divine Spirit. Jesus Christ, Himself, has become for us a New Law.[4] The Scriptures which give us His teaching (like the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7) and the Sacraments that give us His grace, build us up as obedient servants under the new law. We often call this new law the law of grace, because first and foremost it consists of grace. The Catechism says:
The New Law is the grace of the Holy Spirit given to the faithful through faith in Christ. It works through charity; it uses the Sermon on the Mount to teach us what must be done and makes use of the Sacraments to give us the grace to do it: If anyone should meditate with devotion and perspicacity on the sermon our Lord gave on the mount, as we read in the Gospel of Saint Matthew, he will doubtless find there . . . the perfect way of the Christian life…. This sermon contains … all the precepts needed to shape one’s life.[5]
The Foundations of the New Law: Love
The new law of grace is also called the law of love. It is called this because it flows from the God who is love itself, and calls us to return to God. This love between the Father and the Son is the Holy Spirit and He is communicated to all those who live in Christ through baptism. In receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit, the believer is called to live in accordance with love rather than fear. The believer is called to do and to will all things out of filial love for the Father who has adopted him into His divine family.
The Old Law established kinship between YHWH and Israel by means of divine Covenant. Yet worship necessitated continual animal sacrifices that would not ultimately and perfectly unite man to God. Christ alone fulfilled what the Old Law could not. In Christ, therefore, man is veritably delivered from slavery in order to become a true heir of the kingdom, as co-heir with Christ.[6] What the Old Law promised and foreshadowed, Christ elevates, fulfills and divinizes. The new law of grace is built upon love[7] and gives the power to fulfill the command of love.[8]
God the Father pours forth into our hearts the Holy Spirit as the core “content” of the New Law and the gift of divine adoption.[9] In the Holy Spirit we become true sons and daughters of God. The Holy Spirit is God Himself dwelling within us and He grants us gifts that empower us to live out all that the New Law calls us to: to literally live as Christ lived. The Catechism says, “The moral life of Christians is sustained by the gifts of the Holy Spirit. These are permanent dispositions which make man docile in following the promptings of the Holy Spirit.”[10]
There are seven gifts of the Holy Spirit: wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord.[11] These gifts “belong in their fullness to Christ, Son of David. They complete and perfect the virtues of those who receive them. They make the faithful docile in readily obeying divine inspirations.”[12]
All the faithful are called to live life in the New Law, and life in the New Law is a life of Sonship, being led by the Holy Spirit. Scripture tells us in no uncertain terms that “All who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God . . . If children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ.”[13] The New Law in Christ is not only divine, but is now achievable by the gift of the Holy Spirit.
The New Law Gives Freedom
The Holy Spirit endows the believer with strength and grace to act upon this new law with conviction. For this reason, this law is also called a law of freedom, because it sets man free from slavish fear and thrusts him upon a path of freedom in sonship. There is a kind of vitality and spontaneity to this new law, this law of grace, this law of freedom, that the old law, and the natural law, could never possess.
The Meaning of the Gospel
The New Law is also called the “Law of the Gospel.” As we know, the word “Gospel” means “good news.” And we know what the good news is. But we should ask ourselves: how does this good news relate to the call to salvation?
The Gospel of Jesus Christ is directly linked to the process of justification and sanctification. When we proclaim the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we also proclaim that the work of the Holy Spirit in Jesus Christ is being worked right now in us, through our faith in the Gospel, and in and through the Sacraments. What this tells us is that the Gospel kerygma (or “proclamation”) serves as an eternal reminder that Jesus Christ is Lord, that his Lordship is greater than any king on earth, and that Christ has conquered death itself. Christ has won the decisive and undeniable victory. The Christian life, therefore, is a summons into the army of Jesus Christ, for the sake of the salvation of all souls, found in Jesus Christ alone.
Salvation is not simply about keeping the new law; it is first and foremost about loving Christ, the Eternal Lawgiver Himself, and being transformed into His image. It is this fact that prompted St. Charles Borromeo to say, “Behold Jesus Christ crucified, Who is the only foundation of our hope; He is our Mediator and Advocate; the victim and sacrifice for our sins. He is goodness and patience itself; His mercy is moved by the tears of sinners, and He never refuses pardon and grace to those who ask it with a truly contrite and humbled heart.”[14]
Concluding Thoughts
The Christian is called, by virtue of his love of God, to be willing to witness to the Gospel, even at the expense of his own life. And where the Old Testament law dictated in justice, “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,”[15] Christ demands mercy, forgiveness, and love be extended by those who believe in Him to all who have hurt them, irrespective of circumstance.[16]
The Christian life necessitates an investment of the whole self. No more, no less. The Christian demand of love is far beyond exclusive, it is all-encompassing! Our call to forgive and be forgiven is more than a blessing, it’s downright baffling! In the sight of the world, such standards make absolutely no sense. Christian Revelation demands that justice meets mercy; and this is far beyond the scope of a purely natural rationale. No, it is only because Christ has first paved the way that we as Christians can now be called to follow suit.
[1] John 1:14; Matthew 5:17-20.
[2] Cf. John 15:13.
[3] Romans 10:4.
[4] Jesus Christ paved the way before us. He lived the moral law perfectly, and He is the source of the grace that enables anyone to keep the moral law.
[6] Cf. Romans 8:17.
[7] The old law was, at its core, a call to love God and one’s neighbor through the discipline of admonitions and restrictions. This fact, however, was not always clear to Israel, which too often ended up becoming legalistic in its understanding and application of the old law. Jesus Christ Himself points out this fact in the Gospel (cf. Matthew 23:4, 13-33; Luke 11:46; 1 John 5:3).
[8] Cf. Matthew 5:38-48.
[9] Cf. Romans 5:5.
[11] Cf. Isaiah 11:2-4.
[13] Romans 8:14,17.
[14] Alban Butler, The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints. Volume 11 (London: John Murphy, 1815), 93. This text has been reproduced online in its 1866 edition by Bartleby.com.
[15] Exodus 21:24.
[16] Cf. Matthew 5:38-48.