When Adam and Eve entertained the first thought of being separated from God, they brought in the law: What must I DO to become like God, to regain His favor and acceptance?
Being “under the law,” (having a consciousness of having to do anything to be accepted by God) precludes (prevents from happening; makes impossible) our receiving the grace of God (which excludes works of any kind (Ephesians 2:9)). This is symbolized in Genesis by this verse:
Genesis 3:24 So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.
The “tree of life” represents eternal life. If man were to gain eternal life through the law, that life would be “hell,” as we have all experienced while trying to keep the law to attain righteousness. We find it impossible and all end up crying out with Paul
Romans 7:24 O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
The law is the “ministration of death” (2Corinthians 3:7), not life.
The only One who could “deliver” us “from the body of this death” was God Himself in the form of Jesus. It was on the cross that that He destroyed that “body of sin” (Romans 6:6) which the writer of Hebrews called the “devil” (Hebrews 2:14-15), the “serpent” or carnal mind of man which is the feeling of separation and the corresponding need to obey some rule to be accepted. That is the “conscience of sins” that had to be “purged” (Hebrews 10:2) before man could be “born again” and find his way back to the “paradise of God” and “eat of the tree of life” (Revelation 2:7). We had to be “delivered from the law” (Romans 7:6).
The whole of the New Testament from Acts onwards is a record of those writers’ (particularly Paul and the writer of the book of Hebrews, who many believe to be Paul) attempts to educate the early church concerning this truth about law and grace. It is also a record of how difficult that task was, for in our humanity we just naturally gravitate back to the law. Like the Romans, we fear that teaching people to live by grace is just giving them a license to sin (Romans 6:1).
Sadly, the history of the church is a record of church leaders attempting to control the masses by invoking the law to instill fear in them, as it did in Adam (Genesis 3:10). We have been taught by the church that to live by grace is a sure road to deception; and most who have dared to do it anyway have been rejected by the church and proclaimed to be heretics.
What we have not realized is that sin, death and the law are inextricably linked. To be delivered from sin is to be delivered from the law, and to be delivered from the law is to be delivered from death (which came in with the law). Paul said:
Romans 7:9 For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.
The very first mention of death in the Bible is God’s telling Adam and Eve what would happen if they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil:
Genesis 2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
They would “die” because they came under the law of having to decide what was good and what was evil and choose to do the one and refrain from doing the other to be accepted by God.
God does not punish sin; its “punishment” is inherent in it because it is only when there is law that one can sin.
Romans 4:15 . . . the law worketh wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression.
1Corinthians 15:56 The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.
And the result of sin is always death:
Romans 6:23 For the wages [something earned through works] of sin is death;
whereas life comes only when we cease to work
Romans 6:23 . . . .but the GIFT [something that cannot be earned, just received] of God is eternal life [the only LIFE there is] through Jesus Christ our Lord.
As “able ministers of the new testament,” this is the good news that we are to take to the nations, that, as in the story of the prodigal son, our relationship to our Father is “not of the letter [obeying rules; keeping the law], but of the spirit [humbly accepting the inheritance of sonship offered by our Father]; for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life” (2Corinthians 3:6). Although the elder brother was also an heir of all that the Father had, he could not enjoy the “life” that it brought because he was working to receive it. He was as Paul before his revelation of grace—”touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless” (Philippians 3:6). But also like Paul, he will have to count all that righteousness as “but dung” (v 8) to enter into the “life” that comes with allowing Jesus to be his righteousness, a righteousness that is “without the law” (Romans 3:21).
1Corinthians 1:30 But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:
When Paul said that he was the “chief” of “sinners” that “Christ Jesus came into the world to save” (1Timothy 1:15), he was not referring to his having Christians killed, but rather to how bound to the law he had been (which is the only reason he felt compelled to have them killed). He had been living a very zealous life in what he believed to be service to God, but by the “letter” (following outside rules) rather than by the “spirit” (receiving guidance from within). His dramatic encounter with the risen Christ who had taken up His abode in all mankind is the story of us all. That Christ is continually knocking at the door of our hearts, asking to live our life for us so that we can cease all our vain attempts to find life in that which we do and don’t do in our humanity.
March 10, 2017
I had to leave off writing yesterday to meet with a friend I haven’t seen for several years. It was a time of sweet fellowship as each of us shared our spiritual journey since we had last talked. Her life (and that of her husband) had literally been transformed by her participation in a church where she had come into an intimacy with God she had long read about but had never experienced. I felt such joy for her as I listened, but also a bit of sadness that I had not been able to help her in years past when she was opening her heart to me.
I came home late and fell asleep not long afterwards. About midnight I awakened feeling very panicky. I knew that my friend and I were not on the same page doctrinally, that we had significant differences in our reading of Scripture. But I could not deny that she had increased in her knowledge of God to such an extent that she was “bearing fruit unto God.” This being the case, I felt very threatened. Did this mean that what I thought God had revealed to me was wrong? Could I trust anything I thought I was hearing?
I got out of bed, went into the living room, and began to listen to whatever God would say to me. The very first thing I heard was, “This is the law operating. People who are under the law always want to have it ‘right.’ That’s what gives them security. And that’s why you are so threatened by the prospect that you may not be right.”
And then God began to show me how much bigger He is than either my or my friend’s concept of Him, that neither of us (or anyone else) will ever get it “right” because it is beyond our comprehension.
Romans 11:33 O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!
I understood that coming out from under the law and living by grace is not about me and my understanding at all; it is all about the Christ that is living me:
Ephesians 3:8 Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ;
Wave after wave of God’s love swept over me, love that I will never fathom, and don’t even need to—because it cannot be known:
Ephesians 3:19 And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.
I felt the “burden” of the law being lifted as my “husband,” the law, was dealt the death blow. I knew I was experiencing Romans 7 being fulfilled in my life:
Romans 7:1 Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth? 2 For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. 3 So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man. 4 Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. 5 For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. 6 But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.
I was no longer “bound” to the law that had kept me a prisoner for as long as I could remember, making demands of me that could never be satisfied. I was now “married to another” (see Married to Christ the King) and would never again be entangled in that “yoke of bondage.”
Galatians 5:1 Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
I am in a different “yoke” now, one that is “easy,” one that brings “rest” to my soul which has become very “weary” from my ceaseless and futile attempts to keep the “law.”
Matthew 11:28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
Oh, I’m not so naive as to think I will never again be tempted with my “natural” man wanting to find relief by finding a law to obey. I know it is the law itself that wants to find the “right” formula for coming out from under the law. Yes, it is that insidious! That’s why I’ve written this contemplation—so that when those temptations occur, I can come back to it and renew my mind to this truth which has been revealed to me.