When any one feels responsible to fulfil the law of Moses in order for God to bless him—that person is under law. It is a very peculiar thing that we are in the dispensation of grace, and yet Christians know a great deal more about law than they know about grace. As to the state of their souls, they are far more in the past dispensation than in the present. Almost any child can repeat the Ten Commandments, and tell you man’s duty to God, but very few people know the grace of the gospel; many who are really converted to God know very little of the true grace of God, the liberty that the Spirit of God brings. Grace expresses the delight of God to bless. A man who understands what grace is, never raises a question as to what he is as a ground of acceptance. He rests entirely in what God and Christ are. Christ is wisdom—the wisdom of God. He is righteousness—the righteousness of God, and we have it in having Christ. We have holiness, for Christ is our holiness; and as to redemption, Christ is our redemption. Christ is, in short, everything to the man under grace.
If the Jews had known the true nature of law, they would have known that every person who was under the law was under a curse, under death and condemnation. It could not minister anything else, because man is a sinner. Paul says, “As many as are under the works of the law are under the curse,” whatever and whoever they are. Whoever is fulfilling his obligations in order to gain blessing, is under the curse. Why should it be so? Because, Scripture says, “Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things written in the book of the law to do them,” and nobody does continue.