The Law vs. the Law of God
Please, let’s make a distinction. Try to bear with me here. There is…The Law. And there is…the Law of God. Can we make that distinction or is that just splitting hairs? Is it all simply semantics? I don’t think so.
The Law is bad and ugly. The Law of God is good and trustworthy. One is bad because it has no Person attached to it. Do you see the difference between the two? The other comes from a God of infinite love and tenderness. The Law (without God) is used by Satan, to “beat My people to pieces and grind the faces of the poor,” and who “smote the people in wrath with a continual stroke, he that ruled the nations in anger.” Is. 3:15;14:6.
We have nothing to fear from The Law of God, because His special person is attached to it. It’s His, it is of His person. It’s from Him and He is friendly, and spiritual, and just and good. It’s fair, all who will come under it will find equal protection. The righteousness of His Law is the halos of His glory that we look through to see Him, but it’s Him that we ultimately see, our Father, the one great Author of love. It’s His will, the breaking of which brings Him torture of soul incomprehensible to us. Only Christ can bear up under the suffering that our heavenly Father goes through moment by moment. When on earth Christ recoiled from all the sin He met day by day, yet His love kept Him bearing up under it, dealing with it and fighting it. If we’ve seen the Son, we’ve seen the Father. The Father bears up under the burden of the sin in His kingdom because He loves His human children. It was to reconcile the world to the Father Himself that He sent and sustained His Son Christ during His life on earth, and then it was in love for us that He took His Son to the cross. His commingling of mercy and justice will be our wonder and study for endless ages.
Moses definitely loved the Law of God. “What nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day?” Deut. 4:8. Moses had real faith. (Heb. 11:27). Any arguments there? David, the man after God’s own heart, definitely loved the Law of God! (Ps. 119:97). David had real faith. (Heb. 11:32). No arguments? Paul definitely loved the Law of God and made it out that it was obviously self-evidently the truth. “For we know,” he wrote, “that the Law is spiritual.” “The Law is holy and the commandment holy, and just and good.” Rom 7:14, 12. “We know that the Law is good, if a man use it lawfully.” 1Tim. 1:8. Should I say it? Yes, I will. Paul had real faith!!! And if you asked any other great servant of God in all the Old and New Testaments they would all tell you the same thing, they all loved the Law of God!
“For what the Law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh...” Rom 8:3. “For we know the Law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.” Rom. 8:14. Here we see that the problem is not in the Law of God, at all! The problem is in us. Any arguments here?! “Is the Law then against the promises? God forbid: for if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the Law.” Gal. 3:21. The problem is not with God’s Law. This Law essentially is Him. For us to downplay His Law is to downplay His character and thus His very Self. The devil knows all of this. So he deploys his own gospel devoid of God’s Law, His commandments, statutes, His judgments, et cetera, so that in the void he may insert his own spirit. All he needs is a counterfeit, a shell of the true, to fix his spell upon us. God will always retain and utilize only the true, and this alone will break the devil’s spell that keeps us infatuated with the supplanter’s artfully woven falsehoods.
Does this make me a legalist? Do I really sound like a Pharisee and a hypocrite? I hope not. I’d like to say what Paul said, “God forbid!” So, what we have to give to the world is something they have never conceived of─the Everlasting Gospel. The same message from the beginning to the end of the Bible. The Lord Jesus of the New Testament and the Lord God of the Old is one and the same Person. (1Cor. 10:1-9). His will has never changed. The devil’s ways have never improved. Our human nature is no different from fallen Adam. The problem and solution of sin are the same as they have always been.
Then why a Gospel of the New Testament? Why the need of a New testament or new covenant? Because when Christ came man saw for the first time mercy that was always there, but not so evident. Why was it not evident? Because at a distance Christ could not bring man to see their God like He could in person. At a distance Christ was reliant on other men who, though learning holiness, were faulty, men, who were themselves somewhat blind to the full expression of mercy that Christ could express with His own words and looks and actions, especially on the cross, in the state of suffering and at the point of an apparent everlasting death. In the four gospels and the epistles even we have only the tip of the iceberg of the experience the disciples had with Him for those 3 ½ years. The world couldn’t contain the books it would take to fully describe His life, but through the Spirit we can continue learning where the written word was limited, just as they could in the Old Testament.
