WHAT IS LEGALISM AND WHAT IS OUR ALTERNATIVE?

WHAT IS LEGALISM? ( AND WHAT IS OUR ALTERNATIVE?)

                There has been a general awakening throughout the Body of Christ concerning righteousness by faith. Some groups admit that we can’t be saved by keeping the Law and yet they continue to live by Law because… well…you can’t go on sinning and sin is the transgression of the Law and so we are sort of stuck between two covenants.

                Others respond to righteousness by faith by saying that the Law is done away and among those is a growing group of people who say sinning doesn’t matter anymore. We are under grace and grace forgives… and so they go out and live basically like the world… being entertained by the world and informed by the world and adopting the political correctness of the world and the politics of the world.

                Friends, I have been dealing with the Law for some time now and some of you are probably more than ready to get off the subject and to move on, but there is something so fundamental and vitally important about understanding the true function of the Law and the true function of grace that probably ninety percent of the Body of Christ doesn’t really understand it.

                So you have those groups that continue to preach the Law in one fashion or another because it supports their doctrine and you have others that try to live without Law and well, that has them falling away from the faith and preparing to wonder after the Beast whom the Bible describes as the” lawless one.” 2 Thess. 2:8, or “Man of sin” or Son of perdition.”

                Paul, in all of his dealings concerning the law seems threatening to those who are legalistic and they want to throw him out on one hand, while others embrace Paul in part, only, that is, to excuse themselves from the Law and its requirements. But Paul came neither to do away with the Law or to teach living by the Law but instead he is introducing a better way.

                What Paul is teaching us is that those who live by the Spirit will not carry out the deeds of the flesh and that the Law will be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. This is explained in his transition from Romans 7 to Romans 8. In fact Paul says:

                “For 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 8:8, 9.

                So this is a critical issue. We must be in the Spirit or we don’t even belong to Christ, but the issue is much more subtle than most people realize.  Let’s say for instance, that you belong to a church that is well organized, its services go off like clockwork, every detail is covered and planned out so that the service is going to go off without a hitch whether the Holy Spirit is there or not. The staff says a quick prayer before going on stage, in essence, asking God to bless their program, but it is a mere formality.

                Would you say that this church service is run by the talents and abilities, the planning and organization of man or of the Holy Spirit?  What happened to the first century church service where each person had a prophecy, a tongue, an interpretation of that tongue, where the Holy Spirit was vitally involved in the service to the point where healing took place and demons were cast out and miracles were common and where angels showed up to instruct people and visions and dreams directed and guided them, where people were set free from prison and the whole then known world was turned upside down by the Gospel that was being preached by a people who largely had to worship in hiding for fear of being burned at the stake or fed to the lions?

                Well, we don’t see those extremes today, at least in America, but that is largely due to the fact that we are living by the talents and abilities of man rather than by the Holy Spirit and fire that Jesus came to bring. This is exactly why our church is fasting and praying these forty days. This is not some traditional ritual we are going through. But seeing the critical times we are living in, our church is fasting and praying for the Holy Spirit and fire to come upon us for the harvest of souls. We want to be a light in our dark community and this is exactly what happens when the Holy Spirit is unleashed from our manmade limitations and controlled by our talents.

                It is absolutely critical that the church rise up to the occasion that we now face. The antichrist kingdom is being built up right before our faces and a large percentage of the church is asleep and with very little oil in their lamps. The Lord is calling His Body to revival and who is listening? Who knows where we are in time? Who understands Bible prophecy enough to see the huge trap and the giant deceptions that are looming on the horizon… or rather engulfing us right now?

                Much of the church is falling away on one side while the other part of the church remains powerless because they don’t know that in spite of their preaching that the Law was done away, they are living legalistic lives after all. Here is the true definition of legalism in my way of thinking.

                LEGALISM: In its subtle form is when the church service can go on with or without the Holy Spirit and fire. It is when the Holy Spirit is sidelined…relegated to a doctrinal shelf, but not an integral part of our lives or our services.

                We desperately need to understand what it is that Jesus brought to us when He brought us a New Covenant and a New Priesthood and a new Law, for where there is a change of priesthood there is of necessity a change of Law also. (Heb. 7:12) The Melchizedek Priesthood operates on a promise that was given 430 years before the Law was given on Sinai. The promise, as John the Baptist informed us is that while he preached a baptism of repentance, One was coming who would baptize us with the Holy Spirit and fire.” Mt. 3:11-12

                Well, how much of the Body of Christ is living by that Holy Spirit and fire today and how much of it is satisfied with the baptism of John?   (See Acts 19:1-6)

                Like I said, this is a critical issue in our day and we don’t leave the Law of Moses behind in order to please our flesh, but to receive the Baptism of the Holy Spirit and Fire. So if you attend a church service in which it makes no difference as to whether the Holy Spirit shows up or not, you are living in legalism even if you don’t preach the Law.       BUY WHY?  It is because we are either under Law or under grace and Grace is the power of God, brought into our lives and services by the Holy Spirit. We are either operating by the power of Law or by the power of the Holy Spirit and fire.

                We need more than information. We need transformation… and until we are being transformed we will remain a benign entity in our communities… and free of persecution as well, since we are not producing much light in this present darkness. We are not bothering the devil enough to get his attention.

