Book Review for Mary Angela Shaughnessy the Ministry and the Law
"Stand fast in thefreedomwherewith Christ has made usa FREE," shouted the evangelist to the "amens" of the audition.
Ane of the concluding things any Christian would want to believe is that he is "under the Law." Surely any Christian person knows that "a man is justified by religion without the deeds of the police force" (Romans 3:28).
But does this hateful Christians do not have to obey theTen Commandments? Putanother way, does information technology mean a Christian person maysuspensionany one of the Ten Commandments—having other gods before Him, coveting, lying, cheating, stealing or bowing downward to "graven images"—and yet non be guilty of sin?
How many times have you lot heard people talking well-nigh their youth, cheerfully admitting they accept at one time or another cleaved sufficient laws to have landed them in jail?
I remember many such occasions from speeches given by college students who were practicing their "ice breakers" to familiarize themselves with the methods of public speaking and casual dinner conversation.
Some of the most horrible tales have been confessions of having ready fire to acres of pine copse, overturned numerous outhouses, damaged and destroyed automobiles and other property.
For some reason the statement "the devil made me do it" seems humorous today.
Whatisthis evil office of homo nature that makes us want tobrag well-nigh lawlessness?
What is it about older people that makes them tend to be proud of some of their youthful days when they were "sowing their wild oats" and engaged in gangland activities, street fights, vehement escapades involving vandalism, malicious mischief and high-speed flights abroad from uniformed policemen?
What is information technology in man nature thatmakes united states resent potency?
Do all human beings, almost as if past nature, take secret inner compulsions which make them want to suspension laws?
A Lawless Age
With the dismantlement of the neat colonial empires following Globe War Ii, the earth has been dumfounded again and again at some of the macabre revelations of vast purges and genocide which take taken the lives of millions.
Increasingly, government leaders, similar the biblical descriptions of "wild beasts" of the gentile nations, are becoming laws unto themselves, brutally ignoring human rights, due process and international law.
The rise of despotism—that is, the takeover by "strongman" dictators in nation after nation around the earth continues with scarcely a whisper of protest heard in Washington or anywhere else.
"Man rights" are applied on aselectivefooting with the cocky righteous leaders in government decrying the lack of man rights in one state while cheerfully turning their backs on the grisly spectacle of mass murder in another role of the world.
In the United States nosotros are edging closer to that dangerous period where fifty-fifty neighborhood arguments are oftentimes as not settled by shoot-outs.
Teenage gangs wage street war against one another with guns and grenades, and diverse ultra nationalistic or fascist organizations cache stockpiles of weapons and ammunition toward that twenty-four hours of revolution (or, every bit they usually preach, their last-ditch defense against the diverse real or imagined conspiracies, from Zionists to the "Illuminati," communism or one of the councils of churches) they say is coming.
The world in which you alive is a earth of violence. Because of the many heartrendingabusesof ability, many Christian professing people tend to "throw out the infant with the bath water," turning abroad from any and every kind of authority.
We have all seen the comedies portraying southern sheriffs as rednecks" who mercilessly pistol-whip afoot blacks, the sadistic prison guard who beats a helpless inmate, the husky nurse who brutalizes the new patient in the state mental infirmary.
Inappreciably a unmarried issue of a daily paper is read but that another sensational revelation of such abuse of authority is exposed.
From the White Business firm to the Congress, from state capitals to the prison systems, from the police force to the churches, nosotros know flagrant abuses of government, authorisation and position are common.
The automatic trend on the part of those who feel they have just "escaped" such violations of government power is to turn down all forms of government, all of officialdom.
In the midst of all of this, it is quite unproblematic for any professing Christian person who embraces the gentle teachings of Jesus Christ of Nazareth concerning beloved, forgiveness, religion and mercy to abandon conventionalities in day-to-dayrequirementsand to live instead equally a "free spirit" blissfully unaware of the requirement toobeythe Ten Commandments!
It is no wonder, then, that millions believe "God is expressionless," and other millions who may believe and take that God isaliveseem to imagine Hislawis dead.
Information technology'due south time you saw from your own Bible, with your own eyes, the real truth nigh the laws of God and your relationship to them.
What is Grace?
1 of the terms most often used is "not under law but under GRACE."
