Category: The Mosaic Law

Saved from Hell, But Lost in Tradition #2

Saturday, February 16, 2013

“…God our Saviour; who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:3,4 KJV).

Can someone go to heaven without ever learning dispensational Bible study?

Soul salvation and spiritual growth, although related, are not to be confused. SIN, not a failure to correctly use and/or comprehend the Bible, is what prevents people from going to heaven.

Lost people are going to hell, not because of their sins (plural), but because they are spiritually dead (the “Adamic nature” that causes their sins). People are not sinners because they sin; they sin because they are sinners. Their main problem is not that they do bad things; their primary issue is the sin nature that causes them to do those bad things. This nature is completely opposed to God, and people gratify it by disobeying Him.

Paul describes the predicament of lost mankind: “Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his [God’s] sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin” (Romans 3:19,20). Our sinful actions simply confirm that we have a nature that is thoroughly anti-God.

The Mosaic Law (specifically the Ten Commandments) condemns us. Because of our wicked nature, we cannot even keep 10 rules to make God happy with us. As the Apostle John wrote, “Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law” (1 John 3:4). In our identity in Adam, we have no righteousness (that is, we have a bad standing before God). A lost soul needs to be made right in God’s sight, before he or she physically dies and goes to hell. In order to go to heaven, his or her sin and sins must be dealt with, and Christ’s finished crosswork provides salvation from those sin and sins. Additionally, God has for this person a teaching curriculum to explain why He will save him or her….

A Rejected Sacrifice

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

“But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell” (Genesis 4:5 KJV).

We are some 6,000 years removed from today’s Scripture, and yet it teaches us a valuable lesson of eternal worth….

“So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17). “By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain…” (Hebrews 11:4). The LORD gave Cain and his brother Abel clear instructions. Only Abel did what God said because only he believed what God said. Abel, a shepherd (Genesis 4:2), “brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof” (verse 4a). Cain, a farmer (verse 2), “brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the LORD” (verse 3).

Notice what Abel brought—a sheep, a blood sacrifice, and its fat, which is what God said to do. Observe what Cain brought—something he grew. Cain had probably slaved away watering that crop, weeding that patch of ground, and so on. Cain brought the very “best” he could bring—it was the work of his own hands. He rationalized, “Surely, God will accept this fruit of the ground. He knows I put so much effort into it. How can He say no?”

When Cain saw the fire of God come down from heaven and consume his brother’s sacrifice, and yet nothing happened to his sacrifice, today’s Scripture tells us that Cain grew very upset. “How dare You, God! It was my very best, and You do not want it!” Cain probably threw a tantrum and cursed. Eventually, filled with that religious rage, he murdered Abel (verse 8).

Cain symbolizes today’s average religious person, who refuses to do what God’s Word says: “Trust in the finished crosswork of Christ alone and I will save you.” Like Cain, they offer “their absolute best”—tithes, water baptism, acts of charity, penance, church membership, et cetera—things God never commanded them to do for salvation! Those things are “filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6) when compared to Jesus Christ’s perfect sacrifice of Himself.

And when they die, like Cain, they will be greatly disappointed.

An Accepted Sacrifice

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

“By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaketh” (Hebrews 11:4 KJV).

How did Abel know that God accepted his sacrifice?

Sons of Adam and Eve, Abel is a “keeper of sheep” and his brother Cain is a “tiller of the ground” (Genesis 4:2). Cain “brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the LORD” (verse 3), while Abel “brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof” (verse 4a). To wit, Abel “by faith” brought a blood sacrifice, indicating He followed God’s instructions. Unbelieving Cain, however, offered vegetation to God, which He never commanded.

“And the LORD had respect unto Abel and to his offering: but unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect” (verses 4b,5a). Today’s Scripture affirms: “By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts.” But, exactly what does it mean that Abel “obtained witness” from God that “he was righteous?” For the answer, we must search the Old Testament Scriptures.

