Watch the vid below to see Christian Religion Lie #90: “Christ Empowers Us To Keep God’s Law” and read my comments after the video…
This is something you hear a lot, especially when you start talking about Grace.
The idea is “God living through us, Christ living through us will keep us fulfilling God’s law without even trying”
This is a good sounding idea — but it’s still a feeble attempt for us to be “in control” a way for us to look for a set of rules and regulations to follow to make sure we’re in God’s good graces’.
But it’s a lie…
The truth is you’re dead to the law
Paul said in Romans 7:4-6:
“So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God. 5For when we were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death. 6But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.”
Just like a marriage relationship being gone, totally removed from you when your spouse dies, your relationship to the law is totally dead because when you were placed in Christ you died to the law (through Christ’s death and resurrection)…
You don’t keep it. You don’t break it. You have no relationship to it.
So the idea that the life of Christ inside you will enable you to keep God’s laws is incorrect, it’s a lie, you have no relatinoship to the law now that you are in Christ.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Low 06.12.09 at 8:21 pm
This is not true. You will continue to get this question because people know, inherently, that this does not ring true.
I asked God what does it mean that we were created in your image and he told me: “It doesn’t mean that your body looks like my body because I can change my shape and form whenever I want. I am limitless.” Then he told me that his Words, his actions, his voice and his appearance can only be fully described as Holy. Holy is his image.
That’s why the angels cry Holy Holy Holy in his presence and that’s why Leviticus 11:44 says “be ye Holy for I am Holy.” Then I Peter 1:15-16 says it again to let us know that even though Leviticus was the old law, it still applies in the new law. So I asked God what Holiness is and he told me that Holy is the Lord God of Hosts. That blew my mind because I knew what he meant. The only way to be holy is to have the only One that is Holy living on the inside and that Holy one is Jesus.
God continued to explain things to me. He told me that Adam was created as a Holy creature but he lost that when he sinned and he became unholy. Unholy is the opposite of God. So God presented a law that would show man what a holy life should look like because man couldn’t clearly see right from wrong anymore. They knew how to do good and evil but they couldn’t always tell them apart so God spelled it out in the old law. God wanted us to try to do the old law so that we would see what a bad condition we were in. So that we would see how much our flesh hates to do what is right. Some people gave up and said it was too hard. Some people tried to change the law to make room for their sins (people still do it today) and some people added more laws so that they would look like they were great (Pharisees).
Then Jesus came so that he could put the holy law in us. These days, everyone tries to say that we’re free from the law but they’re only half way correct. In Matthew 5:17, Jesus said, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy the law, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Til heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” Then Jesus told them a little further down that their righteousness had to exceed the Pharisees and the Pharisees were adding extra laws to the old law. So Jesus added his own “new” laws so he could show people how strict he was. He told them in verse 21 that it is written that thou shalt not kill but I’m here to tell you that if you’re even angry with your brother without a cause then you are in danger of hell fire. Then he told them in verse 27 that the old law says you can’t commit adultery but under my new law if you even lust after another woman then you have already committed adultery with her. He gave them a lot of examples like this and then in the last verse, verse 48, he told them to be perfect just like God is perfect.
That upset a lot of people because they couldn’t live perfect like that and if they couldn’t live perfect then they couldn’t be Holy according to Jesus and if they weren’t Holy then they weren’t in the image of God because God is Holy. Then Jesus went to the cross and those same people that he had preached to, had him crucified because they didn’t like his new laws. I Peter 2:8 says that they were offended by Jesus’ good news because they were disobedient people. Then Jesus died on the cross for everybody so that whoever believed in Him and wanted to follow his law could be saved. Now to believe in him didn’t mean that you just believed that he exists or you believe that he died for your sins because the Pharisees believe that Jesus was real and Satan believed that Jesus died for our sins. Belief is not enough by itself.
Romans 10:9 says that if you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead then you shall be saved but the key word is SHALL. The next verse gives a deeper explanation. Romans 10:10 says that your heart has to believe until you’re righteous and that you confess with your mouth until you are saved. I’m paraphrasing but if you look up the old english word UNTO it means UNTIL.
That’s important to me because we now have churches that tell people to say “I confess with my mouth and believe in my heart that Jesus is the saviour” and then they tell those people that they’re saved. That’s not what that scripture means. You have to stay or abide with God to be saved. If you sin, we have an advocate with the father and the blood sacrifice has already been made so all you have to do is repent but the scripture says that if we confess our sins he is “faithful and just to forgive us and to CLEANSE us from ALL unrighteousness”. You have to be cleansed because I John 2:4 says that if we says we know him but don’t keep his commandments then we’re lying. I John 2:5 goes even further and says that we know that we are in him because we keep his word.
This was the part that really got me. You know how I said that Jesus came to fulfill the Old Law not to take it away? Well First John 3:4-5 says that if you sin, you’re still transgressing the old law because sin is the transgression of the law and Jesus came to take away our sins and there’s no sin in him. In other words, Jesus didn’t come to take the law away, he came to take the sin away.
I John 3:9 says that whoever is born of God does not commit sin because he can’t.
That means that God has brought us all the way back to his image. He’s made us like Adam again because the second Adam, Jesus, is living inside of us (the law written in our hearts).
calebo 09.08.09 at 3:29 pm
@ Low: No, that’s not true …
You have to understand that Jesus was living under the old covenant still because He had not yet been murdered and raised from the dead to fulfill that law … so take that into account when you read Jesus’ words speaking to people of his day, at that time, and that were jewish.
Second, Paul explains over and over that we are dead to the law … even going so far as to compare it to a marriage covenant being broken by death. The old law is dead, we are no longer married to it because Jesus completely fulfilled it, and now we’re the “Bride of Christ”.
Love,
Caleb