Fair God all wise

God is fair. God is gracious, but He is also pragmatic.

Pragmatic: dealing with things sensibly and realistically in a way that is based on practical rather than theoretical considerations.

"When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under ('the curse of' (Gal. 3:13)) the Law, to redeem them that were under ('the curse of') the Law, that we might receive the adoption of sons." (Gal. 4:4,5).

The Son had been a Spirit like His eternal Father. But, an infinite burden was placed upon Him when His Father

sent Him into the human race for Him to live in a body corrupted by human nature that would have been condemned under the wrath of God were it not for the perfect submission of His heart and will. Continual divine wrath wasn't an arbitrary bestowal of God. Jesus lived under the guilt of lawlessness, and therefore under the restrained wrath of God, by His willing acceptance of the inherited nature of Miriam. Her corruptible spirit continually jarred the inherited, sinless Spirit of His Holy Father, attempting to seduce and overthrow the strong Spirit of His Father that kept Him from falling.

Nevertheless, Miriam's surrendered and converted and gentle spirit was very precious to Jesus, although not as desirable as the more gentle, voluminous, most holy Spirit of His Abba. Jesus would have accepted the unlimited wrath of Gethsemane and Golgotha for just His mother if she were the only one on Earth. But hers wasn't the only one that He would be unashamed to call His brethren. Besides her there would be billions that no man could number like the stars, and like the sand by the seashore for multitude.

The self-sacrifice of Jesus is not just an old tradition. Four thousand years of animal sacrifices looked forward to Him, but could not portray the full sacrifice in the fallen/sinless dichotomy of the Holy One. Although all nations were superstitious and under pagan indoctrination, Israel, through the ceremonial system handed down to them, had the truest understanding of the coming Deliverer from sin. 

While the pagan world had a slight concept of sin, sin was spelled out very clearly to the children of Israel who had the Ten Commandments in stone, and 614 civil laws that had no loopholes. A sloppy system of justice could only result in a sloppy conviction of sin, and a sloppy gift of mercy. But God does nothing sloppy.

The laws would condemn the guilty but not clear guilt without repentance. Hence the animal sacrifices. The whole civil and ceremonial systems created by Jesus represented His Father's mind. Jesus is full of truth, and more. He is also full of the grace of His Father's Spirit. 

Only in Israel was there righteousness through faith in the merciful, only true God. This was the purpose for the Israelite ceremonial system. Sanctification was the goal, to uplift the Israelite nation, and through them, to uplift all the nations of the world. "In thee shall all families of the earth be blessed." (Gen. 12:3). The religion that Jehovah gave Israel was not simply for pointing out sin, but for resolving it and salvaging souls from its destruction.

Since primordial Eden, the animal sacrifices all looked to the Messiah (see Gen. 3:15). Then, in 536 BC, Daniel received the famous 70 Week Messianic prophecy. This zeroed in on the exact year of 27 AD when Messiah the Prince would come. Daniel 9:26 said that 483 years after 457 BC (the 69th week of years) Messiah would be "cut off" (i. e. His murder/crucifixion). And Daniel 9:27 said that His cutting off would happen half way through that last week of years. 

(For a professional explanation read below. I'm using web link 

https://lifehopeandtruth.com/prophecy/understanding-the-book-of-daniel/70-weeks-of-daniel/)

"The 70 weeks of Daniel were to begin 'from the going forth of the command to restore and build Jerusalem' (verse 25). In 457 B.C., in the seventh year of his reign, King Artaxerxes issued a decree giving Ezra permission to return to Jerusalem to complete the efforts to rebuild the city (Ezra 7:6-10; Ezra 9:9).

Using 457 B.C. as the starting point, we see that during the first seven prophetic weeks (49 years) the Jews who returned rebuilt the walls and city of Jerusalem despite the efforts of their enemies to thwart their work (457 to 408 B.C.). Messiah was to come after another 62 weeks (434 years). Counting 434 years from 408 B.C. brings us to A.D. 27—the year during which Jesus Christ was baptized and started His work as the Messiah. (To calculate, subtract 434 from 408, and add 1 to the positive since there is no year 0.)

