Angelic Conflict part 298: Reigning in life – Rom 5:12-21; Gal 1:6-7; 3:17-19; 2Co 3:1-18

Title: Angelic Conflict part 298: Reigning in life - ROM 5:12-21; GAL 1:6-7; 3:17-19; 2CO 3:1-18.

 

Announcements/opening prayer: 

 

 

 

ROM 5:20 And the Law came in that the transgression might increase; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more,

 

False theology is gladly accepted by the pride of men, and many, by not rightly dividing the word of truth have attempted to put the Law upon Christians.

 

The Law is not eternal. It had a beginning at Sinai and it had an end in Christ. We have eternal life and a fruit in life through the eternal Spirit, and against such things there is no law.

 

A group of legalistic Jews would sometimes follow Paul into certain cities where his gospel established a community of Christians and, of course, local churches. Most notably, these “Judiazers” followed Paul into Galatia and convinced the Galatian church that the Law should be mixed with the gospel of grace and so was born the false gospel of faith plus works for salvation.

 

In the first century Judiazers convinced some Christians to mix the Law with faith and grace.

 

GAL 1:6 I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel;

 

GAL 1:7which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you, and want to distort the gospel of Christ.

 

The perversion was the joining of law to grace, and this God will not tolerate. It is one of the most important distinctions in the Bible. We teach that the law had a beginning partly in order to show that the law had an ending; that it is not binding upon the Christian. Does this mean that the opposite of law is lawlessness? Certainly not!

 

For the Christian, the opposite of law is not lawlessness but holy living under grace.

 

The following passage compliments our passage in Romans.

 

GAL 3:17 What I am saying is this: the Law, which came four hundred and thirty years later, does not invalidate a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to nullify the promise.

 

God came to Abraham in grace. Abraham lived under the grace of God and the Law was not added until 430 years later. The Law did not invalidate the covenant of grace, the unconditional covenant that Abraham would be the father of a multitude and that one of that seed would bless the entire world. Abraham was credited with righteousness by faith alone, justified by faith alone, and made the father of faith by faith alone. The Law was added, which does not invalidate God’s gracious promise, and if the Law was added in time then it sure can be removed, and it was, in Christ.

 

GAL 3:18For if the inheritance [the Seed, the nation, the land, and the kingdom] is based on law, it is no longer based on a promise; but God has granted it to Abraham by means of a promise.

 

GAL 3:19Why the Law then? It was added because of transgressions, having been ordained through angels by the agency of a mediator, until the seed should come to whom the promise had been made.

 

It often scares people to not have procedures and rituals. The flesh is condemned by the Law and ironically loves the Law. The flesh actually enjoys self-condemnation.

 

The Galatian Christians, and all Christians, had been called to a life of grace. That is, they were to live before God as He desires Christians to live; and not in conformity to a code of laws. This sentence may horrify some, but I reemphasize that the opposite of law is not lawlessness but holiness in grace without reference to law. Any other thought God calls "perversion."

 

Man continually acted in opposition towards God from the fall. Even believers acted badly, but where there was no code of law, man could act with impunity and convince himself that he was not sinning against God. When the Law was given this idea was thrown out. The Law, its code, revealed man’s rebellion and proved beyond a doubt what man was, a sinner. So when the Law came the transgression increased. And man was arrogant and ignorant enough to say to God that they would do all that the Law commanded. After saying that, a few days later, those same people constructed a golden calf and worshipped it. The same people who shouted “Hosanna, blessed is He that comes in the name of the Lord” just a few days later shouted, “Crucify Him, we have no other god but Caesar.”

 

The Law was a mirror that showed man’s filth. You cannot wash your face by washing the mirror that shows your dirt. This what unclean man does when he attempts to alter the word of God in order to make his filth appear to be clean. The word of God is pure as is the grace of God. A man with a dirty face and dirty hands and dirty water will never get clean. Something that is itself intrinsically clean must cleanse him. Changing mirrors won’t do it.

