GOOD AND BAD MARRIAGES

GOOD AND BAD MARRIAGES

                Bonnie and I really enjoy being together. We don’t need our own space, simply because at any given moment we would rather be together than apart. We delight in each other’s company. We sleep together like a nest full of newborn puppies. We work together and have fun doing it. We pray together until the presence of God comes down. We laugh at each other and with each other. We face all of our challenges with meaningful discussion and prayer. We have a good marriage.

                So it is within this context that I say, that if someone came to us with a book of the laws of marriage and a written recording of our vows and told us that we had better toe the line, we would find the idea absurd. If we managed to read the book and the vows, chances are we would have to admit that we do all of those things and much more, not because they are written somewhere, but because we genuinely love each other. We don’t need a check list. We just do what love does.

                The same is true if we are genuinely born again and Spirit filled. If we are living according to the Spirit and not according to the flesh, then as such we don’t need the Law. It is written in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. We move on to better things like bearing the fruit of the Spirit against which there is no law. Our relationship with Yeshua and with others just keeps on growing and becoming more intimate.

                If there is something important to which we have been blind, the Holy Spirit will bring it to our attention as a matter of revelation. That is the Holy Spirit’s job… to guide us into all truth.

                So if people go around preaching the Law, the Law… the Law all the time you have to begin to wonder if they have a Spirit filled Born again relationship with Christ or if they are still trying to slug it out in the flesh. I see people all the time that have made an idol out of the Sabbath, when in fact they have never entered into the REST that the Sabbath represents.

                Our REST comes from Yeshua and not from a 24 hour day that we might keep according to the Law. So yes, there is a paradox in Galatians and in all of Paul’s writings. The paradox is that the Law is holy and righteous and good, but at the same time we can never arrive at holiness and righteousness by keeping it. The Law is not asking for our strict obedience… it is asking for our death. So we can choose to die for our own sins, or we can accept the precious blood of Jesus. We can enter by faith into His death and then we can be born again by the power of His resurrection to live a life that is made possible by the indwelling of Christ through His Holy Spirit in our hearts.

                In this new arrangement the Law is not broken. It is fulfilled in us as we live by the Spirit and not by the flesh. So in this good Spirit filled relationship with Jesus, we don’t need to keep checking back with the Law to see how we are doing. Instead we just go on building a good marriage based on genuine love. “The Law was not written for the righteous man but for the sinner.” 1 Tim. 1:9-15.

                Now, let’s say that there is a couple that has a bad marriage. They don’t get along. They don’t agree about anything. They have no meaningful fellowship and both of them are thinking about cheating on their marriage because they have found “soul mates” on the outside.

                For such a couple, it might be good to go to counselling and to rethink the laws of marriage and to decide whether they are going to get in line with them or if they are going to divorce and go out and find that” honey that seems to understand them better.” (And let me tell you what a huge lie that is, because chances are the problem lies with you, so unless you change, you are going to carry the same problems into your next marriage as well.

                Likewise, if in our relationship with Jesus Christ, we refuse to become one with Him. If we refuse to enter into His death and resurrection… if we refuse to live by His Word in the Spirit, then we are under law. THE ONLY WAY OUT FROM UNDER LAW IS THROUGH DEATH. So unless you are truly born again and Spirit filled you are still under law.

                This is the problem I see with people that grab hold of the “Gospel” and they go out and do away with the Law, but they do not die in Christ and they are not truly born again and Spirit filled. They love to go around proclaiming their freedom and they will argue endlessly by using only the texts that support their side of the argument, while all along they are under law whether they like the Law or not.

                This is precisely why Jesus said to Nicodemus: “Truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

                We trifle with the New Birth as if it is only for bumper stickers, but in being born again we cross an infinite chasm between two Kingdoms and the only way across that chasm is through the cross of Jesus Christ. The Law can only bring us to the edge of that chasm. It can’t take us to the other side. And once we have crossed that chasm we must begin to live by another Law the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. It is a Law written on our hearts by the Holy Spirit and it will perfectly fulfill the Law of God, but it will do so using a whole new source of power and a new heart and a new spirit in which we become temples of the Holy Spirit.