The first phrase in verse 26 says that the Messiah would be “cut off” after the 62 prophetic weeks (counting the first seven weeks, a total of 69 prophetic week-years or 483 years)."

So, John the Baptist began preparing the way for the Saviour, who John baptized in the autumn of 27 AD when Jesus turned 30 years of age and could then be considered a religious leader. 3 1/2 years later He died to free from God's condemnation all who have compared themselves to the Law and to the prophets. 

Not self-produced righteousness is accepted by God. Only righteousness as an outgrowth of faith in God's powerful will can prepare the way to true righteousness. And that faith only comes through wrestling with God's scourging rebukes.

But when Paul tried to keep the Law that he saw was so holy and just and beautiful, it was like trying to remove himself from a pit of quicksand. The more effort and willpower he used to extricate himself from his sins in order to keep the Law, the deeper he sank into breaking the Law. Even if he got the letter of the Law down pat, then God judged him guilty of breaking the spirit of the Law, because he had no Spirit. Without having the Father's Spirit it is impossible to please the Father. By the time Paul submitted to the Law, he had made enough contact with God during his wrestling that he had real faith to know that God was the Person with whom he had been wrestling, and that God had already been pouring mercy upon him.

Once his self-will was broken, having surrendered to the Law, then God showed him his Messiah, as a Lamb slain by sin. Now Paul broke completely. All pride and rebellion gone, the Law to which he had surrendered was now written on his heart. His sinful nature now was anesthetized and God was doing major surgery. Now no more wrath of God abode upon him. No more condemnation. No more curse of the Law. He tasted the voluminous embrace of his gigantic, reconciled God, like a teddy bear the size of a constellation. The tender kindness of the omnipresent Saviour was overwhelming. Paul was soundly converted. 

Obedience now was the easiest thing. He knew the mercy of the everlasting God of love. "And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus." (1Tim.1:14).

Before conversion all that Paul could cry was, "O wretched man that I am! Who can save me from this dead body?" But after conversion he could say, "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the Law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin." (Rom. 7:25). Now that Jesus revealed His love, Paul received a spiritual mind so that his thoughts naturally gravitated to the Law, as he mentioned in chapter 8. 

"For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit (do mind) the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the Law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God." (Vs. 5-8). 

Paul was unable to obey in chapter 7 because he could not mind the things of the Spirit. His mind, his nature, was carnal, in spite of his efforts to be good for God. Without a new heart toward God and the Law written in his heart, his acts of righteousness were filthy before God, and rejected. His heart and mind were fleshy, he was earthy minded, worldly, and nothing he could do pleased God. Therefore, after he bent all his willpower to keep the Law, he fell hopelessly before temptation. After all his good works the Spirit never bore witness that he was a child of God. Paul never received the approbation of God, but was left aggravated, distraught at being fatherless, and almost as resentful as Cain.

Once Paul saw the goodness of God toward him, he would keep seeking the Law, and leave his willpower up to God for the gift of obedience. And God's loving embrace made obedience possible. God's love is not optional. When it comes to obeying God, divine love is a must have. Afterwards, Paul wanted only to love God in heaven and His children throughout the earth.

All who have been through the same transformation can articulate the gospel like Paul could, "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the Law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." (Rom. 8:1-4).

More is involved here than Paul seeing the cross and crying for mercy. His whole nature changed. His desperate cry was the same that Jacob made in his wrestling with the Stone who was as unchanging and unyielding as the Law. 

Yet, Paul's unresponsive body wasn't the only offender. Although he could choose, and his body wouldn't listen to his commands, he must also surrender his heart and let God work in him. The worldly heart must repent and be born again by the reception of the Spirit and the conception of grace.

