Me and the Law

For the longest time I wasn’t going anywhere as a Christian and it was because I could never get my head around the concept that to make progress in the Christian life you have to surrender it to Jesus Christ.

For me to make progress you had to do something to cause spiritual progress. I couldn’t fathom that for me to make progress God had to do something. I’ve always looked at the bible as one book and I love the Torah more than the New Testament. No I love Jesus more than anything but he’s in the Torah as well. You just have to know what you’re reading about.

So... I began to envy the Old Testament saints. You see, in the days of the Torah it was simple. Obey the law, make sacrifice for your family and you’re as good as there. It’s a paint by numbers process and I’m a paint by numbers kind of guy. Simple.

Look, I know the Old Testament life and being under the Law means death. No man except the only begotten Son of God, Jesus Christ, could live under the Law and not sin. Even the Christian, saved under Grace in Jesus Christ is generally not repentant and no where near living a sinless life because he, or she, doesn’t surrender to the Holy Spirit. My original problem actually.

The saints of the Torah waited until Jesus of Nazareth was resurrected for Salvation just as we depend on him for salvation now. Anyway, in defeat I couldn’t see a way clear and so I wished I’d been born in the Old Testament times. I love the idea of knowing exactly what I need to do to make the grade and I find the confusion amongst Christianity about what is needful to be done to be an anathema to the soul. It is positively corrosive to the Christian life.

Most Christians follow the Pauline teachings and tend to de-emphasize the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. Everything that Jesus said was based around loving God and loving your fellow man as you love yourself. The Lord dealt with the individual and helped them by meeting their needs and leading them toward salvation. Paul focused on the detail of the Christian daily life and the politics of the Church. His emphasis was more obey the Earthly government and it’s dictates and believe the theological pedagogy that I lay down or there will be trouble. I know folk reading this will take issue with what I am saying and that’s fair enough. I love Paul and and I follow his writings and if we didn’t have them we’d have a Church in turmoil. What I’m saying is that the gospels have at least equal weight to the writings of Paul and the life of the Savior is what we should be basing our life on.

Further and finally actually, Jesus said in Matthew 5:17 “Think not that I came to destroy the law or the prophets: I came not to destroy, but to fulfil.” ASV Jehovah had also spoken in his word of the new covenant. The prophet Jeremiah said this in the book of Jeremiah chapter 31 verses 31-34

“Surely, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It will not be according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, because they broke My covenant, although I was a husband to them, says the Lord. But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law within them and write it in their hearts;and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. They shall teach no more every man his neighbor and every man his brother, saying, “Know the Lord,” for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. MEV

 

This scripture is repeated in the book of Hebrews chapter 8 verses 7-11 by Paul, I believe. The thought that I would leave you with is that in Christ we are freed from sin should we choose to lay to rest the old fleshly nature and surrender to the Holy Spirit that he might reveal Christ in us. But sin exists because of the law. In fact it is the breaking of the law that creates sin. So if sin and it’s defeat is important to us we need to know the law. For we a no longer bound by sin because in Christ Jesus and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit we can fulfill the law and overcome sin.

The Holy Bible is on book my friends and you need to read and understand it. All of it.