But what isgrace?When 1 is "gracious," it usually connotes being gentle, kind and good. Many a parent has named an baby girl Grace, as one of the virtues of a meek and tranquillity spirit. Just what is the meaning of the word every bit set along in the Bible—specially with regard to "not under the police merelyunder grace"?
Kickoff, does it mean permission tosin?
"Certainly not!" one might answer. Merely if it does non mean y'all take permission tosin,does it mean yous donotdemand to keep God'southward laws?
"Well-fifty-l… that is a different affair," one might respond.
Perhaps it is time to go to Webster'sNew Collegiate Dictionaryand discover out but whatgrace is.
Graceis "favor, kindness, mercy, etc." The ecclesiastical usage is "divine mercy or forgiveness."
Thengracemeans more than only possessing a kind, good and gentle spirit; it connotes the favor and mercy of God—divine mercy orbeingness forgiven.
Just being forgiven ofwhat?
Why, being forgiven of having sinned!
But, once again, how about another definition? What is sin?
The Bible responds, "Sin is the transgression of the constabulary" (one John three:4).
If that is what sinis—ifsin is the breaking of God's laws—sin is too failing tokeepGod'due south laws!
Technically the wordsinfrom the Hebrew language means "to miss the mark" or "to err." There are sins of comission and sins of omission. A sin which is "committed" is an deed of some sort which is directly contrary to the Ten Commandments of God or any of the greater magnifications of the X Commandments every bit illustrated by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, as well every bit by His life and His teaching.
By omitting to do good, you may also exist sinning without realizing it! God says, "To him that knoweth to practice proficient and doeth it not, to him it is sin!"
Sin is not only the breaking of the police of God, simply it is alsofailing to go alongthe law of God!
When one has cleaved the laws of God, he is said to be a "sinner."
"All havesinned,and come brusk of the glory of God" (Romans three:23).
Every human being being has broken God'south holy laws, the Ten Commandments. Information technology is the breaking of these laws, then, as they are applied in principle and as they are magnified by Christ in the New Testament, that constitutessin(1 John iii:4).
Every one of us has, as part of our basic nature, innate hostility toward God's laws (Romans 8:7). Nosotros have been convicted by God'due south law equally being guilty of sin: the breaking of His X Commandments! When we do this, thepenaltythe law requires, which is death (Romans six:23), is applied to u.s.a.. We are looked upon, from the indicate of view of God, as being "claret guilty," and our very lives are expected to be forfeited!
Simply Jesus Christ of Nazarethdiedto exist a propitiation for our sins, so we don't take to die and endure the consequences of our ain illegal and unlawful acts!
Graceis God's mercy: the undeserved, unmerited, unearnedpardonwhich God grants united states of america upon our acceptance of the shed claret of Jesus Christ, our confession of our personal sins and our acceptance of Jesus as our personal Savior.
"In whom [Christ] we have redemption through His blood,the forgiveness of sins,according to the riches of His grace!" (Ephesians 1:7).
Grace, and so, is God's loving willingness to forgive us of havingbroken His 10 Commandments,having perpetratedsin!
This is very articulate in Scripture. Notwithstanding millions remain confused.
Grace Becomes "Permission"
Fifty-fifty prior to the close of the New Testament writings, God inspired Jude to write, "Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto y'all of themutual salvation,it was needful for me to write to you, and exhort you lot that you should earnestly fence for the organized religion which was one time delivered unto the saints. For in that location are certain mencrept in unawares,who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning thegrace of our God into lasciviousness[permission to do evil] and denying the but Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ" (Jude 3,4).
In club to "turn the grace of God into lasciviousness," the false deception must be perpetrated which implies that God's goodness, greatness and forgiveness are and then boundless as to almostencouragea person to alive carelessly—living, as it were, in alife of sin—simplyconstantly dwelling on the greatness, goodness and mercy of God, believing in his heart that he willexist forgivenno matter what!
This insidious instruction started earlier the Bible was fifty-fifty finished.
At that place were false teachers creeping into the ranks of some of the newly converted gentile converts in such cities as Thyatira, Corinth and Rome itself who began urging some of the newly converted heathens to revert back to some of their age-old customs which included sex activity practices as spiritual "rites" in the temple worship of some polytheistic gods, and telling these people that God would bless this activity, that it was not really a sin!