                Jesus gave His life in order to bring us a New Covenant. Should we not   give that New Covenant our greatest attention? What did Jesus bring us with His blood and sacrifice? Was it so we could have bigger, better churches and prosperity in a worldly sense, or was He bringing us something that would transform His people into literal sons and daughters of God and brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ, who were becoming like Him and preparing to reign with Him on His throne?  You tell me.

                And if this is what Jesus died to bring us, then the Law of Moses is totally inadequate to get us there and the Levitical priesthood is inadequate and so we need to better understand what it means to be under the priesthood and the promises of Melchizedek.

                Jesus was introducing the New Covenant in His story of the good Samaritan. In this story Jesus was responding to a lawyer who asked Him: “What is written in the Law? How does it read to you?

                So Jesus responded with the Shema. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”

                Well, this satisfied the lawyer and so he said to Jesus: “You have answered correctly. Do this and you will live.”

                But then Jesus went on with what He had said by telling the story of the Good Samaritan. Under the Law it was perfectly okay to move to the other side of the road and to remain ritually pure by not touching the foreigner. But in the Royal Law, the Law that He would bring through His Melchizedek priesthood, a person would be constrained by the Holy Spirit to get his hands dirty so to speak and to tend to the needs of the injured man. This is the difference between Law and grace.

                Today we close ourselves up in the relative safety of our churches and ignore the hurting in the world. We want to maintain our “ritual purity” so to speak and we understand that we no longer have the power of the Holy Spirit to actually rescue the perishing and so we pass by on the other side of the road. Is any of this getting through to us?

                Friends, we desperately need to seek and to cry out for the Holy Spirit and fire that Jesus brought to us at the cost of His own life. We desperately need to understand the Melchizedek priesthood that we now live under. The promises are all available to us through the one Seed, that is Christ and it says that through faith in Christ we become Abraham’s seed and heirs according to promise.

                This doesn’t mean that we become Jews. What it means is that we come under the priesthood of Melchizedek that Abraham was under. It is a covenant of promise that included our becoming sons and daughters of God who would someday reign on the throne with Jesus as His brothers and sisters and we would be empowered by His same Spirit and we would love like He loves and that kind of love does not do away with the Law of Moses, but fulfills it in ways that far exceed anything that the Law of Moses was able to produce in us.

                We need to rightly understand the function of the Law of Moses, for its job was as a tutor to lead us to Christ… to enter by faith into His death and to be born again by the power of His resurrection and to henceforth live by the power of His indwelling Holy Spirit and fire in our lives. This is the REST wherewith He has called the weary to rest, for we are living by His power and not our own. This is the message that we need to understand as we face the final harvest and the monster deceptions that will, if possible deceive even the very elect. We need to live as citizens of the Melchizedek priesthood and the powers of the age to come. Not as a spectacle, but as a way of life.)

                “For on the one hand, there is a setting aside of a former commandment because of its weakness and uselessness, (For the Law made nothing perfect) and on the other hand there is a bringing in of a better hope, through which we draw near to God.” Heb. 7:18, 19.

                The book of Hebrews deals with this transition from the Levitical priesthood and laws and ceremonies, by firstly presenting to us how great Jesus was and is. He came down to our level, being made a little lower than the angels in order to taste death for us, but now He has been given a name that is above every name and authority in both heaven and on earth and in all of this and by dying even the death of the cross, He brought to us a new covenant and a new priesthood and a new Law. It is a Law and a priesthood that far surpasses the Od Covenant in every way… not by doing away with it, but fulfilling it abundantly and then moving on to greater things having to do with our adoption as sons and daughters of God and joint heirs with Jesus… being formed into His likeness and character. This, the Law of Moses can never do.

                By being both truly man and truly God, Jesus became by His very nature our Mediator between God and Man. Likewise He is the only One in heaven and on earth that could qualify to bring us a new High Priesthood and a new Law. This New Covenant was promised all the way back in Jeremiah’s time when he said: “Behold days are coming” declares the Lord” when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, NOT LIKE THE COVENANT WHICH I MADE WITH THEIR FATHERS IN THE DAY I TOOK THEM BY THE HAND TO BRING THEM OUT OF THE LAND OF EGYPT…”

                So if the New Covenant is not like the Old Covenant then how is it different   and why do we keep on trying to fulfill the New Covenant with Old Covenant Laws?

                In other words, the Melchizedek covenant that Jesus brought to us at the cost of His life is not like the Law on Sinai. It is infinitely superior and able to transform the hearts of mankind and to form us into the image and likeness of Jesus Christ. “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren…” Romans 8:29.

                It is time for us to better understand this covenant that Jesus brought to us…and to enter into its Holy Spirit and fire. Both those who preach the Law and those who do away with the Law have a fundamental misunderstanding of the Melchizedek Priesthood and Law that Jesus brought to us at the cost of His life. (See Galatians 2:21)

                So let us press in to that which Jesus has called us. Study the book of Hebrews with new eyes. There is a message there that is absolutely essential to our times and very few understand it as it is intended to be understood. Jesus died to bring us this New Covenant. Should we not give it our most fervent attention?