Isn’t salvation by keeping the law the way of Moses, while grace came through Jesus?

The contrast presented in this verse was not meant to put down the law. After all, it was Christ who gave the law to Moses and who said that He came to “fulfill the law” (Matthew 5:17). Through the personal appearance of Jesus on the earth, through His life, death, and resurrection, the fullness of grace and truth was poured out onto our world.

The apostle John certainly does not mean that grace and truth didn’t exist before Christ came, but that the “fullness” of grace was revealed in Jesus. All of the laws and teachings in the Old Testament pointed forward to Christ. John uses superlative expressions like these to describe the coming of Jesus into the world: “glory,” “full of grace and truth” (verse 14), “His fullness,” “grace for grace” (v. 16). It was like twilight giving way to noonday brightness!

But note that grace has been in the world from the beginning. Paul speaks of “grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began” (2 Timothy 1:9). Jeremiah spoke of “grace in the wilderness” (Jeremiah 31:2). Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord (Genesis 6:8), and so did many other Old Testament characters.

The law served to lead men to salvation by faith in the Messiah. Notice Christ’s words to the disciples on the road to Emmaus: “ ‘O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?’ And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself” (Luke 24:25–27).

But the fullness of grace appeared in the person of Jesus. The law revealed the will of God, but the grace and truth of Jesus gives the power to keep it. “Where sin abounded [exposed by the law], grace abounded much more” (Romans 5:20).

Key Bible Texts

For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. (John 1:17 KJV)