 

Therefore the mirror of the Law was not given to man to save him, but to reveal to him his need of cleansing, which cleansing is only in Christ.

 

Christ came to cleanse the dirt from us, remove the mirror of the Law and give us the mirror of Him, which mirror is grace, given through His finished work.

 

The Law is meant to drive man to the gospel of Christ and so through faith, with nothing added by the stained sinner under the death sentence, he is cleansed and saved forever.

 

2CO 3:1 Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some, letters of commendation to you or from you?

 

2CO 3:2 You are our letter, written in our hearts, known and read by all men;

 

2CO 3:3 being manifested that you are a letter of Christ, cared for by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of human hearts.

 

2CO 3:4 And such confidence we have through Christ toward God.

 

2CO 3:5 Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God,

 

2CO 3:6 who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

 

2CO 3:7 But if the ministry of death, in letters engraved on stones, came with glory, so that the sons of Israel could not look intently at the face of Moses because of the glory of his face, fading as it was,

 

2CO 3:8 how shall the ministry of the Spirit fail to be even more with glory?

 

2CO 3:9 For if the ministry of condemnation has glory, much more does the ministry of righteousness abound in glory.

 

2CO 3:10 For indeed what had glory, in this case has no glory on account of the glory that surpasses it.

 

2CO 3:11 For if that which fades away was with glory, much more that which remains is in glory.

 

2CO 3:12 Having therefore such a hope, we use great boldness in our speech,

 

2CO 3:13 and are not as Moses, who used to put a veil over his face that the sons of Israel might not look intently at the end of what was fading away.

 

2CO 3:14 But their minds were hardened; for until this very day at the reading of the old covenant the same veil remains unlifted, because it is removed in Christ.

 

LUK 24:27

And beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.

 

2CO 3:15 But to this day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their heart;

 

2CO 3:16 but whenever a man turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.

 

2CO 3:17 Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.

 

2CO 3:18 But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord [not the Law], are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.

 

We first approach the law of God with the attitude that we have toward human law, whether in the nation, the home, school, business, or military. If I don't break it in too many places, nothing will happen to me. God will not be too strict in marking my paper.

 

But suddenly we find that God has only one passing mark, and He plays no favorites. The passing mark is 100% perfection in righteousness.

 

REV 20:12

And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds.

 

GAL 3:9

Now that no one is justified by the Law before God is evident; for, "The righteous man shall live by faith. "

       

ROM 5:19

For as through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous.

 

The coming of the law made a profound difference between Israel and the rest of the world. The chosen nation, no different in their fallen condition from the rest of the human race, acquired with the law a new responsibility before God which entailed terrible consequences of special judgment. What nation was ever warned by prophets to change their ways or they would be taken away in captivity?  

 

The entrance of the law did not supply one iota of strength to keep the law, and it was soon manifest that the people of Israel were totally unable to keep it.

 

Furthermore, the entrance of the law immediately excited within the people a desire to break that law. Strange that such should be the case, but we are all made of the same stuff, and all of us have the same desire to both keep the law and to break law. Are you starting to see that your flesh/OSN can do absolutely nothing to please God?

 

Moses reminded Israel just prior to entering the Promised Land:

 

DEU 9:24

You have been rebellious against the Lord from the day I knew you.

 

We are completely bankrupt before God. This bankruptcy is revealed to the Galatians, who were given all the rights of grace to live before God in that grace, but who returned to the bondage and slavery of the Law.

 

GAL 4:8 However at that time, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those which by nature are no gods.

 

GAL 4:9But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how is it that you turn back again to the weak and worthless elemental things, to which you desire to be enslaved all over again?

 

GAL 4:10You observe days and months and seasons and years.

 

GAL 4:11I fear for you, that perhaps I have labored over you in vain.

 

HEB 7:18-19

For, on the one hand, there is a setting aside of a former commandment because of its weakness and uselessness (for the Law made nothing perfect), and on the other hand there is a bringing in of a better hope, through which we draw near to God.