“… all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death … we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with … you are not under law, but under grace … you also died to the law through the body of Christ …” (bits taken from Romans 6 & 7).

People under law, who break any rule of it, what do they get? They get punished. No matter what it is, when kids disobey their parents they get a spanking, when people drive too fast they either get a car accident or a speed ticket, when people kill human beings, they go to jail, etc. Well, obviously a lot of bad stuff goes on that will never be settled or even known on this earth, but basically, when you get caught doing something against the law or a set of rules that is over you, you get punished.

The beauty of being a child of God is (among many other things) this: you’re no longer under law; you’re under grace.

Every time you broke a law, every time you will go around a rule, set by human beings on earth or by God, you won’t have to be punished; you’re not under law anymore if you are in Christ Jesus. “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, no counting men’s sins against them.” (II Corinthians 5:19). Jesus was punished in our stead. Now this is not a reason to sin. We are now slaves to righteousness (Rom. 6:1 and slaves to God’s law (Rom. 7:25). We are now pushed and want to obey God, because we belong to Him, because we are thankful, because we have the Spirit of Jesus Christ within us.

We are under grace, not under law. These two are almost opposites. Through the law we become guilty of punishment but because of Jesus, we’re now under the law of grace, where our sins are already punished and paid for by Jesus. Isn’t it a joyful thought to entertain in our hearts?

So I walked in the street and in the metro station finding myself looking at people and picturing them with a big stamp on their foreheads: “UNDER LAW” and on mine “UNDER GRACE”. If truly people could see the stamps, wouldn’t they run after all those with the “UNDER GRACE” one? Obviously.