A prostitute named Jezebel was teaching the brethren of God's true church in the urban center of Thyatira to commit fornication with her, calling it a "religious service."
No dubiety there were any number of people in that church congregation who were willing enough to believe this, for it appears Jezebel may have been, in fact, a beautiful and voluptuous adult female.
Today there are millions and millions of "Christian folk" who, while they would abhor such practices, nevertheless believe in other, more subtle ways that one may live a life ofdisobedienceto God's perfect 10 Commandments and still be "Christian" in some loose or casual fashion.
Millions of professing Christians are convinced they should live a "righteous life." But the guidelines of what constitutes this"righteous life" are usually the guidelines of their ain particular role of social club. That ways their church building, guild, lodge, social group, immediate or extended family.
Most people are willing to be constrained by the social and religious parameters of life around them while living their lives blissfully unaware of any further requirements toobeyGod!
To these same people a "sinful life" would probably mean indulging in various "world" habits and interests such as going to too many or the incorrect kind of movies, attending honkytonks, drinking, gambling, carousing or "cussing" a little besides much.
Millions of individuals thus conceive in their own minds a whole fashion of life which they feel is "Christian," and, living inside the parameters of these social constraints, they feel they are under Christ's "grace," and such a country means they are not required to actually obey specificlaws!
Most professing Christians who take had what they call a "born-again experience" would talk of "living for God," which ways living a expert life rather than an evil ane. Information technology means, to them, thinking good thoughts rather than evil ones, being honest rather than being dishonest, striving to concur their head up in club, and being thought of past all their friends and constituents as "good."
To many,gracebecomes the "country of a Christian who is living for God"!
Thus grace has subtly been substituted in near people's consciousness to imply a "condition of the individual," rather than one of the qualities of the heed of God.
Instead of coming to understand the real pregnant of the wordgraceevery bit revealed in the Scriptures, many come up to experience that grace is a vague biblical term which ways a Christian is in a "saved condition." It means God has smiled on such an private, that he has been called and placed "under grace" and made into a Christian!
Non true!
Grace is the undeserved forgiveness Jesus Christ stands ready to lavish upon you if and when yourepent of sin!
What is Repentance?
The apostle Peter, speaking on the Day of Pentecost earlier thousands in Jerusalem, said, "Apologize, and be baptized every i of y'all for theremission of sins,and you shall receive the Holy Spirit!" (Acts 2:38).
After he said, "Repent ye therefore, and be converted!" (Acts iii:19).
Jesus began His ministry past commanding people torepent!
"From that fourth dimension Jesus began to preach and to say, Repent: for the Kingdom of God is at manus!" (Matthew 4:17).
Whatever dictionary can tell you thatrepentmeans to exist securely sorry, to be broken up and ashamed of oneself for transgressions and sins! Information technology is not only an emotional experience of contrition, of a state of existence deeply sorrowful that a person has done wrong (sinned, erred, made mistakes and done evil), but the acceptance with the listen of a college and a ameliorate way of life; repentance includes theresolve to do betterin the time to come, not to sin any more!
When the apostle Peter said to "exist converted," he meant to "be changed"! This change of which the Bible speaks is not a vague or nebulous change, but a very definite change which God requires in each facet of your private life!
Jesus said,"Except you repent,you shall all likewise perish!"
When one repents and calls out to God for forgiveness of sins, he automatically tells God he intendsobeyingGod's law henceforth, for repentance means existence deeply distressing you have sinned!
Sin is the breaking of God's law. Repenting of sin means existence distressing you have cleaved God's law. If yous are sorry, it ways y'all do not intend breaking His law any further! Let's illustrate it this way: Yous live in a society which must be regulated according to diverse laws. There are federal, state, county and local laws which regulate practically every deed and deed. Whether we are speaking here of federal laws, civil codes or only traffic laws, the aforementioned principle applies.
You arerequiredin order to retain your freedom and your citizenship to obey the laws of our country. If you suspension some of them, it may only require a fine or a very small penalty, or even a warning, and you will be immune to remain free.
Breaking others can be far more serious. Grand theft, larceny, arson, robbery, burglary, auto theft or murder could go you thrown backside confined (non withstanding the terrible laxity of the courts today).
Let's suppose yous have washed precisely this.
