THE NATURE OF THE LAW

Law is a set of rules you have to keep. And if you keep all the rules, all the time, then you are made righteous.

Grace, on the other hand, is something we cannot earn or achieve by working for it. If you are working for anything or seeking to earn it, it is not grace. Grace is received from God in one way. Ephesians 2:8 says, "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves;

it is the gift of God." Grace comes only through faith, and the result is righteousness.

Therefore, if you want to achieve righteousness, if you want to come into the maturity of God, you have to decide whether you are going to do it by law or by grace. If you follow the advice of the Bible, you won't try to do it by law, because the Bible says no one will ever achieve righteousness with God by keeping the law.

To understand why, let's look at some of the requirements of the law. The basic principle you have to understand is this: To be righteous by keeping the law, you have to keep the whole law, all the time. It's not enough to keep the whole law some of the time, or some of the law all the time. If you are not continually keeping the whole law, it cannot make you righteous.

Paul explained this concept in his epistle to the Galatians.

"For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written, 'Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them'" (Galatians 3:10). Similarly, James wrote, For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble [fail] in one point, he is guilty of all. For He who said,

"Do not commit adultery," also said, "Do not murder."

Now if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.

(James 2:10-11)

So if you want to receive the blessing and avoid the curse, you have to continue to do all things in the law all the time. You cannot single out the commandments you think are important and say, "I'll keep these, and the others I won't." You have to keep every commandment or the law is of no benefit to you as a means of achieving

righteousness.

The Bible says that nobody ever succeeds at keeping the whole law. This fact is very clearly stated in many passages. Let's look at two of them.

Romans 3:20 says, "Therefore by the deeds of the law [the keeping of the law] no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin." Paul was saying that no human being will ever achieve righteousness in God's sight by keeping a law.

You may argue, "Then why did God give the law of Moses?" The law was never actually given to make

anybody righteous. One of its purposes was to show us we need to be saved. A second purpose was to show us we

cannot save ourselves.

For when we were in the flesh [when we were

controlled by our fleshly nature], the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death. (Romans 7:5)

That's an astonishing statement. It says that the law aroused the passions of sin. This is what Paul was

referring to when he said, "The strength of sin is the law"

(1 Corinthians 15:56). The law did not stop us from sinning; it stirred up sin in us. When I was confirmed in the Anglican church at the age of fifteen, I realized for the first time that I needed to be a lot better than I was. So I learned all the questions, memorized all the answers, and said, "Now that I'm confirmed, I'm going to be better." And I was quite sincere. The problem was, the harder I tried to be good, the quicker I became bad. I was not nearly so bad until I tried to be good because I stirred up something in me. I didn't know what it was at the time, but it was what Paul called the old man, the rebel, the flesh. It is when you really try to do the right thing in your own strength that you realize you cannot do it. The harder you try, the less you succeed.

A third purpose of the law was to foreshow and predict the Savior who would be able to save us.

Paul illustrated the purpose of the law when he wrote,

"The law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith" (Galatians 3:24). The Greek word translated "tutor" is paidagogos, from which we get the word pedagogue. The word originally referred to a senior slave in the household of a wealthy man, who was given charge over the children in their early years. He had two

jobs. First, he was to teach the children the elements of education (such as the letters of the alphabet, obedience, and right and wrong). Then, when the children got beyond that stage, his job was to lead them through the streets and deliver them to the real teacher at the real school.

Thus, the law teaches us the basic elements of

righteousness. However, it also leads us to the school where we can learn the real lesson, which is Christ. This is a very vivid and clarifying analogy.

In Galatians 2:16, Paul said, "Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law" (emphasis added). The question is, dear friends, do you truly know that...

a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified. (Galatians 2:16)

We have believed in Christ so that we might be made righteous in Christ by faith, not by keeping the works of the law. Going back to the third chapter of Galatians, Paul said, "That no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for 'the just shall live by faith'" (Galatians 3:11). The alternative to living by the law is living by faith.

These are mutually exclusive methods. It is only as we live by faith that we can trust the Holy Spirit to be our Guide and allow Him to lead us.

As I mentioned earlier, my observation is that most Christians are not living by faith. They are living in a

"twilight" existence, halfway between law on the one

hand and grace on the other, and they usually get the worst of both worlds. Yet the reality is—we have escaped from the dominion of the law through the death of Jesus and are now free to be led by the Spirit. Paul wrote,

Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another; to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God. (Romans 7:4) Paul was saying that when you come under the law, it's like a marriage contract by which you're joined to your fleshly nature. No matter how you try to keep the law, you don't succeed because the rebel in you won't do the right thing. But the good news is that when Jesus died on the cross, our fleshly nature was put to death in Him. "Our old man was crucified with Him," Paul wrote, "that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin" (Romans 6:6-7).

But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by [our fleshly nature], so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter. (Romans 7:6)

As part of the Word of God, the law endures forever;

God's Word will never pass away. But as a means of righteousness, Christ ended the law. "For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes" (Romans 10:4).

Now that the flesh has been put to death, or executed, Paul said we're free for a different kind of union, a union with the resurrected Christ through the Spirit. "That you

may be married to another; to Him who was raised from the dead" (Romans 7:4).

When we were married to the flesh, we brought forth the offspring of the flesh. But now that we are united to the resurrected Christ by the Holy Spirit, we bring forth the fruit of His righteousness, the fruit of the Spirit. In this sense it's not what we try to do, but it's what we're united with that determines the way we live. This is really the essence of the Christian message. As long as you are just trying to be good and to do the right thing, you haven't grasped the message. But when you are united with Christ, and live in that unity, then you can be led by the Spirit.