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Saturday, May 3, 2014

Pastoral Ponderings ~ From the Law to the Spirit

          My longing is to know for myself, and to know how to teach people about how we are to live by God’s Spirit so that we are doing what is better than keeping the law. There is a righteousness that is ours by faith, in which we live by the Spirit, not by performing the Ten Commandments.
          The whole book of Galatians is Paul’s rebuke to anyone who would try to combine the teachings of the new covenant with those of the old covenant. He was so incensed that the church was turning back to the law, believing it could add the law to the gospel, that he declared there to be a curse on anyone who taught such a thing.[1]
          In Galatians, Paul not only dealt with the false teaching that we need both the gospel and the law to make us righteous, but also that living by law is a proper companion to the Spirit. When Paul wrote, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me,”[2]he was declaring that he no longer lived by the Ten Commandments, or even by faith in the Ten Commandments, but only “by faith in the Son of God”.
          That is why he could bring his arguments in Galatians to this conclusion: “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.”[3] Under God’s old covenant, circumcision was a distinguishing difference between God’s people and the pagan nations. Under the new covenant, that distinction is gone. People were no longer living according to the performance of the rules of the law, but according to the life of faith in Jesus Christ. “Faith working through love” was the new way of life for God’s children.
          Earlier this week I spent some time considering that beautiful revelation of, “In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ.”[4] The next morning I was praying about how God’s sons are to live in our relationship with God. The Old Covenant revolved around the Ten Commandments, and all the sacrifices that were required to deal with people’s failure to live up to such righteous requirements. The New Covenant is different from that, but how different?
          What it keeps coming down to is that the Old Covenant was based on Ten Commandments the people had to perform, while the New Covenant is based solely on the performance of Jesus Christ. The Ten Commandments were like a guardian that was assigned the work of leading us to Christ.[5]  However, the work of this guardian was clearly concluded when Jesus cried out, “It is finished!”[6] This is why Paul declares, “But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.”[7]  Since it was the law, the Ten Commandments, that was our guardian, we are no longer under the guardianship of the Ten Commandments.
          What, then, drives the pursuit of righteousness under the New Covenant? Surely the completed assignment of the Ten Commandments does not leave Christians living by less righteousness than the law required. Jesus’, “It is finished!” could not mean that the requirement for righteousness was finished, only that the righteous requirements of the law, and God’s full judgment against our sin, were completed in the death of God’s Son.
          If we are no longer under the guardianship of the law, what replaces the Ten Commandments as the means of righteousness? Paul tells us clearly, “for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.”[8]
          This means that, instead of a relationship with the Ten Commandments that could only be described as, “we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed,”[9] there is now a relationship with Jesus Christ where all who have faith in his name are the sons of God. The law made us prisoners, since we could never escape our failure to keep the law, the necessity of countless sacrifices for our countless sins, and the constant threat of God’s judgment against our failures.
          On the other hand, the Ten Commandments are now seen as that guardian that was holding us in check until something else happened. In this case, the contrast is described as, “until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.”[10]  Under the Ten Commandments we were held captive, but through faith in Christ we are justified.
          That means that the little phrase, “until Christ came” changes everything. So, what do we have now that Christ came?
          Paul explains this very succinctly when he writes, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.”[11]  There was condemnation under the Ten Commandments. Paul called them “the ministry of condemnation.”[12] However, there is no condemnation in Christ. The Ten Commandments bound us to the “law of sin and death,” since they could only expose our guilt and condemnation. Paul went so far as to call the Ten Commandments, the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone.”[13] However, “the law of the Spirit of life” has delivered us from this ministry of death.
          This means that the contrast is between the Ten Commandments and the Holy Spirit. The Ten Commandments were presented to teach us righteousness, but never accomplished more than acting as a guardian to lead us to Christ. Now it is the Holy Spirit who delivers us from the law of sin and death, and delivers us into the freedom of the Lord Jesus Christ.
          That is why we have this wonderful gift of encouragement, “For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’”[14]  The point is simple: under the new covenant we did not receive the spirit of slavery, that is, the Ten Commandments holding us captive to sin, and neither did we receive the threat of falling back into fear, the fear of punishment because of our constant failure to keep the Ten Commandments.
          Instead, we received the Spirit of adoption as sons. Not only do we have, “In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ,”[15] but we have the Holy Spirit indwelling us who are the sons of God. The Ten Commandments caused us to cry out in fear and slavery, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”[16] The New Covenant gives us the adoption as sons, and the Spirit of God to teach us to live as sons.
          When we think of the fruit of the Spirit,[17] we have a very encouraging picture of how we become like Jesus under this New Covenant in a way that the Ten Commandments could never accomplish. Those qualities of Christlikeness are the “fruit” of our relationship to the Holy Spirit. It is the indwelling reality of Christ in us, the hope of glory,[18] that transforms into the same image as Christ from one degree of glory to another.[19]
          Paul makes this contrast between the Ten Commandments and the Holy Spirit absolutely clear when he declares,
For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”[20]
          The righteous requirement of the law is fulfilled in Jesus’ disciples, not because we have kept the Ten Commandments, but because Jesus died for our sins. Our response to this is not to go back to that old guardian and attempt to live by the Ten Commandments. Our response to Christ is to walk “according to the Holy Spirit.” As we walk with the Spirit of holiness, he will make us righteous in the way the law could never accomplish. The more we keep in step with the Spirit, the more we become like Jesus. Simple as that.
© 2014 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.)






[1] Galatians 1:6-10
[2] Galatians 2:20
[3] Galatians 5:6
[4] Ephesians 1:4-5
[5] Galatians 3:24
[6] John 19:30
[7] Galatians 3:25
[8] Galatians 3:26
[9] Galatians 3:23
[10] Galatians 3:24
[11] Romans 8:1-2
[12] II Corinthians 3:9
[13] II Corinthians 3:7
[14] Romans 8:15
[15] Ephesians 1:4-5
[16] Romans 7:24
[17] Galatians 5:15-26
[18] Colossians 1:27
[19] II Corinthians 3:18
[20] Romans 8:3-4

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