When I say I am under grace, this is what I mean:

-I am an heir of the promise (the convenant of grace which was one-sided, God alone)that was made BEFORE the covenant of works (two sided covenant - man and God)was made. The law does not nullify the promise that was made 430 years prior to the law. Paul says it so much better than I...

Now that no one is justified by the Law before God is evident; for, "THE RIGHTEOUS MAN SHALL LIVE BY FAITH." However, the Law is not of faith; on the contrary, "HE WHO PRACTICES THEM SHALL LIVE BY THEM." Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us--for it is written, "CURSED IS EVERYONE WHO HANGS ON A TREE"-- in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we would receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. Brethren, I speak in terms of human relations: even though it is only a man's covenant, yet when it has been ratified, no one sets it aside or adds conditions to it. Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, "And to seeds," as referring to many, but rather to one, "And to your seed," that is, Christ. What I am saying is this: the Law, which came four hundred and thirty years later, does not invalidate a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to nullify the promise. For if the inheritance is based on law, it is no longer based on a promise; but God has granted it to Abraham by means of a promise.

Why the Law then? It was added because of transgressions, having been ordained through angels by the agency of a mediator, until the seed would come to whom the promise had been made. -Gal. 3:11-19

When I say I'm under grace I mean that Jesus' perfect-under-the-law-ness (aka righteousness) is imputed to me by faith thereby canceling the law and it's demand of my merit for my salvation.
I'll assume by this question you're not intending to go down the road of the marrow controversy.

Joe, I'm not going down any road in particular. It's a completely open question. I just want to see how people answer. And, as much as I'd like to play along and look smart, I don't know what the "marrow controversy" is.

I'm not all that smart either. I've just started looking into it and your question jogged my memory. Basically just asks the question where the law fits into grace filled Christian living. Forgive my rabbit trail. Great open question to ask.

I take it more as a legal statement. In our position in Christ in his death, we are legally considered dead (according to the just requirements of God: precept + penalty). But since Christ was raised as the head of a new creation we also are legally raised beneath that system (for lack of a better word) which doesn't operate by Precept + Penalty. In other words, I am legally dead according to the Law but am alive—not according to the Law but according to Christ's current resurrected life.

Therefore I am not subject to a precept (Do or Do Not) but am subject to a principle that fulfills the undergirding precept. So then I am free to go the extra mile (if you will) for another person, free to turn the other cheek a whole bunch of times, free to walk in the light and if I stumble I shouldn't expect a hovering condemnation but I can get up and give it another go.

Yeah, that's what I usually think when I hear the phrase even when I hear someone using it as an offhand slogan.

As a believer the phrase under grace refers to my standing before an all knowing and perfectly righteous God. I stand clothed in the righteousness of Christ alone, not upon any inherent goodness of my own or any ability of my own to become righteous.

However, under grace does not mean that I can abandon the Moral Law. If God truly regenerated me I will have a 'new heart' that desires obedience to God. Therefore I need to know what God desires in order to obey - hence the importance of God's moral law expressed in the Decalogue. In addition, my desire to obey God's moral law (however imperfectly) is a great assurance that I am indeed His child.

David, Christians are certainly under grace and therefore not under the law; the two are antithetical. Being under grace means that my sins have been paid for by the Lord Jesus Christ who is my Substitute, doing something for me that was impossible for me to do for myself. Being under grace means that my Substitute fulfilled the law perfectly for me and by God's saving grace I have been brought to faith in Christ's finished work of redemption for me and God has accounted my faith in Jesus as righteousness; as though I had actually fulfilled the law myself. Being under grace and not under the law means that I will never be the object of God's wrath or condemnation for my sins; Jesus as my Substitute took all that for me, thus He is my Substitute. Being under grace and not the law means I am free, "liberated," you might say, from the just requirements of the law, those requirements having been met perfectly by my Substitute and then imputed to me. As Paul and Peter cautioned the believer, we are not to use our freedom under grace as a cloak for sin; God does not by grace mean that we have now been given permission to sin but that He has made wonderful provision for our sins in and through Jesus Christ's sacrifice. Being under grace does not blind me to my sinfulness but encourages me in my eternal security knowing that the finished work of Christ was a "once for all" kind of work for the Christian.Being under grace and not under the law gives the Christian a blessed freedom in this life that only the knowledge of the forgiveness of our sins, past, present, and future can provide. We are not under the law but under grace and the law for the believer is finally in its rightful place, not as a means of self-justification, but as a God-given revelation of His perfect will that we can use lawfully as a guide for our lives. His perfect will was fulfilled in our Substitute and imputed to us; we are justified in and through Christ alone, by faith alone, by grace alone, through the gospel alone; justified meaning that God Himself has declared us to be right with Him through our faith in Christ.

I am under grace, and by that I mean I look to God's grace (through faith c.f. 1 Thess 2:13) to change me from glory to glory (i.e. to sanctify me) and not the law - at least if we are talking about "under grace" in the Romans six sense of the phrase.

Keeping the law in no way sanctifies me - I am saved from sin by grace, and not by law.

Daniel, you'r getting close to where this is headed!

Hi, I know this is an old thread, but i came across this site googling for "in what sense are we not under the law?", as i was contending with what seems to be too close to antinomianism on another forum (click here).

BTW, I like the expectation of self judging re. posting language, and that certainly is in line with the topic here (he that is not ruled from within must be ruled from without).

As regarding not being under the law, while i agree that we are under it as a means of salvation, some souls, in their celebration of such seem to go to the other extreme in supposing that "all we need is love", that the law does not serve the Christian as an objective standard for righteousness, and that they are not guilty of sin if they literally disobey one of the purely moral (versus typological) laws of Moses.

My understanding is that we are not under the law (as an entire unit) as a means for salvation. The law gains it's power to condemn when perfect obedience to it is made the requirement for salvation (because we fall short of that), and we are not under the law in that sense, nor bound to literal obedience to every precept of the law as a whole, but as souls justified by faith and made "accepted the the Beloved," we seek to keep the intent of law, which usually requires obedience to the letter, insofar as the moral law is concerned, yet "not according to the letter" as if that is where it stops, but according to it's full intent. The letter of the law offers a theoretical limit, but love is open ended.

What think ye?

Also BTW, i also much like the Elizabethan language (and Firefox which helps me spell such a word).

And "If you have no sense of humor, we suggest you get one" certainly gave me a good sanctified laugh (but it really should be "ye get one!").

Daniel,
I think you're on the right track. You might be interested in a sermon by Phil Johnson called What You Need to Know about Sin. You can find it here.

Thanks. I'm downloading it now. Hope i can share them for free.

Well, they offer it free to download, so I would assume you can share it as long as you don't alter it in any way.