Its both His death and His life that saves us. “For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” Rom. 5:10. Yes, the Law of God, which is the Law of the life of Christ, may be hard to look into. Only by a knowledge of the Lawgiver’s life and death will we ever desire to look at our Lifegiver's Law and Commandments. But if we do so, and continue therein, we will be blessed by Christ. (Jas. 1:25). In the words of Jesus, “He that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light.” Jn. 3:20, 21.
So the Law of God is our friend, even as God is our Friend, and not our foe. The personless Law is the real enemy. It’s only a list of ethics and morals and traditions of men who require much but who do none of what they require. It is derived from no person or example of love. It is devised by Satan himself, not used to teach us righteousness, but hopeless and mindless submission to a standard that the Devil might be able to keep because he is still an angel of light (if he can hold his breath long enough), but one that he knows we can’t keep, and he uses it to get us to give up on God’s Law, which Law the devil teaches us to associate with the loveless law of his government, the counterfeit he thought he could use to improve upon the divine Law of God’s Government of love.
Let’s not be afraid of God’s Law, nor make it our enemy or the enemy of the Gospel.
I will close with an EGW quote from the book, The 1888 Message for the Year 2000, by Steve Wohlberg,(p. 17, 18) “I see the beauty of the truth in the presentation of the righteousness of Christ in relation to the Law as Doctor [E.J. Waggoner] has placed it before us.... If our ministering brethren would accept the doctrine which has been presented so clearly─the righteousness of Christ in connection with the Law─and I know that they need to accept this, their prejudices would not have a controlling power, and the people would be fed with their portion of meat in due season.” (1888 Materials, p. 164) “…The great subject of the righteousness of Christ in relation to the Law. This was no new light but it was old light placed where it should be…which should be constantly kept before the sinner as his only hope of salvation.” (p. 211, 212)
The Law is bad and ugly. The Law of God is good and trustworthy. One is bad because it has no Person attached to it. Do you see the difference between the two? The other comes from a God of infinite love and tenderness. The Law (without God) is used by Satan, to “beat My people to pieces and grind the faces of the poor,” and who “smote the people in wrath with a continual stroke, he that ruled the nations in anger.” Is. 3:15;14:6.
We have nothing to fear from The Law of God, because His special person is attached to it. It’s His, it is of His person. It’s from Him and He is friendly, and spiritual, and just and good. It’s fair, all who will come under it will find equal protection. The righteousness of His Law is the halos of His glory that we look through to see Him, but it’s Him that we ultimately see, our Father, the one great Author of love. It’s His will, the breaking of which brings Him torture of soul incomprehensible to us. Only Christ can bear up under the suffering that our heavenly Father goes through moment by moment. When on earth Christ recoiled from all the sin He met day by day, yet His love kept Him bearing up under it, dealing with it and fighting it. If we’ve seen the Son, we’ve seen the Father. The Father bears up under the burden of the sin in His kingdom because He loves His human children. It was to reconcile the world to the Father Himself that He sent and sustained His Son Christ during His life on earth, and then it was in love for us that He took His Son to the cross. His commingling of mercy and justice will be our wonder and study for endless ages.
Moses definitely loved the Law of God. “What nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day?” Deut. 4:8. Moses had real faith. (Heb. 11:27). Any arguments there? David, the man after God’s own heart, definitely loved the Law of God! (Ps. 119:97). David had real faith. (Heb. 11:32). No arguments? Paul definitely loved the Law of God and made it out that it was obviously self-evidently the truth. “For we know,” he wrote, “that the Law is spiritual.” “The Law is holy and the commandment holy, and just and good.” Rom 7:14, 12. “We know that the Law is good, if a man use it lawfully.” 1Tim. 1:8. Should I say it? Yes, I will. Paul had real faith!!! And if you asked any other great servant of God in all the Old and New Testaments they would all tell you the same thing, they all loved the Law of God!
“For what the Law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh...” Rom 8:3. “For we know the Law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.” Rom. 8:14. Here we see that the problem is not in the Law of God, at all! The problem is in us. Any arguments here?! “Is the Law then against the promises? God forbid: for if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the Law.” Gal. 3:21. The problem is not with God’s Law. This Law essentially is Him. For us to downplay His Law is to downplay His character and thus His very Self. The devil knows all of this. So he deploys his own gospel devoid of God’s Law, His commandments, statutes, His judgments, et cetera, so that in the void he may insert his own spirit. All he needs is a counterfeit, a shell of the true, to fix his spell upon us. God will always retain and utilize only the true, and this alone will break the devil’s spell that keeps us infatuated with the supplanter’s artfully woven falsehoods.
