We Christians Are Under Law Or Under Christ Or We Are In Rebellion.

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We Christians are under law or under Christ or we are in rebellion

What is the difference between seeing God’s words as Law and seeing them as Grace?

LAW: The Law demands that we do our utmost, using our unrighteous human nature, to

comply with the righteous requirements of the written words of scripture, to the letter. Like:

Ex 20:15 YOU shall not steal. (but unrighteous man cannot comply with righteous law)

Rom 7:6 But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we

were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and

not in the oldness of the letter. (This Covenant failed and was replaced by:)

GRACE: Under a better Covenant our heavenly Father offers to (1) Pardon our sins and give us a new heart or spirit, (2) Write His words of Grace, made living to us by His Spirit, directly into our hearts, (3) Put His Spirit of Grace into our hearts and cause us to both desire to and be able to obey His words, and by those words impart to us Christ’s nature:

Ezek 36:25-26 I will sprinkle clean water on you (as you believe My word), and you

shall be clean...I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you;

Heb 8:10 This is the covenant that I will make...I will put My laws (My words) in (the

spirit of) their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God....

Ezek 36:27 I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes (My

words), and you will keep My judgments (My words) and do them. (Like:)

Ex 20:15 You SHALL (be empowered by My Spirit and My word in you now to) not steal.

To look upon scriptures as law is to see them exclusively with our natural faculties of sight and reason. Since these faculties are part of our unchangeably sinful human nature, the law keeps us bound to our sinful flesh and therefore can only strengthen sin in our lives.

That’s why the Bible refers to law as the ministry of death and condemnation (2 Cor 3:7-9).

1 Cor 15:56 The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law.

2 Cor 3:7-8 if the ministry of death, written and engraved on stones (Law), was

glorious, how will the ministry of the Spirit (Grace) not be more glorious?

Sadly for Christians who continue striving to comply with the law Jesus Christ died in vain

Gal 2:21 I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.

Gal 5:4 You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace (this is written to Christians).

Christ, the living word, is the Grace of God – we are either under the law or under Christ.

John 1:14-17 The Word...the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth...out

KJV of His fullness have we all received, and grace upon grace. For the law was given by Moses but grace and truth came by (and are) Jesus Christ.

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Yes but Jesus said He didn’t come to destroy the Law. True, but He said more than that:

Matt 5:17 (Jesus) …The Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.

So you and I must answer the question: “Did Jesus fulfill the Law?” That’s why He said:

Luke 16:16 (Jesus) The law and the prophets were until John. Since that time the

kingdom of God has been preached, and everyone is pressing into it.

Here Jesus says the preaching of the Law is now being replaced by the preaching of the kingdom of God, which is a spiritual kingdom that requires a spiritual re-birth to enter it and a life that is in submission to the Holy Spirit, to remain in it. When we live in God’s kingdom we participate in Christ’s fulfillment of the law. For He fulfilled the law for us:

Rom 8:4 That the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

Why do so many Christians after being re-born by a living word then see the Bible as law?

1. Because our natural human faculties or flesh can understand “the do’s and don’ts of

the law” without any need to be currently right with God or in submission to His Spirit.

2. The law was given to those not re-born in spirit, and could only require them to try and keep it using their human abilities. Hence the human nature of born again Christians sees the law as its territory; and out of pride presumes it can comply with it. If we allow it to try to keep the law, our flesh will continue to dominate our will rather than our new re-born spirit.