Read 1 Chronicles 21:26: “And David built there an altar unto the LORD, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings, and called upon the LORD; and he answered him from heaven by fire upon the altar of burnt offering.” In 1 Kings 18:38, we read of the time when the prophet Elijah offered an animal sacrifice: “Then the fire of the LORD fell, and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench.” And 2 Chronicles 7:1: “Now when Solomon had made an end of praying, the fire came down from heaven, and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices; and the glory of the LORD filled the house.”

Based on these verses, we conclude Abel must have seen the fire of God come down from heaven and consume his sacrifice, thus signifying to him that God had accepted his offering. Amazing!

Twice-Guilty Thieves #7

Saturday, January 19, 2013

“For ye suffer, if a man bring you into bondage, if a man devour you, if a man take of you, if a man exalt himself, if a man smite you on the face” (2 Corinthians 11:20 KJV).

Beloved, take today’s Scripture to heart, lest religion take your heart so they can take from you!

Today’s Scripture summarizes religion:

  • “If a man bring you into bondage.” Religion (<religare, ‘to bind’) shackles us, for we sinners can never perform enough to be perfect. The more rules we attempt to keep, the more we stumble and the more miserable we become.
  • “If a man devour you.” Religion consumes you; it gains your trust, making you believe you are “good enough,” but it only disappoints you because you can never be perfect.
  • “If a man take of you.” Religion extorts your time, treasure, and trust. Eventually, it will literally take away everything—your joy, your savings, your time, your liberty in Christ.
  • “If a man exalt himself.” Religion tries to dominate your Christian life (cf. 2 Corinthians 1:24). It demands that you keep rules, regulations, rituals, and rites. It threatens you, “Keep my ordinances, or God will not bless you.”
  • “If a man smite you on the face.” Religion abuses you. It disfigures the “face” of your inner man. You forget your identity in Christ, and you return to the “weak and beggarly” system of Law-keeping (Galatians 4:9). You forget that God has accepted you forever in Christ (Ephesians 1:6), not because of what you have done or what you have not done, but because you are in Christ, and Jesus Christ’s performance and finished crosswork on Calvary makes you forever pleasing in God’s sight!

Unfortunately, like the Corinthians (today’s Scripture), most Christians allow religion to deceive them. They do not study the Bible for themselves, and they do not study it “rightly divided” (2 Timothy 2:15). They confuse themselves with Israel, and they ignore God’s Word to them (Paul’s epistles, Romans through Philemon), thereby making themselves vulnerable to church leaders who steal Israel’s verses in order to steal their purses!

Dearly beloved, beware of the twice-guilty thieves, and avoid them.

Twice-Guilty Thieves #4

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

“For ye suffer, if a man bring you into bondage, if a man devour you, if a man take of you, if a man exalt himself, if a man smite you on the face” (2 Corinthians 11:20 KJV).

Beloved, take today’s Scripture to heart, lest religion take your heart so they can take from you!

In the context of today’s Scripture, Paul is defending his apostleship. He writes that he is concerned about false teachers polluting his Corinthian believers. They preach false gospels, false Jesuses, and false spirits (verses 1-4). Verse 13 describes them as “false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ.” Actually, verse 22 indicates these false teachers were Jews, which implies what they were preaching to the Corinthians to turn them against Paul and his ministry.

Paul preached, “Ye are not under the law, but under grace” (Romans 6:14); however, the false teachers taught the Corinthians, “Ye are not under grace, but law!” They were slandering and denying Paul’s apostleship and message in order to gain the Corinthians’ trust. Sadly, it worked!

Today’s Scripture demonstrates how these false apostles negatively influenced the Corinthians. The Corinthians were taken “into bondage” (Mosaic Law-keeping; Acts 15:10; Galatians 4:9; Galatians 5:1), wrongly believing they were under Israel’s performance-based acceptance system of law (works-religion/legalism also deceived Galatia [Galatians 5:1-5] and Ephesus [1 Timothy 1:3-11]; cf. Acts 15:1-5.). The Corinthian Christians were taught to be Scriptural: perform to get God’s blessings as taught in the Bible’s “Old Testament.” (They are today’s prosperity preachers!)