Maybe, defenseless up in an emotional country with wrong companions, you perpetrate some human activity which is clearly against the law. Allow's presume y'all are arrested and in due time brought to trial. Merely, during the trial, just as the judge has imposed upon you a terrific fine which you would never be able to pay—say, a meg dollars—a completely unknown stranger, your distributor, stands and says, "Your honor, I believe this man is seriously contrite. I believe he got caught up in the emotion of the moment and was under the influence of some evil companions. I experience he is a homo of integrity and wishes truly to mend his ways and live a better life.
"Therefore, I am willing to pay his fine myself then he can go gratuitous, and he doesn't need to pay this penalisation!"
Although it probably wouldn't happen in our guild, it does illustrate the point. The judge (as a type of God the Male parent) would say to the benefactor (who is a type of Jesus Christ and His cede for our own sins), "That will exist fine! Y'all may step up and pay the court $1 million and nosotros volition write on the court records that the homo who has been defendant is costless to go."
Then the estimate may look at you, the person who has been arrested, tried and sentenced, and say, "You are free to go. But don't ever get caught up in that kind of a situation once more!"
Do you meet?
You lot are required, as a citizen of a costless country, to obey its laws,or else!
In the case of God's divine laws, y'all arerequired,whether you know about them or not (ignorance of the law is no excuse), whether you are a Christian, a professing Christian or whatever, to obey God's X Commandments.
Though people past the millions freely break the Ten Commandments every single mean solar day, they are unknowingly coming under the penalty of the law, which isexpiry!(Romans 6:23).
When you repent, you are saying to God you lot aredeeply sorry you have broken His laws.
Jesus Christ of Nazareth equally the counsel for the defense says to God, the Righteous Judge, that Hebelievesin your profession of repentance and is willing to permit His own sacrifice to be applied in your instance!
And then, merely as Jesus said to the adult female taken in the very act of adultery, God will say the same thing to you, "Neither do I condemn thee; go andsinno more!"
True repentance, then, means beingness securely distressing you take broken God'south Ten Commandments, resolving through the power of God's Holy Spirit and the help of Jesus Christ as your daily High Priest and Intercessor, not to break the Ten Commandments henceforth.
David experienced some of the depths of the feeling of repentance when he said, "Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving kindness: according unto the multitude of thytender merciesabsorb out my transgressions.
"Launder me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin" (Psalm 51:1,ii).
When David pleaded for the mercy of God and His forgiveness, he also asked that he could exist apple-pie from the penalty of his sins, that his sins could be forgiven and set up aside, andnever mentioned to him over again.
In this case, David was pleading for God'sgraceand His mercy.
He said later, "O how love I thy constabulary it is my meditation all the 24-hour interval" (Psalm 119:97).
Never forget that "sin is the transgression of the constabulary" (ane John 3:4), and, when you totally repent ofhaving sinned,yous repent of having broken God's police!
As Paul says, "Let non sin therefore reign in your mortal torso, that y'all should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members every bit instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: merely yield yourselves unto God … for sin shall not take dominion over you lot: for yous are not nether the law, but nether grace" (Romans 6:12-14).
Do you lot see? A person who has truly repented issorry he has sinned,meaning sorry he has broken God's police force, His X Commandments. He is, now determined that with God's help he willnotbreak those x Commandments again! He knows sin will no longer "rule" over him, that the appetites of his own flesh, the wiles of Satan the devil and his influence, and the evil influence of this world all around him, volition not make him alive a life of sin any further! He knows that he is not "under the police force" (meaning under thepenaltyof the law), but is nether God'southward unmerited grace and pardon!
Paul continues to answer a question which might ascend in the mind of one who does not know the true significant of the wordgrace.
He says, "What so?Shall we sin,[that is break the Ten Commandments] because we are non under the police force just under grace? God forestall!" (Romans vi:fifteen).
Can you see now? When the scripture speaks of being "nether the law," it means, past its very context, being under the "punishment" of the law!
To obey the law is to be "within the law," simply to sin is to come under the law." Merely there is a simple departure which we can empathise by applying the earlier analogy of the courtroom scene.
All of us as free citizens can "stand up fast in the freedom wherewith our founding fathers have madethe states costless,"but to practise so it ways we must continue to be "law-constant citizens"!
