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When we try to keep the
Old Covenant Law, we commit spiritual adultery
and are slaves to sin.
Paul used two
illustrations to show that we cannot be
under two competing covenants, or legal
codes, at the same time.
We are
either under the Old Covenant “law of sin
and death”, or, we are under the New
Covenant law of the life-giving Spirit
(Rom. 8:2). The Old Covenant law does not,
and cannot ever bring victory over sin and
death because sin is actually magnified by
the law (Rom. 5:20). But those who have
died with Christ are set free from sin and
the power of the law to bring death.
The first illustration Paul used was that of
Hagar and Sarah to show us we can’t be under
two competing covenants at the same time.
Galatians 4:21-23 says,
“Tell me, you who desire to be under the
law, do you not listen to the law? For it is
written that Abraham had two sons, one by a
slave woman and one by a free woman. But the
son of the slave was born according to the
flesh, while the son of the free woman was
born through promise.”
Paul
confronted the Judaizers in Galatia by using
the story of Abraham’s two sons to show that
law-keeping is slavery and cannot be mixed
with grace. Abraham had two sons, Ishmael,
who was born through a human arrangement,
and Isaac, who was born in fulfillment of
God’s promise (Gen. 15-21). Hagar, the
slave woman was the mother of Ishmael, and
Sarah was the mother of Isaac, Abraham’s
true wife.
Galatians 4:24-26 says,
“Now this may be interpreted allegorically:
these women are two covenants. One is from
Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery;
she is Hagar. Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in
Arabia; she corresponds to the present
Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her
children. But the Jerusalem above is free,
and she is our mother.”
The Old Covenant law that God
gave to Israel at Mount Sinai is compared to
Hagar; Sarah is
compared to the covenant of grace that God
gives freely to all those who put their trust in
Jesus Christ alone for their salvation. The descendants of the slave woman
are the Judaizers; the spiritual descendants
of the free woman are those saved by God’s
grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone.
Galatians 4:27 says, “For it is written,
“Rejoice, O barren one who does not bear;
break forth and cry aloud, you who are not
in labor! For the children of the desolate
one will be more than those of the one who
has a husband.”
The Jews were
Abraham’s children by natural descent but
they had failed to be faithful to God; the
Gentiles, who had been “strangers to the
covenants” (Eph. 2:11-18), now have become Abraham’s
spiritual offspring.
Galatians 4:28-31 says, “Now you, brothers, like
Isaac, are children of promise. But just as
at that time he who was born according to
the flesh persecuted him who was born
according to the Spirit, so also it is now.
But what does the Scripture say? “Cast out
the slave woman and her son, for the son of
the slave woman shall not inherit with the
son of the free woman.” So, brothers, we are
not children of the slave but of the free
woman.”
Ishmael is compared to the
Jews who are slaves under the bondage of the
law; Isaac is compared to those who are
saved by the grace of God and freed from the
law. Just as Ishmael persecuted Isaac, so
the Jews under the law persecute those who
are God’s people through His grace. Children
of the law and children of grace cannot live
together; the former must be thrown out.
Legalism is a poison that brings
anyone who tries to live by it back under
the “yoke of bondage” that the law produces
(Acts 15:10; Gal. 5:1-5).
Paul’s
warning to the Galatians about legalism is
just as relevant today as it was in his
time.
Galatians 4:10-11 says,
“You observe days and months and seasons and
years! I am afraid I may have labored over
you in vain.”
Paul makes it clear
that Christians are not under the laws of the Mosaic
covenant. The days and months and seasons
and years were all part of the elaborate
system of worship that God gave to Israel
that included the seventh day Sabbath, new
moon celebrations, and all of the Feasts of
the Lord (Lev. 23). To require
Christians to follow the Old Covenant laws
and system of worship is to deny the gospel
of justification by faith alone, in Jesus
Christ alone.
The second illustration
Paul used was of a marriage between a man
and woman to show us the binding nature of
living under one covenant at a time.
Romans 7:1-3 says, “Or do you
not know, brothers—for I am speaking to
those who know the law—that the law is
binding on a person only as long as he
lives? For a married woman is bound by law
to her husband while he lives, but if her
husband dies she is released from the law of
marriage. Accordingly, she will be called an
adulteress if she lives with another man
while her husband is alive. But if her
husband dies, she is free from that law, and
if she marries another man she is not an
adulteress.”
