TOUGH QUESTIONS PART TWO

TOUGH QUESTIONS PART TWO

                Our first question from “tough Questions part one had to do with Law and Grace and here we deal with what appears to be an apparent paradox. Jesus said, “If you love me you will keep My commandments.”  John 14:15. He also said that not one jot or tittle will in any wise pass from the Law until all is fulfilled. Mt. 5:18, Luke 16:17. Then to add to this list Jesus identifies His remnant people in the end times as keeping the commandments of God. Rev. 12:17 and rev. 14:12

                However, if we read Paul’s writings and especially the book of Galatians, he states emphatically that we are no longer under Law saying that the Law is not of faith… on the contrary He who practices them shall live by them. Gal. 3:11 For as many as are under the Law are under a curse.””

                 Paul throws down the gauntlet beginning in Gal 3:1-5 saying unequivocally: “You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified? This is the only thing I want to find out from you, did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit are you now being perfected in the flesh? Does He then who provides you with the Spirit and works miracles among you do it by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith?

                Paul then goes on to tell us that the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, but now that we have come to Christ we are no longer under a tutor. It cannot be more clearly stated. He is teaching us that we as Gentile Christians are not under obligation to the Law of God at all, but that we are to live by the Spirit and by faith in Christ as opposed to keeping the Law.

                Well, the two views, one of Christ and one of Paul could not appear to be more contradictory than that and yet Jesus Himself called Paul to define the New Covenant for us.

                Yesterday I watched a documentary in which a Christian man talked about the subject of “As it was in the days of Noah. “He took to the streets to ask young people everywhere if they believed that there was a man named Noah and that there was a worldwide flood. The answers were almost 100% no, but the shocker was that a large number of these claimed to be born again Christians. They had almost zero knowledge of the Bible, cursed and sword, were sleeping together with whomever some of the same sex and some hetero and otherwise living totally apart from anything one would identify as “Christian.”

                Clearly these people need the ministry of the 10 Commandments, for in my book they are not in a saving relationship with Jesus. Most of them did not believe we are living in the end times, or that Jesus will return and most didn’t care one way or the other, but when confronted with their sins, some of them quipped that they would go to church tomorrow and confess yet again. But initially they had no sense of a need to change or repent or turn from sin. It was shocking…. And especially so because wherever they were going to church, they had never been confronted with sin and obedience or anything we might call “biblical” at all.

                Something is drastically wrong in society today and given the number of people interviewed, much of the church has stopped being a light in a fallen society. But in spite of this shameful lack of morality on any level, we are still faced with a paradox. Who was right Jesus or Paul?

                Well, both are 100% right, for on one hand Jesus was introducing a New Covenant into which no one can enter without being born into it and when we are born into the New Covenant we are no longer under the Old Covenant. In other words the Law has finished its work when it has brought us to the cross, where we enter into the death and resurrection and we are born into a New Covenant with a New Priesthood and a change of Law. It is the Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.

                What Paul is telling us is that once we have passed through that death and resurrection to live by the Spirit of Christ we dare not go back to life under the Law, for the Law has no ability to transform us, but only to condemn us and to lead us to the cross.

                But the reason that those young, so called born again Christians, are in need of the Law is because they have only been taught that the Law was done away, but they have never been taught how one actually moves into the New Covenant in which the Law no longer functions as our master.

                Let’s listen much more closely to what Paul is saying in Galatians 2:16-21 where he says:

                “Nevertheless knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law, but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the Law; since by the works of the Law shall no flesh be justified.”

               

                So here it is very clear. We cannot be justified by the works of the Law and if we are not justified, neither are we saved. Keeping the Law will in no way save us, but we need to fully understand how it is that we pass out from under the Law and that is what Paul explains next. He says in verse 17:

                But if while seeking to be justified in Christ we ourselves have also been found sinners, is Christ then a minister of sin? MAY IT NEVER BE!” (In other words for those young people on the street, Jesus is not their minister because Jesus does not condone sin in any form.) They are not listening to Him or obeying Him.

               

                But now let’s press into what Paul is actually saying. “For if I rebuild what I have once destroyed, I prove myself to be a transgressor.” (A transgressor of what?...The Law?) For through the Law I died to the Law, that I might live to God.

                What Paul is saying here is that we no longer live our lives as if standing in front of the Law. We now live our lives as if standing in front of God.

