You say:
Answer:
Titus 2:11–13 does not say
grace = law-teaching saves us.
It says
grace saves us first, and
then that same grace trains us to live godly lives.
Titus 2:11–12
Notice the order:
- Grace appears → brings salvation.
- Then grace trains the saved → to obey.
The teaching comes
after salvation, not as the vehicle of salvation.
Grace produces obedience; obedience does not produce grace.
The content of a gift can be the experience of doing something such as giving someone the opportunity to experience driving a Ferrari, where the gift intrinsically requires them to do the work of driving in order to have that experience but where doing that work contributes nothing towards earning the opportunity to experience driving it. Similarly, the content of God's gift of eternal life is the experience of knowing Him and Jesus (John 17:3) and the gift of God's law is His instructions for how to have that experience, not for how to earn it. In Luke 10:25-28, Jesus affirmed that the way to inherit eternal life is by obeying the greatest two commandments and something that we inherit is a free gift (Exodus 33:13, Matthew 7:23).
Our salvation from sin would be incomplete if we were only saved from the penalty of our sin while our lives continued to be directed at being doers of sin, so there is an aspect of our gift of salvation that we are experiencing in the present by repenting and redirecting our lives towards be a doer of God's law. In Titus 2:11-13, it describes the salvation that grace brings as being trained to do those works, so that the aspect of our gift of salvation that we are experiencing in the present.
Ephesians 2:8–10
We’re not saved by good works, but saved for them.
God graciously making us into a doer of good works is the aspect of His gift of salvation that we are experiencing in the present.
You say:
Answer:
We are indeed called to follow Christ’s example (1 John 2:6), but imitation follows impartation.
We can only walk as He walked after we have been born again and indwelt by His Spirit (Romans 8:9).
Christ’s example shows what righteousness looks like, but only His cross gives it to us.
Child of someone is metaphorically someone who is in their likeness through being a doer of works that embody their character traits, such as with John 8:39 where Jesus said that if they were children of Abraham then they would be doing the same works as him. The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact likeness of His character (Hebrews 1:3), which he embodied through his works by setting a sinless example for us to follow of how to walk in obedience to God's law, so that is also what it means for us to be children of Abraham and children of God. This is why those who are not doers of righteous works in obedience to God's law are not children of God (1 John 3:4) and why Paul contrasted those who are born of the Spirit with those who have minds set on the flesh who are enemies of God who refuse to submit to God's law (Romans 8:4-14), so again it is about what is happening in the present.
Romans 5:19
It is His obedience — not ours — that makes us righteous before God.
Our obedience follows because we are new creations (2 Cor. 5:17).
There is not a disconnect between being righteous and being a doer of righteous works. If someone is not one, then they are also not the other.
You say
Answer:
This directly contradicts Scripture.
Christ had to fulfill the law for us because we could not.
That does not direct contradict Scripture because Scripture doesn't say that Christ fulfilled the law for us because we could not. According to Galatians 5:14, anyone who has ever loved their neighbor has fulfilled the entire law, so countless people have done that. If Christ fulfilled the law for us, then he would be experiencing the gift of salvation instead of us.
Romans 8:3–4
Jesus’ fulfillment doesn’t remove salvation — it secures it.
He didn’t abolish righteousness; He fulfilled it on our behalf and now produces it in us by the Spirit (Philippians 2:13).
Jesus saves us from sin (Matthew 1:21) and sin is the transgression of God's law (1 John 3:4), so Jesus graciously teaching to experience being a doer of it is the way that he securing our gift of saving us from not being a doer of it. If Jesus obeyed the law on our behalf, then he would be taking away his gift of us getting to experience fulfilling the righteous requirement of the law.
You say:
Answer:
Scripture says the opposite:
Only those who are in Christ by faith are capable of true obedience.
Galatians 3:2–3
Faith unites us to Christ; that union produces obedience (John 15:5).
Obedience is the fruit of being in the vine, not the condition for being grafted into it.
That is what 1 John 2:6 says and Scripture does not contradict that verse. Being in Christ is not something that happens apart from being a follower of his example through faith. It is neither the case that we need to have first been grafted into the vine in order to produce those works as the result or that we need to have done those works first in order to be grafted into the vine as the result, but rather being a doer of those works is the experience of being in the vine.
You say:
Answer:
That was the Mosaic covenant (Deuteronomy 30).
But Paul cites that passage in Romans 10:6-8 to make the opposite point — that now Christ is the end of the law for righteousness (Romans 10:4).
It doesn't make much sense to interpret Romans 10:5-8 as Paul contrasting what Moses said in Deuteronomy 30:11-14 with what he said in Deuteronomy 30:15-16, which is why the first word in Romans 10:6 can and should be translated as "moreover" rather than as "but". In Exodus 33:13, Moses wanted God to be gracious to him by teaching him to walk in His way that he and Israel might know him, and in Matthew 7:23, Jesus said that he would tell those who are workers of lawlessness to depart from him because he never knew them, so the goal of the law is to teach us how to know God and Jesus, which is His gift of eternal life (John 17:3).
In Romans 9:30-10:4, the Israelites had a zeal for God but it was not based on knowing Him, so they failed to attain righteousness because they misunderstood the goal of the law by pursuing it as though righteousness were earned as the result of their works in order to establish their own instead of pursing it as through righteousness were by faith in Christ, for knowing Christ is the goal of the law for righteousness for everyone who has faith. In Romans 10:5-10, Paul referred to Deuteronomy 30 as the word of faith that we proclaim in regard to proclaiming that God's law is not too difficult for us to obey, that obedience to it brings life and a blessing, in regard to what we are committing to obey by confessing that Jesus is Lord, and in regard to the way to believe that God raised him from the dead for salvation. So nothing in this passage has anything to do with ending God's law, but just the opposite.
In Christ, life comes not through law-keeping but through faith in the risen Lord:
Romans 10:9-10
In Luke 10:25-28, Jesus affirmed that the way to inherit eternal life is by obeying the greatest two commandment. Likewise, in Ttus 2:14, Jesus gave himself to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people of his own possession who are zealous for doing good works, so the way to believe in that God raised him from the dead is by becoming zealous for doing good works in obedience to God's law (Acts 21:20).
The “word of faith” Paul preaches is not “obey the law,” but “believe the gospel.”
In Matthew 4:15-23, Jesus began his ministry with the Gospel message to repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand, which was a light to the Gentiles, and God's law was how his audience knew what sin is (Romans 3:20), so repenting and becoming zealous for doing good works in obedience to God's law is the way to believe the Gospel that Jesus spent his ministry teaching and in what he accomplished through the cross. Moreover, Romans 10:16 speaks against those who do not obey the Gospel.
You say:
Answer:
God makes us righteous by imputing Christ’s righteousness to us, not by instructing us until we achieve it.
Jesus embodied the righteousness of God by setting an example for us to follow of how to walk in obedience to God's law, Jesus teaching us to follow his example is the way that his righteousness is imputed to us.
Romans 4:5
After justification, He then imparts righteousness through the Spirit’s transforming work (Romans 6:17–18).
That’s sanctification, not justification.
We become someone who has faith, someone who will be declared righteous, and someone who is a doer of the law all at the same time, and anyone who is not one of those is also not the others.
The Biblical Order (Romans 6:22)
- Set free from sin — salvation by grace.
- Become servants of God — new identity.
- Fruit of obedience — sanctification.
- End result — eternal life.
Obedience
follows deliverance; it does not
cause it.
Obedience does not follow deliverance or cause deliverance, but rather it is intrinsically what deliverance from disobedience looks like.