And what is wrong with that? How many Americans or others do you see living in costless nations (such as Britain, Canada, Commonwealth of australia, etc.) who go about complaining every single twenty-four hours concerning the many laws they must keep? I do not speak here of taxes or ceremonious codes which from time to time may appear to exist unjust, but the overriding laws which are non unlike the 10 Commandments. It is against the constabulary to murder, to rape, to rob, to steal, pillage, burn or vandalize your neighbors property, and well information technology should be!
How many "law-abiding citizens" go about every single 24-hour interval shaking their heads in dismay, arguing in their minds against these constraints? A ridiculous question!
There's nothing sinister or evil in being a "law-constant citizen" when we use information technology to a country. If yous feel as I do, you prize very highly your freedoms granted y'all past those documents which are virtually on a sacred level chosen the Annunciation of Independence, and the Constitution, with its amendments.
It is no different with God's constabulary. Why should any Christians feel as if they are under a horrible burden similar a grinding, heavy weight to be constrained to obey God's law?
This is tantamount to alleging that the citizens of a free nation such every bit the Usa go about spending their time in doing nothing else except complaining about the terrible yoke of bondage which forces them to avert burglarizing their neighbor's flat, stealing his automobile, raping his married woman or murdering him!
What's WRONG With God's Law?
Tin can y'all find anything really wrong with God's Ten Commandments? How long has it been since you have read the Ten Commandments? For a refreshing experience do the post-obit: Plough in your own Bible to Exodus the 20th chapter and read the entire chapter slowly.
Read not only the Ten Commandments themselves, but even the context in which they were given. Read about the quaking mount with the magnificent voice of God thundering out the greatest police force e'er devised to Moses (who was a mediator of the Old Covenant) and the people of State of israel!
As you read slowly through the 10 Commandments, continually ask yourself, "What iswrongwith these laws?"
Muse for a time on the practical application of the 10 Commandments if they were obeyed in a national sense! Equally an example, what would happen if the The states of America obeyed anyoneof the Ten Commandments perfectly?
What about the commandment against murder? Information technology is easy to see if fifty-fifty this ane commandment were obeyed, an enormous barrage of criminal offence would be eradicated from the American scene!
Jesus in the Sermon on theMount equated hatred, biting acrimony and murderous thoughts with murder itself! Therefore, anyone who is "angry with his blood brother without a cause," and who would say "drib dead" or "you useless wretch," has actuallybroken the spirit and intentof this commandment already!
To break the spirit or intent of thelaw is to come up nether the death sentence! Therefore, Jesus Christ, in magnifying the law and making it "honorable" in the New Testament, makes it farmore bindingthan ever earlier!
Hence, even for a neighbour to be unreasonably angry with his brother means he hasalreadybroken God's Ten Commandments! And to break i is to be guilty ofall!
Remember, sin is the "transgression of the law" (or the breaking of the X Commandments).
Let your mind muse on the positive aspects of the keeping of the Ten Commandments. If that i commandment were being obeyed perfectly in the spirit equally well every bit in the letter, then the Us would be a virtual utopia!
Remember, obeying the law against murder perfectly would mean the eradication of hatred. Hatred is an emotion very closely associated with fear, ego, vanity and jealousy.
Any nation whose citizens were in such control of their minds and emotions so as to bewithout hatewould accept the following swell revolutionary blessings.
1. There would beno crimein the entire nation. Any people completely free from vanity, jealousy, fear, greed and hatred would exist anhonestpeople, a good and loving people.
2. In that location would be noracism.Prejudice produces hatred and vice versa. In eradicating hatred and supplanting it with beloved, which is an outgoing concern (the very contrary feeling from hatred), the nation would also eradicate the terminal vestige of racism. That would mean equal opportunities in the economy, in the government, in education, in religion and in every structure of the society.
This, in turn, would relieve billions of dollars in welfare; it would save hundreds of millions of dollars by canceling the riots, fires and looting that accept pockmarked the face up of America from the kickoff of the struggles for civil rights; information technology would end the activities of such organizations equally the Jewish Defense League, the Black Panthers, the Weathermen Surreptitious, the John Birch Society, the Klu Klux Klan and many dozens of others. Without racism a moving ridge of peace, love, goodwill and prosperity would sweep the land—all because a people obeyed justoneof the Ten Commandments.
