Romans 7:14 “For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin.”

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In the natural, if we really want to understand why a law exists, and if we want to know if a law is a good law, we need to look into the spirit of the law, in other words, find out why the law was instituted to begin with.

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Why do we have stop signs? It is obvious that if two drivers reach an intersection at the same time, and from different directions, and neither one of them slows down, you know people are going to get hurt. So that the spirit of the law behind a stop sign is to protect the drivers and those who might be around a busy intersection at any given time.

 

If we really want to understand biblical principles, all we need to do is to look at the regulations that govern such laws or principles, for they are there for a good reason.

 

In this lesson we are going to take a look at a few of the different laws or principles that we find in the Bible, and we are going to look at the reasons why God instituted them, in the hope that the better that we understand them, the easier it will be for us to submit to them.

 

Let us begin with The Law of Moses.

 

Why is it called the Law of Moses?

 

John 1:17 “For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”

 

Since God’s laws were given through Moses first, many times when the Bible mentions the law, it is usually speaking of the commandments that God gave us through Moses. You will also hear it mentioned about the law and the prophets, and that generally speaks about the laws that came through Moses and through the prophets of the Old Testament as one and the same law.

 

Matthew 5:17 “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.”

 

What is the spirit behind the law of Moses?

 

Deuteronomy 28:58 “If you do not carefully observe all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fear (learn to respect) this glorious and awesome name, THE LORD YOUR GOD.”

 

The law was given to men so that we could understand the very nature of God as we compare it to our own nature. And as we do that, we find that God is holy, and that we are not. We find that God is spiritual, and that we are carnal. We see that God is perfect, and that we are flawed.

 

Jonah 4:2 “...For I know that You are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, One who relents from doing harm.”

 

Our God is also a loving, gracious, and merciful God, as a rebellious Jonah clearly testified as he quoted from the Law of Moses.

 

We are always in need of God’s love, in need of His grace, and of His mercy. We need Him to be patient with us, and slow to anger as He deals with our stubborn nature.

 

The spirit behind the law of Moses reveals that God is perfect and that we are not, but it shows that God is also loving and compassionate, the two things that we are always in need of, which bring us to the principles that drive our next two laws.

 

The Law of Sin and Death, and The Law of the Spirit of Life.

 

Romans 8:2 “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.”

 

In the Law and the Prophets, we see the duality of the problem clearly revealed. God is Spirit, and since we are not spiritual, for we are carnal creatures, there is a great divide between us and God. That needs to be bridged before we can be accepted by God, for the Law requires that we change by becoming spiritual.

 

But how can we become spiritual when we are carnal by nature?

 

The Word of God Who is spiritual had to become carnal or flesh like us in human form, in order to fulfill all the righteous or spiritual requirements of the Law as a human.

 

Since the Law can kill only those who fail it, for it is written in the Law: The soul that sins shall surely die, and since Jesus died, but not for His sins, for He had none, for He is perfect and fulfilled all the Law, so that it was the sins of others that He died for on the cross. But here is the fact that the Law cannot violate the rights of a righteous man. So that if the Law was ever to kill a righteous man it would have to give Him back His life, since the Law is perfect, and it cannot condemn an innocent man.

 

But since Jesus, a righteous man died, atonement was made for sins, and since it was not for His own sins that He died, since He had none, then we must ask the question, whose sins did He atone for on His death on the cross?

 

1 Corinthians 15:45 “And so it is written, ‘The first man Adam became a living being.’ The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.”

 

Hence the Law of the Spirit of Life was introduced to release all the descendants of the first Adam from the Law of Sin and Death that we all had inherited through Adam’s fall, and at the same time to make us spiritual and acceptable to God through the Law of the Sprit of Life to all who freely accept the pardon that has been offered to all Adam’s descendants who are willing to believe, which brings us to our next law.

 

The Law of Faith.

 

Romans 3:27-28 “Where is the boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law.”

 

The work that Jesus completed on the cross for us accomplished two things: First, it fulfilled the Law of God as revealed through Moses and the Prophets, as Jesus told us, I did not come to destroy (the Law) but to fulfill (it).

 

What that means is that Jesus fulfilled, as a human, all the requirements of righteousness that the law demanded from all humans.

 

Secondly, it demonstrated God’s true love for us as revealed in the Law, that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us and removed us from the Law of Sin and Death that we were under by placing us under the Law of the Spirit of Life.

 

But through The Law of the Sprit of Life another law is revealed, The Law of Faith, and the only requirements that we have under this law of faith is that we believe that we have been delivered from Adam’s fall by the atoning work of Jesus on the cross, for this is the law that trumps the sin that caused Adam to fall in the first place.

 

Genesis 3:11 “...Who told you that you were naked?”

 

Spiritually speaking, fruit is the product of what we believe deep within us. In other words, the nature of the fruit that we produce. I am talking about our conduct of course, for it reveals which doctrine we believe.

 

When we are told that Adam took of the fruit that originated from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and ate it, it means that he believed what he was told. That is why God asked him the question, who told you that you were naked?

 

The root of Adam’s sin was that when God created him, God said of him that he was good, even though he was naked, and God did not associate any shame with Adam being naked. When the serpent revealed to Adam the condition of his nakedness and associated it with shame, Adam believed the words of the serpent over what God had said...that was his sin.

 

When Jesus hung on the cross naked, He took all the shame that every human had ever experienced or will ever experience, and He nailed it there for all to see.

 

Adam might had been naked in the natural, but he wasn’t uncovered, for the God that created him, loved him and accepted him as he was, and it was the covering of God’s Word that clothed him, for when God looked at him in his naked condition God declared him good, and it is the Word of God that sets the standards, not the devil nor the world.

 

And so it is for us who believe today as well, we are still naked in the sense that we still dwell in these mortal bodies, and we still have to contend with the devil who accuses us day and night continuously reminding us of our nakedness.

 

But our covering comes through The Law of Faith, for in it we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law.

 

So that what changes is our testimony, we are not naked and we do not walk in shame, for our nakedness has been covered by the grace of Almighty God and nailed to the cross along with its shame.

 

Romans 10:8-10 “But what does it say? The word (the fruit) is near you, in your mouth and in your heart (that is, the word [law] of faith which we preach): that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead (through The Law of the Sprit of Life), you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”

 

Since in Jesus we are covered under The Law of the Spirit of Life, and since our only requirement is that we abide by The Law of Faith, that is to believe in the promises of God and to declare our allegiance to them faithfully, that brings us then into another law.

 

The Law of Liberty.

 

James 1:25 “But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.”

 

James 2:12 “So speak and so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty.”

 

Therefore we live under the covering of The law of the Sprit of Life, empowered by The Law of Faith, which in turn has placed us under The Law of Liberty that frees us to boldly proclaim the Gospel without any shame or trepidation.

 

So that now we are free to fulfill The Law of Christ!

 

Galatians 6:2 “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”