WHO ARE THEY?


WHO ARE THEY?

                When we see this massive crowd of people standing on the Sea of Glass and singing the Song of Moses and the Lamb, this tells us something about this crowd. They, for instance, cannot be of the people who say that the Law is done away. We take the song of Moses and the Lamb for granted simply because the book of Revelation has always been there, at least since the end of the first century.

                But now we must ask: what does it mean that this group has somehow combined the song of Moses and the song of the Lamb into one song? Does this represent some sort of return to legalism? I think not.

                Obedience to God is not legalism. It is respect for our King… in fact, in spite of fact that so many today are not teaching obedience, the truth remains that if we are to make Him our Savior, we must also make Him our Lord. And this making Him Lord, requires the New Birth and the receiving of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit simply because in our flesh we cannot do one good thing.

                This is why Jesus gave the parable of the ten virgins. They had no oil and so they were unable to please and obey God. Their works born of the flesh and not of the Spirit had no eternal value to them.

                But keeping the Ten Commandments is not legalism either, for it is fulfilled in those who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. Romans 8:4. Of this the Sabbath is a perfect picture, for as it says in Hebrews 4: 9, 10: “There remains therefore a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His.“

                Jesus said: “Come unto Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden and I will give you rest.” Mt. 11:28. So whereas the Jews obtained physical rest by refraining from physical work on the Sabbath, we obtain spiritual rest, by entering into Christ. It is the fruit of the Spirit that fulfills the Law in and through us as we live by His power and not our own.

                So, those who try to keep the Ten Commandments legalistically according to the letter of the law, are in no way attaining to the righteousness of Christ, and likewise, those who say that the Law was done away are doing away with the foundations of God’s righteous government      .

                We find ourselves in a sort of paradox between law and grace and it is a paradox that can only be answered by Romans 8.

                “For what the Law could not do, weak as it was in the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh IN ORDER THAT THE REEQUIREMENT OF THE LAW MIGHT BE FULFILLED IN US WHO DO NOT WALK ACCORDING TO THE FLESH, BUT ACCORDING TO THE SPIRIT…. And those who are in the flesh cannot please God. However you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ he does not belong to Him. Romans 8:3-9

                Only in this way is the paradox healed. Jesus sent His Holy Spirit into our lives so that we can be as Him in the world. We no longer live for ourselves, or by our own strength. Instead we live for Him and by His power. This then is not legalism at all, but a continuous flow of the fruit of the Spirit through our lives.  By this flow we are transformed into His image from glory to glory.

                In Philippians 3 Paul lists all of his credentials, his education and his law keeping and then he writes it all off as dung, or rubbish. Whaaaaat?  But what Paul is saying is that everything that he had done in the flesh, whether good or bad, died with Him that day at the cross.  His entire life in the flesh went into the grave… gone forever. And when he rose from that watery tomb he was now living by a completely different source and power. Old things had passed away and behold all things had become new.

                This fact Paul states succinctly in Galatians 2:20 saying: “I am crucified with Christ nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me and the life that I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave His life for me.”

                This is the Rest wherewith He has called the weary to rest and that is why both those who do away with the Law and those who promote the Law are wrong. The new birth enters us into an entirely new dimension. It is a dimension empowered by the Spirit of Christ. It is a dimension in which rivers of living water flow from our innermost being. Jesus didn’t die so that we could keep the Law better. He died so that we could live by His Spirit and thus fulfil the Law through love.

                If we can for once gain a full understanding of this dimension we will be able to sing with our full hearts the Song of Moses and the Lamb. The Law is the DNA… the foundation upon which the Gospel sits. We cannot tear them apart. But the Law’s job is to bring us to the foot of the cross, where we die to the Law, and we are born again into the Spirit of Christ so that the life that we now live in the flesh we live by faith in the Son of God. We live by His Spirit and therefore we do not carry out the deeds of the flesh. We live in obedience to the Spirit and we bear the fruit of the Spirit and we minister in the power of the Spirit and in the end we will be raised up by that same Spirit.

                The Law could not do any of this. But it did accomplish that which God sent it into the world to do. It brought us to death at the foot of the cross so that we may be born again in the power of His resurrection to live holy lives by His Holy Spirit.

                So prepare your heart to sing the Song of Moses and the Lamb singing:

                “Great and marvelous are Thy works, O Lord God the Almighty. Righteous and true are Thy ways, Thou King of the nations. Who shall not fear, O Lord and glorify Thy name, for Thou alone art holy. For all the nations shall come and worship before Thee. For thy righteous acts have been revealed.” Rev. 15:3

                So who are they? Who are those we see standing on the Sea of Glass? It is us! We are the remnant in whom the paradox has been healed… for the life of the Spirit of Christ in our mortal bodies will have fully satisfied God’s law and we will be found in His image. There is no mention of our own works in that song, but only His… for He has done all things in us and for us and through us and in that day we will give Him all the glory! Hallelujah!

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