3. All entertainment would have to be revised. Books, papers, novels, magazines, motility pictures and television would be deeply affected; for, if there were no hatred, in that location could be no violence, and hence there would exist peace. Without violence, television would have to be more informative, educational, and present a brilliant, hopeful, happy, buoyant, ebullient spirit—it would revolutionize the entire entertainment manufacture.
4. Religions would have to be totally revolutionized too. For without their barbarous internecine hatreds of each other, without the contempt, the suspicion, the fear, the vituperation, the jealousy, the anger and the hatred various religious groups have for each other, all religion would be securely changed!
Do you see? Think of the many other ways in which you could employ the keeping of justthis one commandmentto a modern club, and then call up of the many ways in which that society could be improved!
You could apply the same lesson to any of the other commandments, including covetousness. This would wipe out materialism, the vain, egotistical and greedy search for wealth, ill-gotten gain, and the worshipful mental attitude of bowing down before "things"! People in our order tend to "use people and love things," when they should "use things and beloved people"!
This same experiment could be applied to any one of the Ten Commandments.
But wait!
A commandment which obviously states you ought to keep holy the 7th-day Sabbath, beginning from Fri sunset until Saturday sunset Nowthatis another matter!
Frankly, if God had somehow "blue-penciled" His Ten Commandments and made them Nine Commandments with the quaternary deleted, then the entire question of law and grace and all the other theological arguments which tend to obliterate the 10 Commandments of God would never accept arisen in the first place!
When you come right downwardly to it, it is the insistent rebellion against the requirement to "detect" a day every bit being a specialholy day to God,sanctified in His sight, and for a spiritual and righteous purpose, that seems to gall then many human beings.
To "select" a 24-hour interval in their own minds and hearts, inventing and deriving their own religious customs and pursuits, is well and good. To be righteous enough to "decide"on their own,without any intervention from God, that information technology would be good for them to observe one mean solar day in seven makes many individuals feel quite self-satisfied and righteous in God'due south sight.
Their reasoning goes something similar this:
"It isn't that I 'mind' keeping a day then much; I don't mind doing it at all. It'due south but that I want to keep a day because I dear God, because it is my desire to serve and to dear my God, and not keep a day because Hetells me to!"
Though it may be expressed in many different ways, this is an underlying mental attitude that needs to be understood!
Many people seem to resent being given "orders" from God's Discussion, and would like the 10 Commandments to be rewritten to become the "Ten Suggestions"!
If there were only suggestions from God every bit basic guidelines" which were "highly recommended," many more people would probably endeavor, haphazardly and halfheartedly, to follow a few of them from time to time.
But commandments? Orders? For God tosociety youto exercise something? At present, that is quite a dissimilar matter!
This is the crux of the whole problem!
God's Discussion says, "For the carnal listenis not subject area to the constabulary of God,neither indeed can be!" (Romans 8:vii),
God shows that by our very nature nosotros are rebellious and hostile to God's police. Merely at that place is nothing wrong with the X Commandments, for the campaigner Paul said, "Wherefore, the lawis holy,and the commandment holy, and just and skilful" (Romans 7:12).
He said, "For we know that the law is spiritual: just I am carnal, sold nether sin.
"For that which I do, I don't want to do, and that which I want to do, I do non; and the thing which I hate, that I find myself doing; if and then, I do those things I don't want to practise, I consent unto the law that it isgood"(Romans seven:14-xvi, paraphrased).
No, there is nothing "incorrect" with the Ten Commandments, but in that location is a keen deal incorrect withpeoplewhich the X Commandments point out, and which, in turn, brand many people experience guilty and uncomfortable. So, instead of facing the police force clearly and repenting of what they are doing that is wrong, too many people turn from the mirror of God's X Commandments (which exposes their ain personal sins and faults) and go their own manner, in their ain cocky-righteousness, and refuse to repent!
What well-nigh y'all? Exercise you believe God's police must exist obeyed?
Perhaps yous need to come up to your ain private decision every bit to what you will exercise with the following scriptures.
"…If y'all will enter into life,keep the commandments"(Matthew nineteen:17).
"For I delight in thepolice force of Godafter the inwards human being" (Romans seven:22).
"I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve thelaw of God;but with the flesh the constabulary of sin" (Romans 7:25).
