Wednesday, May 04, 2011

Christianity versus Law: Mormonism, Islam, Seventh Day Adventism, Messianic Christianity

The demands of the law is love. The demands of God is a heart from which evil has been cut out.


When Moses and Elisha spoke to Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration, they spoke to him about the "exodus" he was to perform at Jerusalem. What exactly is the exodus? The translating of God's people out of the kingdom of power of the law into the kingdom of Grace, the kingdom of God's dear son, where the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil has no power to create sin or the consciousness of sin in us. 


Many religions don't get the idea about Jesus' removing us from the world and the power of the law. Mormonism, Islam, Seventh Day Adventism, Messianic Christianity which wants to return Christians to using the Torah, (as opposed to Messianic Judaism) are religions that acknowledge Jesus in some way but don't seem to understand the Judeo-Christian idea that the law is of one world and grace is about another world. Instead, they seek to cause people to return to the law.


St Paul's comment in Galatians that those who return to trusting in the law are under a curse. Would be nice to return to the Torah, if we didn't trust in it for our salvation. The law came in as a schoolmaster that the trespass might abound so that we could be seen as lawbreakers. The law exposes our true nature and God gave it to us so that we can see that we cannot of ourselves do anything to please God. The law was given to us in the full knowledge that we would break it. 


In Romans 7, we see how God delivered us from the power of the law to curse us. The relation between sin and the sinner is that of master and slave. The relation between the law and the sinner is that of husband to wife. Unless the first husband (the law) dies, the woman cannot be married to the second husband (Christ.) The law is an exacting husband, but Christ fulfills in us the very demands of the laws that he makes. The law is going to continue til all eternity. How can we marry a second husband when the first husband refuses to die? God delivers us from the law by having the woman "die" to the law (the first husband.) In that way she is free. Once the woman is dead, the law cannot affect her. Once the woman is dead, sin has no power over her. The law cannot die but when we are dead in Christ, we are no longer bound to the first husband. The woman is dead and nos is discharged from the demands of her first husband which was the law. We were made dead to the law through the body of Christ, free from the law and free from sin. Death has dissolved the demands of the former husband upon the woman...the woman (God's people) is now free from the demands of that husband. Being united to Christ in death and in resurrection, she brings forth fruit unto God. God's holiness within her is perfected. The law is not annulled anymore but the Risen God in her does the works of the perfect law of God.


The old man who wants to do the works of the law by himself is now dead. The second man, Christ -- the Last Adam-- has brought us freedom and is in us doing the works of the law in our recreated minds. We are new Creatures now. We are no longer children of the old Adam who chose the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil and who wanted to do works of goodness...but we are children of the tree of life and God is working in us.


Sin came in with the law (which is the Tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil.) With the law came punishment if that law was not fulfilled. Jesus freed us by the law by being perfect under the law. Because we died with him in baptism, we are free from the accusations of the Adversary (Satan is a legalist.) We're free from the punishment dictated by the law: sickness, death, demonic attacks. We have power to renounce generational curses. 


In Christ, our nature is changed. Now that we are no longer children of the first Adam or the first Man and are a new entirely different creation (children of the last Adam and the second man) we have passed from human life to death to being like God, who is beyond the human law and the human idea of good and evil.


In heaven, there is no good or evil. All is good. But more so, heaven is kind of a-moral. Note I do not say "amoral" as we would say it. But in heaven the power of the law has no effect on those redeemed by Christ. Because we are free from the law and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and by legal standards of righteousness, we have no consciousness of sin. Whether people sin or not will not matter because Sin same when Adam accepted the law (Tree of knowledge of good and evil) and the tree of knowledge will have no power in the New Jerusalem. Not one jot of the law will be passed away, but even so it has no power against those in Christ because we are no longer under the power of the law, but translated out of its power into the kingdom of God's dear son.  It is Jesus' righteousness that has fulfilled the law for us. It is His life which we now live. 


True, we are no longer under the law because of Christ's sacrifice, and Galatians warns against legalism and Romans warns against the law. YET we must not sin. The Bible says the relation between law and the sinner is that of master and slave or husband to wife. When we're in Christ, we leave our first husband (the law)  and are married to the true bridegroom, the Second Adam, the Last Man (Christ..) Nevertheless, the law continues til all eternity. But we cannot spit on Jesus' blood. 


 Like the iron which was made to float in the water (the book of kings) our very nature is changed, and the law has no power over us. In the same way, Paul says we are NOW seated with Christ. So the Church is out of the world's ways, laws, etc. Why? Because we are in Christ. 

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