At some point this question will knock on your door. Maybe at a Club meeting, maybe listening to a friend from another church: "If Jesus already paid it all and you are saved for free, why keep the commandments? Isn't that legalism?" It is a good question. And it deserves a good answer.
The confusion is born when we set law and grace as enemies, as if you had to choose between one and the other. But the Bible does not choose. It teaches both at the same time, in the right order: first the gift, then the response to the gift.
In this article you will understand why salvation is entirely by grace, what the law is for if it does not save, and why keeping the commandments, far from being legalism, is the most natural thing in the world for someone who was loved first.
The question that tightens your chest
Picture the scene. End of the meeting, the Club putting things away, and a Pathfinder comes up to the Counselor a little awkwardly: "Something doesn't add up in my head. We sing that we are saved by grace, that Jesus did it all. But then we keep the Sabbath, avoid certain foods, memorize the commandments... isn't that kind of contradictory?" The question is sincere. And it is the same one the apostle Paul answered two thousand years ago.
The problem is that many people learn the faith as a scale. On one side, your good deeds. On the other, your bad ones. And God at the end adding it all up to decide. If faith works like that, the law becomes a to-do list you have to complete to "pass." And every mistake gives you a knot in your stomach, because it feels like salvation slipped through your fingers.
But that scale does not exist in the Bible. It is an invention of fear. And as long as you believe in it, you will live the Christian life tired, guilt-ridden, and always thinking you have not done enough. The good news is that God never asked you to balance that scale. He already settled it for you.
You are saved by grace, truly for free
Let's go straight to the verse that settles the matter. Paul writes: "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast" (Ephesians 2:8-9, NIV). Read it slowly. Salvation is a gift. A gift no one buys, otherwise it becomes a purchase, not a gift.
Grace is a simple word: it is favor you did not deserve and cannot pay for. It is God solving your biggest problem without charging anything. If you could pay with good works, Sabbaths kept, and memorized commandments, then Jesus would not have needed to die. You could just do your best. But the Bible is clear: no work of yours buys heaven.
This knocks down the scale. You are not in the middle of a test where you need to accumulate points. You are standing before a gift already wrapped, with your name on it, and the only thing faith does is reach out and accept. Resting in this is the beginning of everything. Without it, the rest of the article makes no sense. If you want to better understand what this faith that receives the gift is, it is worth reading what real faith is.
If the law does not save, what is it for?
Here is the turn most people do not understand. The law never had the function of saving anyone. That was never its job. Paul explains: "through the law we become conscious of our sin" (Romans 3:20, NIV). The law is like a mirror. The mirror shows that your face is dirty. But have you ever tried to wash your face by scrubbing the mirror? It doesn't work. The mirror points out the problem; it is not the soap.
Paul gives a personal example: "I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, 'You shall not covet'" (Romans 7:7, NIV). Without the law, you would not even know you are wrong in many things. The law turns on the light. It shows you the dirt so you run after the only one who cleans: Jesus.
So law and grace work together, each in its role. The law diagnoses the disease. Grace brings the cure. Confusing the two roles is the mistake that generates all the anguish. Whoever tries to save themselves by the law is scrubbing the mirror. Whoever understands the law correctly looks into it, sees sin, and runs to the arms of grace.
Read alsoThe plan of salvation explainedSo why obey, if I am already saved?
If obedience does not pay for salvation, someone soon asks: "then does it matter what I do?" Paul already anticipated that question and answered it right away: "Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?" (Romans 6:1-2, NIV). Translating: whoever was truly saved does not want to go back to the mud.
The key is in a sentence from Jesus: "If you love me, keep my commands" (John 14:15, NIV). Notice the order. It is not "keep the commands so that I will love you." It is "if you love me." Obedience is the effect of love, not the cause. You do not obey to win God over. You obey because you were won over by Him.
Think about your father or mother. You do not make your bed in the morning so they will start loving you. They have loved you since before you were born. You help around the house as a response to that love. With God it is the same. John also writes: "this is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome" (1 John 5:3, NIV). For those who love, obeying is not a weight. It is a pleasure.
Legalism vs. obedience: the difference that changes everything
Legalism and obedience can look the same from the outside. Two people keep the Sabbath. Two people help in community service. Two people avoid the same things. But the engine on the inside is completely different, and it is the engine that God sees.
The legalist obeys with fear and pride. Fear of losing salvation if they mess up, and pride from thinking themselves better than others when they get it right. Their life is an exhausting accounting, always looking sideways to compare themselves. Deep down, they are trying to buy God with good behavior, and that is why they never have real peace.
Whoever obeys by grace does everything with gratitude and freedom. They already know they are saved, so they do not obey to guarantee anything, they obey because they want to resemble the one who saved them. When they mess up, they do not fall apart: they run back to Jesus, ask forgiveness, and keep going. Their obedience is not a chain that binds, it is a response that springs up. Same action on the outside, opposite heart on the inside. God wants the second kind.
And the Sabbath and the Ten Commandments? Still standing
If we are saved by grace, some conclude that the law was thrown out. But it was Jesus himself who said: "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them" (Matthew 5:17, NIV). Jesus did not come to erase the Ten Commandments. He lived them perfectly and invites us to live on the inside what the law always pointed to on the outside.
The decalogue, the Ten Commandments found in Exodus 20, is the portrait of God's character. And God's character does not change with time. Stealing is still wrong. Lying is still wrong. And the fourth commandment, the Sabbath one, is still the fourth commandment, in the middle of the other nine that no one thinks of discarding. If you want to go deeper on this point, see why we keep the Sabbath.
And there is no contradiction with grace. Paul says: "For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace" (Romans 6:14, NIV). "Under the law" is to be under its condemnation, like a defendant before the judge. Grace takes you out of that defendant's chair. But the acquitted defendant does not leave the court wanting to steal again. They leave grateful, living the law out of love, and no longer out of fear of it.
How to live this out in the Club's daily life
Doctrine that stays only in the head is good for nothing. So bring this into real life. When you keep the Sabbath, ask the right question: am I doing this out of fear that God will punish me, or because I want to spend time with the God who loves me? The same action changes color depending on the answer. If it is fear, talk to your Counselor or Director. You probably have not truly understood grace yet.
Watch out too for the other mistake, which is using grace as an excuse to slack off. "Ah, I'm saved anyway, so it doesn't matter." We have already seen that Paul calls this "by no means." If God's love changes nothing in the way you treat others in the Club, in how you speak, in how you serve, then maybe you have understood the theory but have not yet let it reach your heart.
And when you mess up, and you will mess up, do not fall into the trap of the scale again. One mistake does not make you lose the salvation Jesus bought. Messing up reminds you why you need him every day. Get up, ask forgiveness, and keep walking. The Christian life is not a test you pass or fail. It is a relationship with Someone who has already chosen you, and who walks with you even on the day you stumble.