Whole consecration is what the God of heaven demands. Kinship with the world cut off, eyes single to holy things. Otherwise, any dealings with the things of God are treated as high treason, with the same death that was dealt to king Belshazzar (Dan. 5:1-5, 24-30), king Uzziah (2 Chron. 26:16-20), Uzza (1 Chron. 9,10), the men of Bethshemesh (1 Sam. 6:19). And maybe God was so tough with Paul because He was saying of Paul's highly self-exalted scriptural knowledge, "Thou knewest all this".(Dan. 5:22). As they all did.

Nevertheless Paul gained the amazing privilege to see that the biggest duty for the coming of Messiah was not to heal physical diseases and do miracles, but for Him to take on our body, with all the baggage that every sinner has, and do the miraculous--live a spotless life in that body! What hath God wrought!

Therefore, our fallen nature need not be a hindrance to victory over our every inherited or cultivated tendency to evil.

Jesus' being made in the likeness of sinful flesh is integral to our salvation by faith. Jesus' incarnation into His mother's carnal genetics and His Father's almighty spiritual genetics was to show all of fallen humanity that it is possible for them to overcome the sinfulness of their nature. 

In a victory perfectly acceptable to God through the power of the bosom of God, we can all overcome as Jesus overcame His sin nature and was resurrected from the tomb, all through the unending embrace of His Father's bosom. "That the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin." (Rom. 6:6).

Jesus wasn't just buried in dirt, but was encased in stone. And God took Him out of the tomb after He had walked with His Father non-stop like Enoch had walked with God. No mountain of sinfulness can withstand the Almighty when He desires to deliver His imprisoned faithful with eternal liberty. 

And if God would raise up His Son from the second death to eternal glory, He could raise up His disciples (and us) out of their (and our) unresponsive, dead bodies with a new Spirit from the unending embrace of God that tastes like eternal life--love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance-- "the powers of the world to come." (Heb. 6:5).

Day by day, the disciples watched Jesus' body obey His commands through joy in the Holy Ghost. So in their own walk with God, living honestly by yielding to His Law, His Son's Spirit would give them the power to command their will, and their body of sin would obey. With the powerful Spirit of Jesus present in their mind they would have what Adam had in Eden--a will that wholly responded to the holy God. Paul's new will, one of the by-products of his new born-again self, could satisfy the holy Law.

"With the (sanctified, not the fleshy) mind I myself serve the Law of God." (Rom. 7:25).

"Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin." (Rom. 6:6,7).

"Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the Law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to Him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God." (Rom. 7:4).

Exchanging their body's dead, empty motions for Christ's dead, motionless body that hung empty from the cross, their resistant, grumbling flesh was put down so that it was seen but not heard.

"(For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ." (2 Cor. 10:4,5).

"If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live." (Rom. 8:13).

Victory over the body was a work in progress, but it was also a gift from above and an ongoing blessing that beautified the world. Who wouldn't want that? "Who is he that will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good?" (1Pet. 3:13). None. Everyone, populace and civil leaders, always felt safer when the obedient were around.

God is gracious, but He is also pragmatic. He is always tender-hearted to His children who stand before His Law and tremble under its power to humble into the dust.

"Like as a father pitieth His children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him." (Psa. 103:13).

But He is pragmatic to the hard-hearted and arrogant. They want only a business-like, cool relation to Jesus. No time for daily fellowship or spending time with Jesus the whole day of the weekly Sabbath. Such unconverted, unconsecrated, worldly-minded people, whether in the world or in the church, trigger the pragmatism in God. His pragmatism toward an apostate post-apostolic Christian Church (Rev. 2:18-23), a post-Reformation Protestant Church (Rev. 3:1-5), or a post-1844 Adventist Church (Rev. 3:14-19), is forthcoming for the same reasons: hard-heartedness, arrogance, unholy ambition, worldliness, cold, calculated, business-like relationship with God, the eyes of their heart divided between earth and heaven.