Paul makes his
point clear for us in
the following verses.
Romans 7:4
says, “Likewise, my brothers, you also have
died to the law through the body of Christ,
so that you may belong to another, to him
who has been raised from the dead, in order
that we may bear fruit for God.”
Paul
gave the example of a wife who is no longer
bound to her husband after he dies. She is
now freed to marry again without breaking
the law. Similarly, those who are in Christ
have died to the Old Covenant law so that
the bond between them and the law is broken.
They have been raised to new life and are
now united together with Christ under the
New Covenant. The
believer is now free to experience the
abundant life that Jesus Christ offers to
all those who accept Him.
Romans 7:5-6
says, “For while we were living in the
flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the
law, were at work in our members to bear
fruit for death. But now we are released
from the law, having died to that which held
us captive, so that we serve in the new way
of the Spirit and not in the old way of the
written code.”
The more the law
forbids something, the more the human heart
desires it; and when the law is broken, it
can only produce death (Rom. 5:20; 7:5). Now that Christ’s followers have died
to the law, they can begin to serve God with
a newly transformed heart. They no longer
have to live in fear, because they are no
longer under the law’s power to kill and
destroy their lives.
Romans 7:7-8
says, “What then shall we say? That the law
is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been
for the law, I would not have known sin. For
I would not have known what it is to covet
if the law had not said, “You shall not
covet.” But sin, seizing an opportunity
through the commandment, produced in me all
kinds of covetousness. For apart from the
law, sin lies dead.”
Paul stressed
that the law was not sin. In fact, the law
is holy, but we are not. The holiness
revealed in the law shows us just how sinful
we really are.
At conversion, the
believer has died to the law (Rom. 7:4),
with the result that they are now able to
serve in the newness of life (Rom. 6:4).
They have a new life in the Holy Spirit, not
in the old way of the letter, the old way of
trying to gain life by means of law-keeping.
The text plainly says that we no longer live
by the “written code.” From Romans 7:1-8,
there can be no mistaking that the law
Christians are to die to, the law of the
written code (2 Cor. 3:2-11), is the
Ten Commandments, along with all of the
other laws of the Old Covenant. In Romans 7:6, Paul makes his meaning clear, “we are
released from the law, having died to that
which held us captive, so that we can serve
in the new way of the Spirit and not in the
old way of the written code.”
Paul’s
whole point in Romans 7 is that the law is
only in force while that person is alive “to
the law”. Paul knew that we cannot be under
two conflicting covenants, or laws at the
same time. A woman cannot be married to two
men at the same time without being guilty of
physical adultery, and to try to live under
two competing covenants at the same time is
to be guilty of spiritual adultery. One is
just as bad as the other.
Romans 6:5-7 says,
“For if we have been united with him in a
death like his, we shall certainly be united
with him in a resurrection like his. We know
that our old self was crucified with him in
order that the body of sin might be brought
to nothing, so that we would no longer be
enslaved to sin. For one who has died has
been set free from sin.”
It
is easy to think that if we just focus on
keeping the Ten Commandments we will be
saved, but the scriptures warn us that
whenever the law is preached, a “veil” lies
over the hearts of all those who would try
to live by it. As a Christ-follower, we can
only experience freedom from the law by
trusting in Him. It is the Holy Spirit, not
the law, that gives us freedom from sin, the
law’s condemnation, and eternal death
(Phil. 1:6; Rom. 8:1-2; 8:12-13; 2 Cor. 3:1-17).
The Old Covenant
law has no authority over those of us who
are in Christ Jesus. We have died to the law
and are no longer bound by it.
Colossians 2:13-17 says, “When you were dead
in your sins and in the uncircumcision of
your sinful nature, God made you alive with
Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled
the written code, with its regulations, that
was against us and that stood opposed to us;
he took it away, nailing it to the cross.
And having disarmed the powers and
authorities, he made a public spectacle of
them, triumphing over them by the cross.
Therefore do not let anyone judge you by
what you eat or drink, or with regard to a
religious festival, a New Moon celebration
or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the
things that were to come; the reality,
however, is found in Christ.” (NIV)
Paul used the word picture of a “record of
debt” or “written code” to characterize each
person’s indebtedness to God because of sin.
Christ has canceled our sin’s debt that the
Mosaic Law put us under by nailing it to the
cross. His death on the cross paid our debt
in full.