                Some of us have a hard time believing it, but even as Jesus was fulfilling the Law in its every detail, He was also introducing a New Covenant. This New Covenant would be made possible by His death and resurrection and His subsequent High Priesthood, for when we move from a position of standing before the Law to a position of standing before God, not only are our actions judged, but also our motives. Did you not hear what Jesus said? He said: “You have heard it said you shall not commit adultery: but I say to you, that everyone who looks on a woman to lust for her has committed adultery with her already in his heart.”

                Did you realize that Jesus is here introducing the New Covenant that He would bring to us? If we stand before the Law, then the Law can only condemn the act of adultery, but if we are standing before God, then our motives are judged as well so that if we mentally go through the act of adultery as lust, it is the same as having done it.

                So Paul, in keeping with what Jesus was teaching, brought us into a New Covenant in which the Law falls far short. It cannot judge our motives, but only our actions. But Jesus came to clean the inside of the cup as well as the outside of the cup and that means coming into our hearts by His Holy Spirit and healing our motives as well as our actions.

                So, as a tool to condemn sin and to lead us to the foot of the cross, the Law is very good… but once having brought us to our death, the Law is a poor substitute for the Life of Christ that He imparts to us by His Holy Spirit.

                And so let us really get to the heart of what Paul is teaching and why it is totally compatible with what Jesus was teaching.

                “For through the Law I died to the Law, that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loves me and delivered Himself up for me. I do not nullify the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly.” Gal. 2:19-21

                In other words, Christians that keep preaching the Law to other Christians are preaching a weak Gospel that cannot save them… and this is why I emphasize Romans 8 so much. It is those who are led by the Spirit of God that are the sons of God.” Romans 8:14 And if we are living by the Spirit of God, not only will we stop sinning as an act, but we will be healed of our sins in the form of motive as well. (That is our iniquities.)

                Paul is not doing away with the Law so that we can sin, but so that we might overcome from the inside out and that is something that the Law cannot do. Galatians 2:20 is the key passageway from one world to another. We die in one world and we are born again into another world, the kingdom of Christ wherein we no longer live by the Law, but by His Holy Spirit. This is in fact the only way in which the Law can be fulfilled in us, Romans 8:1-4.

                So when the book of Revelation tells us that the Remnant people keep the commandments, it is talking about a group of people who are living by the Spirit of God and  not by the flesh… for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

                We need to take the Melchizedek Priesthood more seriously than we do. Jesus totally fulfilled the Levitical Priesthood by becoming the true Lamb which they slaughtered and Hebrews 7: 11-12 says:

                Now if perfection was through the Levitical priesthood (For on the basis of it the people received the Law) what further need was there for another priest to arise according to the order of Melchizedek and not be designated according to the order of Aaron? For when the priesthood is changed, of necessity there takes place a change of law also…”

                “After those days says the Lord; I will put My laws into their minds and I will write them upon their hearts and I will be their God and they shall be My people.” This New Covenant it is said in Hebrews 8:9 and in Jeremiah 31:32 that the New Covenant will NOT BE LIKE the Old Covenant that they received when they came out of Egypt and then the writer goes on to say:” When He said “A New Covenant,” He has made the first covenant obsolete. Heb. 8:13.  Are we getting the message yet?

                So, while the Old Covenant bears testimony to the New Covenant and is indeed its foundation, we are definitely no longer under the Old Covenant, neither do we need to supplement the New Covenant with the Old Covenant for the New Covenant is far superior to the Old and is indeed fully sufficient for our salvation in every way.

                Was there a controversy between what Paul said and what Jesus said? No. Jesus totally fulfilled the Law so that He could return to heaven as our High Priest of a New Covenant and a new Law. It is the Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus so that the Law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. Those young people on the sidewalks of America are not in the New Covenant for they are living by the flesh in every way. Their only hope and chance is to repent and turn from their sins and to be truly born again so that they can live by the Spirit of God and not by their flesh.

                If we keep reverting to the Law of Moses, then we have not yet received a revelation of Jesus as Our high Priest after the order of Melchizedek. Jesus and Paul taught the exact same thing… in fact Jesus went to the cross in order to bring to us what Paul told us He brought. We need to enter more fully into the New Covenant, for much of the church lives in a no man’s land between two covenants and as such they are not satisfying either covenant.

                Our next two articles will deal with when exactly the New Covenant was activated and when Jesus entered into heaven to be our High Priest after the Order of Melchizedek and the one after that will be about the Sabbath. So fasten your seatbelts.