Claiming Israel’s verses as though they are ours is, essentially, to deny our identity in the Church the Body of Christ. Attempting to follow a program that God never gave us is to reject the program He did give us through Paul. It is a deliberate refusal to “rightly divide the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15).

“Name it and claim it” preachers literally “steal Israel’s verse to embezzle your purse!” Despite their alleged sincerity, the Bible is clear these false teachers are not serving God. They are actually extorting money from you under false pretenses (today’s Scripture). What is most appalling? They are using Scripture, and giving “God” the praise!

An Abomination and a Delight #1

Monday, October 22, 2012

“The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the LORD: but the prayer of the upright is his delight” (Proverbs 15:8 KJV).

In today’s Scripture, we read of an abomination to the LORD and a delight of the LORD.

Especially during Isaiah’s time (circa 700 B.C.), apostasy was rampant in Israel’s southern kingdom (Judah and Benjamin). The LORD went so far as to call it (spiritually) “Sodom and Gomorrah” (Isaiah 1:10)!

Read God’s reprimanding of Israel’s southern kingdom: “To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the LORD: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats…. Bring no more vain [worthless] oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them. And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood” (verses 11,13-15).

God is sick of Judah’s double mindedness—she murders His prophets, yet she performs the Mosaic Law religiously (animal sacrifices, Sabbath day keeping, et cetera). Despite their godly façade, God can read their evil hearts. They were practicing Judaism, but not by faith: it was just worthless, mindless repetition, which God literally hated.

Jesus chided Israel’s religious leaders of His day, who were so fixated on executing ceremonies that they ignored having faith in why God had instructed them to perform those rituals (formalism): “Well hath Esaias [Isaiah 29:13] prophesied of you hypocrites, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me” (Mark 7:6).

Let us not be like Israel, in Jesus’ and Isaiah’s day, who blindly performed religious ceremonies just to appear good. Faithless religious performance is “an abomination to the LORD,” just as wicked as indulging in the sins of the flesh.

Walking in the Spirit #5

Monday, October 8, 2012

“And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit” (Galatians 5:24,25 KJV).

Now that we have trusted Jesus Christ alone as our personal Saviour, we have a new identity, and this identity should impact our lifestyles for God’s glory.

In Romans 8:1-14, Paul describes the work of the indwelling Holy Spirit in us believers. For instance, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit” (verse 1). While often assumed to be soul salvation, its context (the previous chapter, 7) is actually sanctification, how God has separated us from common mankind for His purposes—made us holy, or saints—which identity will now influence our lifestyles.

Romans 8:2-4 reads: “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death [the performance-based acceptance system of religion]. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh [we, our flesh, could not obey God’s law], 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.”

As today’s Scripture amplifies, we Christians have new life in Christ. God’s Spirit makes this new life real to us: He works in us to fulfill the Law (Romans 8:4). We cannot keep the Law, either for soul salvation or for Christian living. However, Jesus Christ’s perfect crosswork satisfies the Law, thus paying for our sins (our failure to keep the Law). This makes us Christians accepted of God (Ephesians 1:6). This same principle allows the Holy Spirit to then transfer our new identity in Christ to our lifestyles—thus producing Jesus Christ’s lifestyle in ours.

To “walk in the Spirit” as today’s Scripture exhorts, means we Christians simply place our faith in this doctrine. The Holy Spirit will then work in us to produce God’s righteousness in our lives.

Walking in the Spirit #3

Saturday, October 6, 2012

“And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit” (Galatians 5:24,25 KJV).

Now that we have trusted Jesus Christ alone as our personal Saviour, we have a new identity, and this identity should impact our lifestyles for God’s glory.

“This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law” (verses 16-18). Notice how the Bible links our “flesh” (sin nature) to the Law. The Mosaic Law demands that we perform, and our flesh loves to perform because it can then boast, “Look at my religious ‘goodness!’”

