Results tagged “The Law”

Galatians 3:1 - "O foolish Galatians!" Paul says. Why? Because they were buying into the notion that they had to follow the law to be justified. What law? Well, specifically he refers to circumcision in chapter 2, but not directly. I don't think it's clear here what law or laws they were relying on, the sense to me is bigger than that. It's not that this law or that one isn't needed, nor that the law isn't valuable, it's that it is powerless to save. Not only that, but they were taught not to rely on the law but on faith in Jesus, so Paul calls them fools.

If Paul came back, i suspect he'd enter many of our churches and cry out "You foolish Americans!" hearing sermon after sermon on proper moral living and how to improve ourselves. We like to think that we can pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, that we can work hard to fix ourselves. We cannot, and to preach, teach or live by that philosophy is the height of foolishness.

In fact, if we could fix ourselves, it was Jesus who was the fool for coming here to be tortured and die for nothing.

Galatians 3:10-14 - The standard of the world is that if you follow the rules, things go OK. Well, that's conventional wisdom anyway, we see examples all over of folks who skirt the rules and get ahead anyway, at least superficially. but Paul here refuses even to pay lip service to conventional wisdom, pointing out the elephant in the room - that we simply can't follow the letter of the law. We forget the rules, we defy them, we are simply pulled into disobedience by the attractiveness of sin. So, if we rely on good behavior, we are finished before we've begun.

But, he says, Jesus turns the conventional wisdom (that's patently false in reality) on its head. He becomes the one and only human in all of history to follow the rules, the only one qualified to receive the prize on his own efforts, then he swaps rewards with us. We get his (eternal life with the father), he gets ours (death on a cross). Remember Monte Hall and Let's Make a Deal? You've won a new set of cookware, but do you want to trade it for the mystery behind door number 3? It might be junk, might be a new car, who knows? Well, Jesus took the deal and swapped rewards with us, except he knew both prizes ahead of time and that His rightful reward was far superior to what we earned. But he knew that the only way that we would earn anything but death was if he earned it for us, so He made the deal.

So don't pretend that you are all that and have worked hard for that which Christ has gave you. And don't fall into the trap that, somehow, if you're not good enough, Jesus is going to switch back. He's not.

Galatians 3:15-29 - Most of this stuff goes over my head. I squint my eyes, cock my head and read it over and over and I still don't quite get it. One thing I do get is that Jesus is the fulfillment of a promise made to Abraham long before (centuries before) the law was given. No number of laws can make that covenant void. The law was given temporarily, our guardian is says in Galatians 3:24-25 (ESV), until the promised faith was revealed completely in Jesus. Now that He is here, its purpose is complete, its job done, and we have no need of it. Wow, cool.

Romans 7:1 - "Or do you not know, brothers ... that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives?" Review Romans 6 (and Romans 7:4), through Christ we died and rose again. Since we are dead, the law no longer applies to us. Whoa.

Romans 7:4-6 - We were not set free from the law so that we could do whatever we want, we were set free to bear fruit for God. We are designed to bear fruit, without Christ, we bear fruit for death through sin, because of Jesus we can, and should, bear fruit for God.

Romans 7:10-11 - We like to believe that a set of rules will teach us to live and guide us along the way. This is true, to a point. The full reality, however, is that we are ill equipped to follow any set of rules completely. We fail, even at following our own pet peeves, let along the complete law of God. We frequently are offenders at that which we hate in others. So, what the law does ultimately is prove our inadequacies, showing us to be completely and utterly hopeless apart from Christ.

Romans 7:18-19 - "I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing." Anyone else live here? So, if this was Paul's experience, and we can relate as well, how then should we treat those who fall short as they follow Christ? I'm not talking about the blatant sins of adultery, rape, murder, etc, certainly Paul wasn't saying that every now and then he falls back into hunting down those who disagree with him, as he had done with Christians. I imagine that he's talking about character sins - harshness, pride, judgmentalism, anger. Do you know any disciples like that (you're talking to one)? Do you dismiss them as ungodly, or treat them with love by mixing grace with frank honesty?

I started Romans back at the end of February, but then shifted to read Nehemiah through March as my church studied it. Today I return to Romans.

Romans 2:1-5 - I can remember smugly reading this passage condemning the hypocrite who judges but assumes they won't be judged, as if Paul was claiming that Christians are perfect or that I somehow was. No, rather he's calling us to humility and repentance. Verse 4 says "Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?" Of course we presume on God's kindness and forbearance, how else could we be saved? But, do we do so allowing it to humble us and lead us on that never ending journey towards repentance?

For too long I smugly counted on God's blessings without thinking too much about my need to repent. Then, when confronted with my arrogance, I flipped it around, striving hard to repent but refusing to presume that He's be kind to me.

