Following Judah's Lion: Our Freedom in Christ

Following Judah's Lion: Our Freedom in Christ

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Our Freedom in Christ

Our Freedom in Christ

Heb.10:1 For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect.

The law, moral or otherwise, could never make anyone perfect and redeemed before God. In fact, everyone, saved and unsaved, breaks the law every single day. And lest you believe you have kept it, Jesus taught that thoughts were sin as well. Let us confess, that even though our lives have changed and we desire to serve Christ, we still sin every single day.

But the Apostle Paul makes something seriously clear as well. Any mixing of law with grace is poison to the grace of God. He even calls it falling from grace, which is spiritual death. There can be no debate about it, the law, the Mosaic Law, is now dead and gone, and when seen through the prism of the ministration of life it was not our friend.

Now some evangelicals will embrace the theology that anyone who is redeemed is redeemed completely by grace through faith. But then they attempt to measure a person’s spiritual growth by the yard stick of the law. In effect, they resurrect the law and incorporate it into New Testament discipleship. Here we see an end run around the teachings of the New Testament. And it is a clandestine exhibition of self righteousness.

Gal.3:1 O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you?
2 This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?
3 Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?

Again Paul makes it ever so clear. The law cannot even aid in sanctification and the process of perfecting. How much clearer can Paul be? The law is now dead. It has served its purpose and now it is no longer useful at all. Think about it. If the law can aid in sanctification or spiritual growth, then you are denying the complete efficacy of the cross and the resurrection, and in essence you are saying that the blood of bulls and goats could not save, but they can help. That is heresy.

II Cor.3:6 Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.
7 But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away:
8 How shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather glorious?

What are we saying when we paste the Ten Commandments on our walls? Are we saying the MINISTRATION OF DEATH can give life?? And what, pray tell, do the words “Which glory was to be done away” literally mean? Paul spent his entire ministry attempting to extricate believing Jews from the dictates, traditions, and the ceremonies connected with the law. Paul was almost murdered because he taught men everywhere that they need not follow the Mosaic Law.

Are we who were drawn by the Spirit, saw Christ through the Spirit, believed on Christ by the Spirit, sealed by the Spirit, indwelt by the Spirit, and now taught by the Spirit, are we now to welcome that which kills to share spiritual responsibilities with the Spirit? God forbid! Are we to forge an alliance between the ministry of death and the ministry of life?

Rom.10:4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.
5 For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, That the man which doeth those things shall live by them.

Man still desires rules and regulations which places a stranglehold upon relationships. And it also has a whiff of self righteousness and works a la the elder brother. When a man lies to his wife should he be arrested and placed in prison? He would if that relationship was built upon the law. And if men and women honored their marriage vows because of the law, what would that say about their love for each other and their sacred covenant? If a teenager rebels against his parents he is not stoned. If he is a believer he will be corrected and chastened by God, and if he is not a believer no amount of law can bring him to Christ.

But if you desire to incorporate the law in your spiritual life or your New Testament theology, then you must incorporate it all. This “moral law” business is a man made concoction and is a subtle way to have some of the law without having to observe the rest. If you do any of the law you must live by all its dictates. How pitiful it is when a sinner is set free from the bondage of the law, which no one can keep, but after he receives the grace of God he picks up that dead carcass and parades it around as if it is still alive. And what’s more, he suggests that he himself keeps it. A close examination of his own thoughts will reveal that he has broken it all. And that is why God has done away with the law, or we would still be lawbreakers before Him.

So in essence the man who touts the law requires others to do what he himself cannot. Grace is not a license to sin; there is no such thing. But we no longer sin against the law, we sin against our Heavenly Father. One is a legal system and the other a relationship. The redemption that was so gloriously provided for us by the sacrifice of our Savior not only provided the atonement and the forgiveness of sins, but it also opened the door for us to be adopted fully into the family of God. Again, I share with you an illustration:

A man has a shed in his backyard. He tells his son that he forbids him to go into that shed. The son’s curiosity gets the better of him and he enters that forbidden shed. His father catches him and the son is punished. But a few days later a boy from the neighborhood breaks into that same shed. The father calls the police and the boy is arrested. So why did the father call the police on the neighborhood kid and not his own son? Relationship. Because the son is loved by the father and is flesh of his flesh, he treats him differently. The father does not deal with his son through penal codes.

The unsaved are still under the law. And being such, they are dead in trespasses and sins. Until they are grafted in as sons of God, they will answer to God as a Judge and not a Father. But so often we mix law with grace. Sin has never been cured by law. And every believer who is truly in a relationship with our Heavenly Father desires to please Him. Not because the Law of Moses says something, but because the love of Christ constrains him. The line of demarcation between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant must be without compromise.

The New Testament is not an appendage to the Old. These two covenants are not working in concert with each other. Everything has been changed.

Heb.7:18 For there is verily a disannulling of the commandment going before for the weakness and unprofitableness thereof.
19 For the law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did; by the which we draw nigh unto God.

Weakness and unprofitableness? That is what we want to tether to the glory of the crucified Christ? What does the word “disannulling” mean to you? Does it mean that most of it is gone but like vultures we can pick over the carcass and cull out some decaying scraps? Christ died to bring in many sons and yet we want to still be in bondage to that which was just a shadow and a figure? We desire to mesh the shadow with the substance and call that Christianity?

Gal.4:Now I say, That the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all;
2 But is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father.
3 Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world:
4 But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,
5 To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.
6 And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.
7 Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.
8 Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods.
9 But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?
10 Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years.
11 I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain.

Do we return again to the “beggarly elements”? Paul is almost begging the believers to see the freedom found in Christ and not to return to those things which kept everyone in bondage.

Gal.5:1 Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

Can it be more clear? The body of Christ is not an extension of Israel. It is a new and glorious creation of Almighty God and of His Christ. We are no longer servants of the law, but we are servants and sons of the Father of Lights and of His Son.

Gal.2:18 For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.
19 For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God.
20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
21 I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.

I do not live by the law. I am dead to the law, and I now live by faith in the Son of God. Can you not rejoice in this soaring glory, or must you have your portion of the dead law? If you need the Mosaic Law in order to live right, then you are a legalist and are in desperate need of a deeper relationship with God the father. A man is locked up in prison with a death sentence over his head. Suddenly the jailer comes and unlocks his cell and informs him that he has been pardoned and he is free. Does that man go and get his friends and celebrate his freedom back in that dungy old cell? Absolutely not! He searches for the one who pardoned him so he can thank him.

Do not return to the dungy cell of rules and regulations, but search out the One who paid your price and serve Him forever. By the way, He is not only your Lord and Master, and he is not only your Savior and your Redeemer, but He is also your older brother. How can you compare that with etchings on stone?

“If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”