With fruit/grace, the primary benefit is for the immediate recipient, and secondarily other people. With gifts, it is the other way around: gifts are given for the benefit of people other than the recipient first of all, and the recipient only secondarily.

I just read this chapter from John Owen this morning, and I though I would share Owen’s marvelous insights into the question of how to distinguish between the gifts of God and the graces of God. This is from his A Discourse of Spiritual Gifts, chapter 2. In the old Banner of Truth edition, it is volume 4, pp. 425-438. In the new Crossway edition, it is volume 8, pp. 259-273, which is the edition I will be referencing here. I have seldom read anything from Owen so insightful.
He actually first discusses three similarities. Both come from Christ’s mediation, both are wrought by the power of the Holy Spirit, and both are ordained for the good of the church.
The first difference is in the title of each (263-4). He understands fruits/graces (which are synonymous in Owen’s nomenclature) as coming from the Holy Spirit as from a fountain welling up inside a person, whereas the gifts are effects of the Spirit’s work on a man (as opposed to in a man).
The second difference lies in their intentional origin. Fruit/grace comes from divine election to salvation, whereas the gifts only come from a temporary election unto an office (264-6).
The third differences is in their respective relationship to the covenant of grace. Fruit/grace comes from the essence of the covenant, whereas the gifts are of the administration. An especially sobering warning comes in at this point to all who have an office in Christ’s church: “some may belong to the covenant with respect to its outward administration, by virtue of spiritual gifts, who are not made partakers of its inward effectual grace” (267).
The fourth difference is in how they relate to Christ’s work. The fruit/grace comes from the priestly work of Christ, whereas the gifts come from His kingly office. This is nuanced a bit by the thought that the kingly office of Christ is also involved in pointing us towards His priestly work, but it is secondary to the kingly office. The gifts, however, come solely from His kingly office.
The fifth difference is one I have questions about, since he thinks the gifts can be temporary, whereas the fruit/grace are not. I would ask Owen (who doesn’t deal with this passage in this context) how he would address Romans 11:29: “For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable” (ESV). I suspect Owen would argue that the context of that verse is not about office, but about salvation. But that is only a guess.
The sixth difference has to do with its purpose. With fruit/grace, the primary benefit is for the immediate recipient, and secondarily other people. With gifts, it is the other way around: gifts are given for the benefit of people other than the recipient first of all, and the recipient only secondarily.
The seventh difference is in their effect on the recipient and where their seat is. The gifts reside only in the mind, whereas the fruit/grace reside everywhere in a human. Another warning to those in office arises here: “And although God does not ordinarily bestow them on flagitious persons, nor continue them with such as after the reception of them become flagitious, yet they may be in those who are unrenewed, and have nothing in them to preserve men absolutely from the worst of sins” (271-2, emphasis added). Brilliant stuff.
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Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything. If one accepts circumcision, then he is obligated to keep the entire law. This is the state of having fallen away from grace (towards works!). This is being severed from Christ. This is one of the main reasons I call the HRM heresy: it is the exact same heresy as Paul was fighting in the letter to Galatians. 

The law of God is at the heart of the HRM and the debates surrounding it. The traditional understanding of God’s law is that there are three parts of the law and three uses of the law. Reformed understanding would also include three main principles for understanding the Ten Commandments (though I will not go through those principles in this post). As far as I can tell, the HRM rejects all or most of these distinctions.
The three parts of the law are the moral, civil, and ceremonial. The moral law is the Ten Commandments. The civil laws are those laws given to Israel as a political entity for the Old Testament time. They were given to Israel for the time when they were in the land (Deuteronomy 5-6, note the recurring phrase “in the land”). They taught the Israelites about holiness, being distinct from the rest of the world. they included laws such as not sowing the land with two different kinds of seeds, or weaving cloth with two different kinds of thread. The dietary laws are also usually reckoned to be in this category. The ceremonial law is the sacrificial system, the worship laws, the feasts and festivals. Of course, there has always been some debate about whether a particular law belongs in one or the other of these three basic categories. However, the vast majority of the church has held to this distinction for most of its history.
The HRM believes the church invented this distinction without any biblical basis whatsoever. The HRM erases category distinctions between sets of laws, thus (at least potentially) putting the law of two different kinds of threads on the same footing as “Do not murder.”
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