"If you fulfilltheregal constabularyaccording to the scripture, 'you shall love your neighbor every bit yourself,' yous practice well: But, if y'all take respect to persons; you commitsin,and are convinced ofthe policeevery bit transgressors. For whosoever shall keep thewholelaw, and yet offend in1 point,he isguilty of all"(James ii:8-10).
"And hereby do we know that nosotros know him, if wego on his commandments.He that sayeth, I know him, andkeepeth non his Commandments,is a liar, and the truth is not in him" (1 John 2:3,4).
Finally, notice the clarification of the terminate-time remnant of the true Church of God at the verbal moment of their greatest persecutions, just prior to the 2d coming of Christ.
"And the dragon was wroth with the adult female [the Church of God] and went to make war with the remnant of her seed,which go on the commandments of God,and have the testimony of Jesus Christ" (Revelation 12:17).
Don't make the error of thinking that obedience to God'south law conflicts with grace! Because you are under grace, meaning forgiven (when and if you repent of having broken God'due south law), you are rejoicing in thegreat liberty and freedom of having thepenaltyof expiry removed from you lot!
Jesus Christ of Nazareth has stepped forward and asked God the Begetter if He can shed His own life's claret, giving His own back to the horrible, trigger-happy lash for your sins!
He bore His cantankerous through the jeering mob, allowed Himself to be bound, spat upon, brutally beaten within an inch of His life, and and then staggered and fell under the weight of that huge stake until He felt the spikes driven through His hands and His anxiety and had Himself hoisted aloft to die foryour sinsand formine!
He died because we had broken His constabulary!
When we accept the fact of His expiry in our stead, it is the well-nigh shameful mockery of all of history to pervert the "grace of Jesus Christ" into lasciviousness by arguing we tin can nowsuspensionthe very law which took Jesus' life!
No, in one case nosotros have repented and accustomed Christ's shed blood, He volition say to united states only every bit He did the woman,"Go and sin no more than"; that is "Go and don't you ever break those Ten Commandments [in spirit] again!"
Just eventhisis not the end of the story!
In spite of the best intentions of those who have become completely converted, trials and temptations will come. That's why Jesus Christ of Nazareth didn't stay dead!
He is our living Savior, making daily intercession for usa. While, even though we are nether Christ'southward "grace," we nevertheless need His daily intercession when we sin.
"If we say that we accept no sin [that we haven't broken His Ten Commandments] we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
"If we confess our sins [to Him, and to no other], he is faithful and but to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (ane John 1:8,9).
You need to praise God that you tin be nether His grace, meaning that He will forgive and forget your sins if you lot sincerely repent of having broken God'due south law!
The bumper sticker says, "Christians aren't perfect, just forgiven!" And that is true, but remember that forgiveness, one time you repent, means the removal of all guilt that is past!
In that location remains today and tomorrow and next year and the rest of your life. And what happens if you slip up? What happens if you weaken?
Satan would like many to believe that they are hopelesslylostbecause they have allow downwards, dropped out and gone back into the ways of this world, fifty-fifty afterward they made an earlier attempt to live a Christian life.
Many of these people want to be forgiven; they want to be cleansed from their sins; they want conservancy, eternal life! But they believe the devil'south lie that it is too belatedly for them!
No!Jesus Christ islivetoday. He is a merciful High Priest who knows your temptations and weaknesses—He overcame sin in the flesh, beingness tempted in every signal like we are—He is able to turn to the Father and say, "Father, I understand. Please forgive this person!"
If yous still want salvation, God the Father stands ready to requite it to you. He is non willing that any should perish, and He wants to forgive you!
When you are forgiven, you still need Jesus Christ to help you on a daily footing! Grace ways God's lovingpardon, nonpermission to live in a life of sin!
Then repent of having broken God'due south laws; think nearly those wonderful laws that would relieve nations if they were obeyed; and ask God'south help in keeping them and in making them a part of your daily life!
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This publication is intended to be used as a personal study tool. Please know information technology is non wise to accept any human being'due south word for anything, so prove all things for yourself from the pages of your own Bible.
The activities of the Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Clan are paid for by tithes, offerings and donations
freely given by Christians and co-workers who are dedicated to preaching the gospel according to Jesus Christ.
Source: https://www.garnertedarmstrong.org/are-christians-under-the-law/
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