I read with interest "The Covenant of Death" by Tammy of Sandy, Oregon. I am in total agreement with the first paragraph. The law is holy, reflecting the righteousness of God and showing us our sinfulness, but it could not save us. The law shows us our need for a Savior.
That Savior was promised to us in the law and the prophets. We definitely needed a "new deal" (FDR notwithstanding!). This new deal "New Covenant" was in God's plan from the beginning. Tammy should be careful about drawing too sharp a dichotomy between law and grace. The law is a means of grace not only to pinpoint our need for a Savior, but also to show us how we may please the Lord. After all, Jesus said, "if you love me, keep my commandments" (Jn. 14:15). It is true that Jesus summed up the commandments in two great commandments: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets" (Mt. 22:37-40).
We must also remember that Jesus quoted these two great commandments from the Old Testament: Deuteronomy 6:5, and Leviticus 19:18. We know "the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ," but grace was also manifest under the Old Covenant. Oddly enough, no one knows why "Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD" (Gen. 6:8), but evidently, he was accepted completely apart from his actions. The Old Testament is not God's word emeritus: His disregarded first draft.
Nothing under "the old deal" was ever a set of "doomed flesh-powered efforts to be good and earn blessing." The promise under the Old Covenant was empowered by the hope and certainty of the New. The promise of "a new and living way" (Heb. 10:20) was as certain as the sunrise. When Jesus came, He was (and is) the full manifestation of grace. He is grace personified.
It is true that the works of the law and faith "are not to be mixed"; they must be properly integrated and properly divided, not falsely dichotomized. Obedience to God's commandments is not the root of salvation but the fruit of salvation. It is obvious that we do not keep His commandments perfectly. Only One did. It is on His merits that we are justified. But we need God's moral law to guide us in our progressive sanctification. "Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night" (Ps. 1:1-2).
The real prize is the everlasting glory of God. It is not about us; it is about Him. Yes, we share in His blessings both in this life and the one to come ("the resurrection"), but the blessings are not our goal. You see, they come by the same grace that causes us to delight "in the law of the LORD."
Jan 26, 2009 Rating
Directed by God, not His Book? by: Leper Watchman
In answer to Tammy's comments: "No longer are we directed by a piece of paper, but God guides us directly." Are you going to throw your Bible away, since you now have the Holy Spirit to tell you and move you to what to do? Do you see the danger in this? Do you think the Holy Spirit did not talk to Moses, Joshua, David, Isaiah? Did He not use the text of Scripture? How do we know the commands of Christ, obeying which He said is the measure of our love for Him? Of course the Spirit illumines our understanding of the text, and we could not begin to understand its meaning without His work. But if God's communication to us is disconnected with the fixed words of God, then it is just your word against mine about what God is telling us. How would you know anything? Wait! How do you know "God guides us directly"? Did you read it in a book?
Jan 26, 2009 Rating
Law, the If-Then of God by: Lep
"This God who guides us remains the God of love, so the action he guides will be marked with righteousness and love." Certainly God's law in the Old Testament defined righteousness and love. To go against that Word would have been sin or crime. It is true, the right things done in the flesh, apart from faith, from wrong motive, etc. has no merit before God. But how would you ever know you were following the right "leading" of what you thought was the Holy Spirit inside you? You would have to have something objective outside yourself to verify it by.
"We will see justice under the rule of Christ alone" We are under the rule of Christ alone. Not that as 2nd person of God-Head He hasn't always ruled, but now as Man especially, since He ascended and sits on His throne He is the "ruler of the Nations". These wicked men and laws that we are under now are just His gracious long, slow consequences for our country's generations of idolatry. Now men, including Christians, will vote and elect earthly rulers and enforce and obey laws based on certain principles. Our civil government is defined by their mission of punishing crimes. God ordains them to kill and confine and confiscate property. How do they know what a crime is (vs just sin)? How do they know when they are killing the capital criminal that they are not murdering? How do they know if they don't kill a criminal that they are causing innocent people to be killed or harmed in a major way? When they fine, how do they know they are not stealing? If they don't fine the correct guilty party for certain behaviour, how do they avoid "stealing" from innocent people? If they confine in Jail, how do they know they are not kidnapping? Does just one man (dictator), or some men (congress), or the majority of a population determine the righteousness of these definitions? History shows none of these three are reliable. Only the whole Word of the Creator God, because He is creator and owner, has authority to define crimes and punishment. And most of the helpful sections of the Bible that helps with this are in the Old Testament.
