Law AND Grace? Law OR Grace?

¹⁵ What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? By no means! ¹⁶ Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? ¹⁷ But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. ¹⁸ You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.

How clear that verse is! Although we are no longer under the law, we are now under grace! This verse reminds me of some of the sermons preached by some preachers, they only preach exclusively about grace. Grace is good, but not to the extent that we do not learn the law.  The sacrifice of Jesus Christ does not abolishes the law but gives us grace ontop of those laws. The law is like a sin mirror, reflecting to us what are the sins in our lives. Because on our own without God or Holy Spirit's help we would never be able to discover these laws on our own. 

But God needs to make clear to us the laws through Moses and others to help us recognize these sins. Law is just a tool to let us recognize the sin, and subsequently repent. But it still holds that it is up to us to repent. 

So in short, before the death of Jesus Christ, we need to recognize the sin using the law and then repent. However, as human beings, we have problems with both the recognition and the repentance of the sin. 

Well, God knows this from the very start and He sent Jesus Christ to die on the cross so that we understand the gravity of the matter. Then we do not need to spend so much effort recognizing and repenting. 

Jesus made recognizing simple as when He dies, the holy spirit comes upon all who believe and that will always remind us of the law and what is sin. Talking about repentance, we just need to recognize and apologize to God about the sin. And Jesus's blood will wash us clean again. As when Jesus died on the cross, He died for ALL sins. Whether before or after. EVERYTHING. 

But then, even with such simplification, its still hard for people and sin is still rampant. It all boils down to one thing- choice. Do you or do you not?