Grace presupposes law and judgment. This makes God's grace a legal act, a fact that churches often do not emphasise, possibly due to a lack of understanding.
As a result, the study of law sometimes helps to reclaim parts of Biblical understanding that may be missed by most pastors.
Singapore has adopted and adapted the Westminster system of government which separates powers between the Legislative, Executive and Judicial branches. Article 22P(1)(b) of the Singapore Constitution empowers the President of Singapore, as part of the Executive branch, to exercise clemency powers to pardon convicted offenders:
The President, as occasion shall arise, may, on the advice of the Cabinet... grant to any offender convicted of any offence in any court in Singapore, a pardon, free or subject to lawful conditions, or any reprieve or respite, either indefinite or for such period as the President may think fit, of the execution of any sentence pronounced on such offender.
The case of Yong Vui Kong v Attorney-General [2011] 2 SLR 1189, contains the following explanation of these clemency powers at para. 74 of the judgment by former Chief Justice Chan Sek Keong:
I start by stating that the clemency power is a legal power of an extraordinary character. It is unlike all other legal powers in that:
(a) It is an executive power which is exercised as an act of executive grace and not as a matter of legal right...
(b) A decision to grant clemency is "[a] determination of the ultimate authority that the public welfare will be better served by inflicting less [punishment] than what the judgment fixed"... Conversely, a decision not to grant clemency represents a determination by the ultimate authority that the public welfare is better served by allowing the law to take its course, ie, by carrying out the punishment prescribed by the law.
(c) Ordinarily, the law should be allowed to take its course. However, when the clemency power is exercised in favour of an offender, it will "involve a departure from the law"... in that, in the interests of the public welfare, the law (in terms of the punishment mandated by the law) is prevented from taking its course.
(d) The considerations of public welfare that the ultimate authority deems relevant in making a clemency decision are entirely a matter of policy for it to decide...
(e) In the specific context of a death sentence case..., the grant of clemency to the offender confers a gift of life on him. This is because the offender has effectively already been deprived of his life by the law due to his conviction for a capital offence. If clemency is granted to the offender, his life will be restored to him, whereas if clemency is not granted, his life will be forfeited as decreed by the law. In other words, in a death sentence case, the clemency decision made, be it in favour of or against the offender, does not deprive the offender of his life; the law (in terms of the conviction and death sentence meted out on the offender by a court of law) has already done so.
We all know the consequences of sin. Even in the Garden of Eden, God warned Adam not to eat of the fruit of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, for when he ate of it, he would surely die (Genesis 2:17). Paul writes in Romans 6:23a, "[for] the wages of sin is death".
So the ordinary consequence of our sin is death. All of us had (eternal) death sentences hanging over our heads, having effectively already been deprived of our lives by the Law of God due to our conviction for a capital offence - no less than the offence of high treason against the Most High God.
We were all criminals on death row.
However, God - being God - has the power to give life and the power to take life.
Paul continues in Romans 6:23b, "but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord". This is an act of grace and not a matter of legal right. (Indeed, if we were to be put on trial, we would all be found guilty.) It is a determination of the ultimate authority that the good of all will be better served by inflicting less punishment than what the judgment fixed. The Law is prevented from taking its course.
Hence, Jesus' sacrifice to save us from our sins confers a gift of life on us when we originally had none. It is a gift of life in its fullest sense.
No doubt this is what Paul meant when he wrote in Galatians 2:19-20:
For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.
Therefore, having been rescued from death and given a second chance at life, let us live unto the Lord to the fullest!
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