All the types and shadows of
the Old Covenant law were fulfilled in
Christ and brought to completion through the
New Covenant He offers us “in his flesh.”
Ephesians 2:13-16 says, “But now in
Christ Jesus you who once were far away have
been brought near through the blood of
Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has
made the two one and has destroyed the
barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by
abolishing in his flesh the law with its
commandments and regulations. His purpose
was to create in himself one new man out of
the two, thus making peace, and in this one
body to reconcile both of them to God
through the cross, by which he put to death
their hostility.” (NIV)
No one is
commanded to keep the Old Covenant law in
the New Covenant. They are separate and
distinct covenants and you can’t be under
both at the same time. The Mosaic Covenant
served as a dividing wall, or partition that
was meant to separate Israel from the
unbelieving Gentiles (Eph. 2:11-15;
John 7:35; Acts 14:1, 5; 18:4; Rom. 3:9; 3:29; 9:24;
1 Cor. 1:22-24). Christ
brought unity to the two groups by doing
away with the partition. The Gentiles were
separated from the commonwealth of Israel
and were strangers to the covenants of
promise. The New Covenant made the two
groups into one new group, the “church of
God” (1 Cor. 10:32). Christ abolished
the dividing wall by fulfilling it and
removing the law’s condemnation for all
those who accept Him as their Lord and
Savior (Matt. 5:17; Rom. 8:1; Heb. 9:11-14; 10:1-10). When we put our faith in
Jesus Christ, we become a new person, we
become part of a new human race made in
Christ’s own image, the second Adam (1 Cor. 15:45, 49;
Eph. 4:24).
Christians are told to keep the law of
Christ.
Paul says in Galatians 6:2
that we are to, “Bear one another’s burdens,
and so fulfill the law of Christ.” What
exactly is the law of Christ, and how is it
fulfilled when we bear each other’s burdens?
The law of Christ is what Christ said
were the greatest commandments in Mark 12:28-31, “Which commandment is the most
important of all?” Jesus answered, “The most
important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our
God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the
Lord your God with all your heart and with
all your soul and with all your mind and
with all your strength.’ The second is this:
‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
The law of Christ, then, is to love God
with all of our hearts and to love our
neighbors as ourselves because “love
fulfills the law” (Rom. 13:8-10; cf. 1 Cor. 13).
The law of Christ is not the law of the Jews
under the Old Covenant. The New Covenant has
its own legal code. We are not free to sin
because we are no longer under the Old
Covenant law. In fact, nine of the Ten
Commandments are included in and enlarged
upon in the New Covenant. They apply to
Christians because they are commanded of us
in the New Covenant, not because they were
commanded in the Old Covenant. In
1 Corinthians 9:19-23, Paul said he wasn’t
under the Old Covenant law of the Jews any
longer because he was now under the law of
Christ. The
law of Christ contains some new commands
(1 Tim. 4:4), some old ones (Rom. 13:9),
and some revised ones (Rom. 13:4). The
laws of the New Covenant are the only laws
that Christians are expected to keep.
Jesus had to do away with the Old
Covenant before he could give us the new.
Hebrews 10:9-10 says, “then he added,
“Behold, I have come to do your will.” He
does away with the first in order to
establish the second. And by that will we
have been sanctified through the offering of
the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” And
Galatians 5:1 says, “For freedom Christ has
set us free; stand firm therefore, and do
not submit again to a yoke of slavery.”
The Law of Christ is God’s one and only
law for those who live under the New
Covenant (Gal. 6:2; Rom. 6:14; 1 Cor. 9:20-21).
Christ has done
it all for us!
Jesus said in
John 17:1-3, “Father, the hour has come;
glorify your Son that the Son may glorify
you, since you have given him authority over
all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom
you have given him. And this is eternal
life, that they know you the only true God,
and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” And
1 John 2:25 says, “And this is the promise
that he made to us — eternal life.”
All we have to
do is put our trust in what Jesus Christ has
done for us and believe in the promise of
eternal life that God has given to us.
Change will come. Not because we are
law-focused, but because we are Spirit-led
(Gal. 5:16, 18, 22, 23).
We now
have a choice, we can choose to live as a
slave under the Old Covenant “law of sin and
death”, or, we can choose to live a life of
freedom under the New Covenant law of the
life-giving Spirit.
Which way of
living do you choose?
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