Does this make me a legalist? Do I really sound like a Pharisee and a hypocrite? I hope not. I’d like to say what Paul said, “God forbid!” So, what we have to give to the world is something they have never conceived of─the Everlasting Gospel. The same message from the beginning to the end of the Bible. The Lord Jesus of the New Testament and the Lord God of the Old is one and the same Person. (1Cor. 10:1-9). His will has never changed. The devil’s ways have never improved. Our human nature is no different from fallen Adam. The problem and solution of sin are the same as they have always been.
Then why a Gospel of the New Testament? Why the need of a New testament or new covenant? Because when Christ came man saw for the first time mercy that was always there, but not so evident. Why was it not evident? Because at a distance Christ could not bring man to see their God like He could in person. At a distance Christ was reliant on other men who, though learning holiness, were faulty, men, who were themselves somewhat blind to the full expression of mercy that Christ could express with His own words and looks and actions, especially on the cross, in the state of suffering and at the point of an apparent everlasting death. In the four gospels and the epistles even we have only the tip of the iceberg of the experience the disciples had with Him for those 3 ½ years. The world couldn’t contain the books it would take to fully describe His life, but through the Spirit we can continue learning where the written word was limited, just as they could in the Old Testament.
Its both His death and His life that saves us. “For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” Rom. 5:10. Yes, the Law of God, which is the Law of the life of Christ, may be hard to look into. Only by a knowledge of the Lawgiver’s life and death will we ever desire to look at our Lifegiver's Law and Commandments. But if we do so, and continue therein, we will be blessed by Christ. (Jas. 1:25). In the words of Jesus, “He that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light.” Jn. 3:20, 21.
So the Law of God is our friend, even as God is our Friend, and not our foe. The personless Law is the real enemy. It’s only a list of ethics and morals and traditions of men who require much but who do none of what they require. It is derived from no person or example of love. It is devised by Satan himself, not used to teach us righteousness, but hopeless and mindless submission to a standard that the Devil might be able to keep because he is still an angel of light (if he can hold his breath long enough), but one that he knows we can’t keep, and he uses it to get us to give up on God’s Law, which Law the devil teaches us to associate with the loveless law of his government, the counterfeit he thought he could use to improve upon the divine Law of God’s Government of love.
Let’s not be afraid of God’s Law, nor make it our enemy or the enemy of the Gospel.
I will close with an EGW quote from the book, The 1888 Message for the Year 2000, by Steve Wohlberg,(p. 17, 18) “I see the beauty of the truth in the presentation of the righteousness of Christ in relation to the Law as Doctor [E.J. Waggoner] has placed it before us.... If our ministering brethren would accept the doctrine which has been presented so clearly─the righteousness of Christ in connection with the Law─and I know that they need to accept this, their prejudices would not have a controlling power, and the people would be fed with their portion of meat in due season.” (1888 Materials, p. 164) “…The great subject of the righteousness of Christ in relation to the Law. This was no new light but it was old light placed where it should be…which should be constantly kept before the sinner as his only hope of salvation.” (p. 211, 212)
posted by David | 2:38 PM
2 Comments:
I completely agree in absolutes and in the law expressing God's character. His character is love. I am not against the law. But I am no longer focused on "keeping the law". I am focused on building relationship with the Lawgiver & Redeemer. In doing so, I become changed. I no longer desire things contrary to God's heart. I am then in harmony with God- without being a slave. Again, I think you & I are thinking along the same lines, but we express ourselves a little differently. Good post! :o)
Hello my friend,
I often listen to your CD. I just wanted to distinguish between the concept of a law that's out to get us, and one that has our Father attached to it. They may seem the same, but they are miles apart in the way we subconsciously deal with them. Yet because of this lack of distinction, God's law has gotten a bad rap. Satan's impersonal law of sin and death never worked nor can work.
Jesus came representing His Father's law, but this time with a real live person attached to it, an association which had been divorced for centuries before He came. In so doing, He attracted us to Himself through His compassion, and then, once trusting in Him, He reconciled us to His Father's law. He knows how we tick because He made us. He has so gently and compassionately provided for our repentance and acceptance of the government of our new home. Thus He is the only way the hopeless gulf between God and man can ever be bridged.
This is why we will all sing, "Worthy is the Lamb to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing," and we will fall down and worship Jesus and Him that sits upon the throne for ever and ever and ever....
Post a Comment
<< Home