As Galatians 5:16-18 said above, introducing the Mosaic Law into the Christian life is counterproductive: it creates a war, a struggle, between you and Christ, which is vividly described in Romans chapter 7. The Mosaic Law demands you perform to gain God’s acceptance (Deuteronomy 28:1ff.), while the Christian life is Christ performing in you the believer because you already are accepted of God in Christ (Galatians 2:20; Ephesians 1:6). This is why Mosaic Law-keeping does not belong in our Dispensation of Grace. It “frustrate[s] [hinders] the grace of God” (Galatians 2:21), since God’s grace teaches us it is Christ, not us, who must perform to make us accepted of God!

Galatians 5:18 said, “If ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.” The Holy Spirit does not lead anyone in the Dispensation of Grace to operate under the performance-based acceptance system of Judaism (Mosaic Law-keeping). If a Christian attempts Law-keeping, it is literally his or her own doing (not God’s doing), and it is done to their spiritual detriment (misery and defeat)! The indwelling Spirit of God leads us to enjoy the life we have in Christ, and we should walk by faith in His performance (today’s Scripture).

Walking in the Spirit #2

Friday, October 5, 2012

“And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit” (Galatians 5:24,25 KJV).

Now that we have trusted Jesus Christ alone as our personal Saviour, we have a new identity, and this identity should impact our lifestyles for God’s glory.

Sadly, it is often assumed—even by some professing grace believers—that grace is a license to sin. Since “[we] are not under the law, but under grace” (Romans 6:14b), some erroneously conclude that we are free to live any way we want. Verse 15 cautions us, “What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid [May God never let that happen!!].” God’s grace teaches us to “[deny] ungodliness and worldly lusts” and it teaches us to live “soberly, righteously, and godly” (Titus 2:12).

In Galatians 5:13, we are exhorted: “For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.” Christ has made us free from the burden of the Mosaic Law, the “yoke of bondage” (verse 1), a system of rules we could never keep, but this does not mean that God does not care how we live.

We are not under Israel’s performance-based acceptance system. Nevertheless, grace teaches us that God fulfills in us believers the righteousness the Law demanded. Never should we abuse God’s grace by using it “for an occasion to the flesh;” grace should never be (ab)used to promote selfish living (preferring to serve sin rather than serve God and fellow Christians). Verses 14,15: “For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.”

“This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh” (verse 16). We have new life in Christ, and when we by faith let Him live His life in us, we will not live sinfully and selfishly (today’s Scripture).

The Flesh Straineth, Christ’s Love Constraineth #7

Sunday, September 16, 2012

“For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again” (2 Corinthians 5:14,15 KJV).

We would do well to memorize, meditate on, and believe today’s Scripture, a wonderful encapsulation of the Christian life.

As people who have trusted Jesus Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection alone as sufficient payment for our sins, Christ’s righteousness—His perfect performance—has been applied to our account (imputation). We have a right standing before God (justification): “we [have been] made the righteousness of God in Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:21). We Christians need not strain to perform in religion, seeking God’s favor and acceptance. God already accepts us in Christ, because of what He did for us on Calvary’s cross! “God hath made us accepted in the beloved [Jesus Christ]” (Ephesians 1:6).

We are not under the Mosaic Law (Romans 6:14,15), but God still cares how we live. Once we understand and rest in God’s great love for us (His sacrifice of His Son on our behalf), it transforms our thinking (today’s Scripture). Since God loves us so much, we Christians should not selfishly live our lives, doing whatever we want. We should, by faith, offer our lives to Him so He can accomplish His will in and through us. As one Christian brother says, “Jesus Christ gave His life for us, so He could give His life to us when we trust Him alone, so He could live His life through us when we trust Him alone!”

Our Christian service is us studying and believing sound Pauline Bible doctrine, and then us letting the indwelling Holy Spirit use that doctrine to work in us (1 Thessalonians 2:13) to generate “the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ, unto the praise and glory of God” (Philippians 1:11). These “fruits of righteousness” are Christ living His live in us, conforming our lifestyles to our position in Him.

“The flesh straineth, Christ’s love constraineth….”