                It can be said in many instances that those who preach the Law don’t understand grace, while at the same time, those who preach grace don’t understand the Law.

                What was wrong with the Law that it needed to be replaced?

1.       It was based upon the blood of animals that pointed forward to the true Lamb of God who alone could take away sin. It required a better sacrifice.

2.       It was limited by the weakness of the people because they were unable to keep it. The Law requires infinitely more than flesh can produce. Why? Because it involves falling short of the glory of God. So how are you going to attain to the glory of God in the flesh?

                So, as Hebrews 8:6 says, Jesus has become the Mediator of a better covenant. It is a covenant in which He Himself fulfills the Law, not only historically, but in each one of us as we walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. It is His righteousness. As Hebrews 10:14 says: “For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.

                Are you sanctified… set apart… dead to the world and alive to the Spirit? Have you crossed that infinite chasm and entered into the kingdom of God? Then His perfection abides in you.

                Heb. 10:10 says: “By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

                Jesus did and He continues to do everything for us. But none of what He did is of any benefit to us unless as Jesus says, we have been born again… we have to enter His kingdom through His cross. If we have done that then everything in the Bible belongs to us through Yeshua. The promises were written to Jesus Christ, the one SEED. WE receive them all when we receive Him.

                “Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, “And to Seeds,” as referring to many but rather to one, “And to Your Seed,” that is Christ.” Then Paul goes on to say: “What I am saying is this: the Law which came four hundred and thirty years later does not invalidate a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to nullify the promise.”

                So, how then do we get out from under Law in order to live by the promises previously made between God and Abraham long before the Law was written?

                Galatians 3:29 says: “And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.”  (Not Moses’ offspring, but Abraham’s offspring.) Romans 7: 4 says: Therefore my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, that you might be joined to another, to Him who rose from the dead that we might bear fruit unto God.”

                In Romans chapter 7 Paul describes a person who is under law. He admits that the Law is holy and righteous and good, V. 12, but he then goes on to say that the Law is spiritual, but unfortunately he is not spiritual but in the flesh. And in verse 24 he says: “Oh wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death?”

                Notice here that he didn’t ask for the death of the Law. It was he who must die. So in Romans 7 and 8 we see 3 laws mentioned:

1.       Law #1… the Ten Commandments  Rom. 7:6

2.       Law #2…The law of sin and death in the members of our body. Rom. 7:23

3.       Law #3…The Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. Rom 8:2

                Herein the riddle or the paradox of Law verses Grace is perfectly reconciled in that Law #3 (The Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus) sets us free from Law# 2 (The law of sin and death) so that Law #1 (the Ten Commandments) might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.

                It is clear then that we do not do away with the Ten Commandments. We do not break them in the New Covenant. However, as we walk in the Spirit, the Law on stone will become less and less relevant as we bear the fruit of the Spirit in our lives. With Yeshua we will have a “Good Marriage” and as such His laws are written in our hearts in terms of love and faithfulness, rather than in the form of prohibitions. Love does what is right without a law. “For those who are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.

                I once attended a church made up of ex-Adventists who had supposedly found the Gospel. That church was filled with every sort of debauchery, wife swapping, incest, deviant sex of every form. I attended there for a while until I realized that this was not the answer. They were under far more bondage than the Law had ever kept them in. Something was missing. And in spite of the fact that I was looking for release from legalism myself, I knew instinctively that this kind of “Gospel” was not the answer.

                 It is not the Law that must die. It is us who must die and be born again and filled with the Holy Spirit so that we can live by the Spirit and not by the flesh. Herein is true and lasting freedom. This kind of relationship with the Lord makes for a good marriage. And it will make us into spotless brides adorned for our Husband Yeshua when He comes. Have you found REST from your labors? It is found in Jesus Christ our Lord.

                “Come unto Me all you that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you shall find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My load is light. ” Mt. 11:28-30