The Law--Mission Impossible
Anyone who's started at the beginning of the Bible with the intent of reading it through will have encountered the law and wondered how anyone could be expected to keep the staggering list of detailed requirements. Of course no-one could and that's the point. And it's the answer to those who ask, "If there's a God, why does he allow such terrible things to happen?" There was a time when God intervened with a strait-jacket of rules and fiery judgments. It wasn't a failed attempt on his part to control humanity--but an object lesson--a demonstration of what doesn't work.
It was the teachers of religious law who drew the anger of Jesus over and over again. He said, "How terrible it will be for you experts in religious law! For you hide the key to knowledge from the people. You don't enter the Kingdom and you prevent others from entering." Luke 11:52 NLT
But I've been reading Romans lately--at the same time as reading the book of Numbers in the Old Testament--the law and the fullfilment of the law--Jesus. All of the answers are there--our inability to keep the law through human effort--but a higher law, the law of love--resulting in One without sin becoming the sacrifice that the law demanded. And the result--a people freed but choosing to be slaves--because of love. Love accomplished what the law never could, but the cost was everything the Father had to give. That's something worthy of gratitude and celebration.
Romans 7:6 (New Living Translation)
6 But now we have been released from the law, for we died to it and are no longer captive to its power. Now we can serve God, not in the old way of obeying the letter of the law, but in the new way of living in the Spirit.
It was the teachers of religious law who drew the anger of Jesus over and over again. He said, "How terrible it will be for you experts in religious law! For you hide the key to knowledge from the people. You don't enter the Kingdom and you prevent others from entering." Luke 11:52 NLT
But I've been reading Romans lately--at the same time as reading the book of Numbers in the Old Testament--the law and the fullfilment of the law--Jesus. All of the answers are there--our inability to keep the law through human effort--but a higher law, the law of love--resulting in One without sin becoming the sacrifice that the law demanded. And the result--a people freed but choosing to be slaves--because of love. Love accomplished what the law never could, but the cost was everything the Father had to give. That's something worthy of gratitude and celebration.
Romans 7:6 (New Living Translation)
6 But now we have been released from the law, for we died to it and are no longer captive to its power. Now we can serve God, not in the old way of obeying the letter of the law, but in the new way of living in the Spirit.
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