What Paul Says (Continued)

Galatians is another text that many have looked at as justifying their ignoring of God's Law, and a surface reading can easily seem to support that position. Consider:

Gal 5:4 You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace.

Wow! How can we seek to obey the Law, if this is true? It would be a severing from Christ! Yet, that same Jesus Christ tells us the Law will not change. What to do? Read more closely. It is those who seek to be justified by obeying the Law who are in danger. This is no different from what Paul said in Romans. The Law will never justify a man, because no man can - of his own will and desire - come close to obeying it. No. Justification lies elsewhere; in Christ, in faith.

Gal 3:11-13
11 Now that no one is justified by the Law before God is evident; for, " The righteous man shall live by faith. " 12 However, the Law is not of faith; on the contrary, "He who practices them shall live by them." 13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us-- for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree"--

Again, a quick read seems to suggest that Jesus has ended the Law for us. But, that would require that Paul and Jesus taught different gospels, and that cannot be. Frankly, there have been a number of attempts to claim just that of late, but a reasonable attempt to understand makes it clear that this simply is not true. Paul restricts what we have been freed of. It is the curse of the Law that we are redeemed from. The punishment we deserve, Christ suffered. The death that was demanded for our failures has been given. But the Law remains.

Gal 5:18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law.

Well, if other verses can be explained in this way, that doesn't appear to help us here, does it? In some fashion, this reflects the same problem as the previous verse, but Paul doesn't specify the qualifier. He doesn't say explicitly that it is the curse and punishment that is done away. Another aid to understanding the truth of this passage lies in understanding prayer.

How is it the Jesus can tell us that all we ask for will be given us? It is because of the same qualifier: the Spirit in us, leading. Because we are led by the Spirit, we cannot ask in prayer what is not in keeping with the will of God, and if our prayers are not by the leading of the Spirit, there is no obligation on God's part to answer as we ask. It is the same with the Law. If we are indwelt by the Spirit of God, we are in a unique position relative to the Law. It is written on our hearts, no longer a cold command upon stone, but a beloved word within the very depths of us.

1 Ti 1:8-9
8 But we know that the Law is good, if one uses it lawfully, 9 realizing the fact that law is not made for a righteous man, but for those who are lawless and rebellious,

Here, Paul gives us a clue as to what the role of Law is for us. The Law is not for the righteous man, because the righteous man no longer needs its restraints. It is for the rebellious. Now, then. Who is willing to stand and claim that every bit of his or her rebelliousness is done away with? Who will claim that their flesh is entirely gone? Who will claim that they no longer require the atoning work of Christ?

Ro 7:12 So then, the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

Ro 7:14 For we know that the Law is spiritual;

This is the aspect we want to pursue. The Law is holy and spiritual. The Pharisees stopped at the flesh. They did not pursue the weightier matters of the Law, but stopped at the surface reading. All too often, we do the same. However, before we settle in to trying to recover the spiritual Law, let's look at what some of the positions regarding the Law have been through the Church age.

What Antinomianism Says

This view of things has arisen from time to time throughout the history of the Church. It is the viewpoint that holds that we are utterly free of the Law. This same viewpoint tends to hold that salvation is so utterly irrevocable that the sins of the elect are no longer sinful. If the Law is done away with, they argue, how can there be any punishment for breaking the Law? This viewpoint has been pretty roundly condemned.

What Wesley Says

What Augustine Says

Augustine was another who defended the Gospel against the spirit of lawlessness. He also worked to dispel much of the misunderstanding we noted surrounding the Romans text. Here are some of the major things he stressed in regard to the Spirit of the Law, and the Letter of the Law.

• The real difference is that the law of works threatens and demands, whereas the law of faith seeks and finds the aid to comply in Christ, faith's object. The letter says "do." The spirit seeks the ability to comply. The command of the law shows the man of faith what to ask for, if he cannot comply, and who the ability to comply comes from when he can. Yet, no matter how well we obey, we must always recognize in ourselves the need to go farther.
• If we obey the letter, it remains an obedience of servile fear, and not of freely loving righteousness, and so, is no obedience at all. The delight of obedience is a gift of the Spirit, which the letter cannot give, and this delight persists, even as the battle rages within us.
• Contrasting the old Law with the new, we find that the old was a matter of condemnation and death, whereas the new is a matter of life. Where the old engendered fear, the new engenders love. In the new, the Spirit has brought true freedom, but the loving child of God will, in that freedom, continue to act as one who is a child of God.
• For the law without assisting grace will kill you, as unable to comply, but the Spirit of the living God, providing the desire to comply, and aiding it to fruition, will bring in us a love for the law, now written in our very soul, that once we feared, when it constrained us from without.
• Apart from that grace, even if one were to uphold every letter of the Law, yet he would be a sinner in that the only restraint that held him from sinning was fear, but God seeks after those who delight in Him, and by the work of the Spirit, we are able to do so.

This is the position we need to see for today. It is the fearful attempts at obedience that are condemned as dead effort. We are offered something better: to respond in love to God, and to show that love in obedience to Him. This cannot be done apart from the grace God has given us. It cannot be done without the Holy Spirit within us. It cannot be done without faith.

Dietrich Bonhoffer summed it up this way: It requires faith to obey, and it requires obedience to have faith. They are inseparable. Faith and obedience must walk hand in hand in the life of the believer. And to obey, we must recover what the spiritual matter behind the Law is. We must go beyond the surface, and comprehend what God is saying in His Law.