No, the Gospel is both. We are constantly reminded that we sin, so we rely on Him to raise us and His grace in doing so prompts us to repent. With out the grace that we rely on, repentance is a never ending, ever faster treadmill, and grace that does not produce repentance is a hollow shell promising fulfillment yet delivering none.

Romans 2:12-16 - The law at one time divided the world into Jew and Gentile, those of the law of God and those not. Merely possessing the law, however, did not make the Jews righteous any more than lacking it made the Gentiles evil. it's the content of their hearts, expressed in how they lived, that will God judge them on.

Romans 2:17-29 - Paul here points out the elephant in the room for those Jews who boast in having the law - none of them follows it. It is essentially of no value to them because they all are law breakers. In fact, some apart form the law follow better than some who have it, and God will treat tehm accordingly.

He's setting them up to see that the law isn't what they need, they need Jesus. He's laying the foundation of the gospel, that we've all sinned

Nehemiah 8:1-4 - "... and all the people were attentive to the Book of the Law." Nehemiah didn't set out to restore the people to their worship and following of God, but that is what happened. He simply cared about their fortunes and the city that God's people had called home.

Nehemiah 8:7-8 - It wasn't simply read, there were men there to make sense of it for the people.

Nehemiah 8:12 - They rejoiced -- why? "because they had understood the words that were declared to them"

Nehemiah 8:13 - The heads of houses meet with Ezra for further training and study.

Nehemiah 8:14-17 - They discovered something in the law that they hadn't been doing, not in a long time. So, they reasoned and explained that, according to the traditions handed down, things were different now, we just don't do those things anymore, and there are good reasons.

No, they saw something in the law that they weren't doing - and they did it!

Galatians 3:3 - "Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?" 'm frequently so foolish. Thanks Spirit, for getting me started, I'll take it from here. Then I work my buns off to be good enough to be approved. I forget that Jesus said that it was finished. The work on the cross was enough, I don't need to wrap it up myself.

Galatians 3:10 - Paul starts out in verse 1 by calling the Galatians fools for trying to work for justification. Here in verse 10 he tells them why - justification by the law is an all or nothing proposition. You either keep all of it, or none of your obedience is of any value. One violation, and they were (as we are) already well past one.

Galatians 3:19-26 - The ESV has some real interesting phrasing in these verses. Reading a new translation (I was an NIV guy for many years) helps bring new life to the text. Here's what I mean:

• Verse 19 - The law was added because of sins. Sin existed already, the law was added to illuminate it.


• Verse 22 - "the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin" That's a concept that's hard to wrap my head around. Even as Christians, we like to think that the law helps us see how to life, but Paul says it imprisoned everything. Verse 23 says we were captive by it.


• Verse 24 - "the law was our guardian until Christ came" Wait, held captive, but it was our guardian? If you think in terms of children, a guardian is there to watch over, to protect and to instruct, but not permanently. There's a time, later, when the child no longer needs the guardian. And so it is with the law, verses 23-24 say that now that Jesus came and faith is here, we no longer need the law as our guardian.

Galatians 3:25-27 - Paul here links faith with baptism and with inclusion in Christ. He says faith has come, no guardian is needed for you are sons of God through faith in Jesus. Why? Because, those who have been baptized have put on Christ. The implication is that baptism and faith and membership in the church are inherently linked.

Galatians 2:2 - Paul went up to Jerusalem to meet privately with the leaders to present what he had been teaching. To show them the way? No, "to make sure [he] was not running or had not run in vain" I like that he went privately, to not stir up controversy but to find unity, and that he went not to teach but to learn.

Galatians 2:8-9 - The ESV speaks of 'Peter' in verse 8 and 'Cephas' in verse 9 (also in verse 11, and in chapter 1). NIV uses 'Peter' in both places.

Galatians 2:14 - He went originally in private and reached an agreement, but when he saw Peter acting publicly contrary to that agreement, he challenged him publicly.

Paul sets himself up here as one who has championed the Gospel of freedom over the slavery of the law. Galatians 1:1-2:14 seems to be establishing who he is and what he has stood for as back ground to what he's about to lay out.

Galatians 2:15-16 - Paul contrasts Jew with 'Gentile sinners' in verse 15, which might be offensive if he didn't essentially lump them both in the same group in verse 16 saying that "by works of the law no one will be justified".

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.

Galatians 2:20

I wonder if we really understand the implications of this. Romans 6 describes how we die with Christ in baptism, do we really understand it? Do we live as if the death that comes to all has already come and gone for us? That which most men dread and attempt to put off, death, we have willingly embraced with Jesus. We are already dead and are only now truly alive in Christ.

I think if we really understood this concept, that we are already dead, we've already passed from death to life, we'd live differently. (Check out my study of Romans 6 from 2 years ago where I elaborated on this powerful idea more.)