Hope, Healing & Freedom Podcast : Ep 31
TRANSCRIPT
I’m Lee Whitman and today’s podcast continues with the topic of The Law vs. Grace.
We are going to look at many scriptures today, so we don’t have one main verse for this podcast.
Today as believers in Jesus we no longer live under the law.
Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin.
Romans 6:3-7 NASB
Romans 6 From the Passion Translation:
Or have you forgotten that all of us who were immersed into union with Jesus, the Anointed One, were immersed into union with his death? Sharing in his death by our baptism means that we were co-buried and entombed with him, so that when the Father’s glory raised Christ from the dead, we were also raised with him. We have been co-resurrected with him so that we could be empowered to walk in the freshness of new life. For since we are permanently grafted into him to experience a death like his, then we are permanently grafted into him to experience a resurrection like his and the new life that it imparts.
Romans 6:3-7 TPT
According to Romans 6, the following things are already true of us:
1. We died with Christ. The old man, our old sinful nature was “baptized” into Christ, so that when He died on the cross, we died with Him. The word baptized means to be immersed into or joined to. When we accepted Christ as savior, we were immersed into Him or joined to Him so that when He died, we died with Him
2. We were buried with Christ.
3. When He rose again to new life, we rose with Him to a brand new life. – Not the same life with a new list of regulations to follow. A completely different life with a new operating system based on the grace of God.
4. We have been set free from the power of sin. At the same time we were also set free from the Law.
5. Since we are joined with Christ, the life we now live is lived by the power of Christ living in and through us.
There are many definitions of Grace. The definition that is used often is God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense. My favorite definition of Grace is “God doing for man, what man could not do for himself.” Man could not save himself, so God sent His Son Jesus to die on the cross so that man could be made right with God. Man couldn’t live the Christian life out of his own resources, so God sent His Holy Spirit to live in man, giving man the ability to live the Christian life. God doing for man what man could not do for himself.
So what about The Law? What is our relationship now?
What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, has found? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” Now to the one who works, his wage is not credited as a favor, but as what is due. But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness,”
Romans 4:1-5
I think most believers would agree that we are saved by faith and not by our works. However, we don’t always live our lives that way. Many start out knowing they are saved by grace but they then feel they have to maintain their relationship with God by their works. Romans 4:5 says that only by accepting what Jesus has done for us, not counting on our own works, will it be credited as righteousness.
Paul uses an interesting analogy in Romans chapter 7 proving that believers are no longer under the law and are no longer still yoked to the Law.
Or do you not know, brethren (for I am speaking to those who know the law), that the law has jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives? For the married woman is bound by law to her husband while he is living; but if her husband dies, she is released from the law concerning the husband. So then, if while her husband is living she is joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress though she is joined to another man.
Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death. But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter.
Romans 7:1-6 NASB
For as long as a woman’s husband is alive, she is bound to her husband and may not marry another man. But if the husband dies, she is now free to marry another.
In this analogy, we were married to the law. The law did not die, but we died in Christ to the Law, so we are free to be married to another, to Jesus!
Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.
Romans 8:1- 5 NASB
Romans says that we have been set free from the law of sin and death. However we can still try to live the Christian life by our own resources, living out of the flesh, living by a list of do’s and don’ts. Vs. 5 says that by setting our minds on the things of the flesh (our human resources and living according to this list of do’s and don’ts) we place ourselves back under the law.
One more thing you need to know about the Law: The power of sin is inflamed by the law:
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.
1 Corinthians 15:56
Let’s say there is a seven foot high solid wood fence along the sidewalk that has a knot hole in the fence. People walk by that fence every day. No one really notices or gives much attention to the knot hole. People don’t really care that there is a knot hole. But if we put a sign on the knot hole that says “Don’t look in this knot hole!” what is going to happen? That is the power of the law. As soon as the law says, “Don’t do something” there is a power at work in us that says, I want to do that. Diets tend to fail because you are focusing on what you can’t have. I can’t eat Ice cream, I can’t eat Ice cream, I can’t eat Ice Cream. What do I want to do? I want to eat Ice Cream.
Grace changes the heart. Grace empowers you to say no to things that are not healthy for you. Could you eat the Ice Cream? Sure. But not if you want to lose weight and get healthy.
Trying to live the Christian life by the law does not work. It was never God’s plan or intention for us to live by a list of rule and regulations.
For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
Romans 10:4
This lesson leads people to ask:
If we are under grace, does that mean we can do anything we want?
Listen carefully to my full answer. The answer is Yes, you can do anything you want to do. But before you get to outraged with me, let’s look at who the real you really is.
What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? 2 May it never be! (The Passion Translation say, “What a terrible thought! The New King James says “Certainly not!) How shall we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?
Romans 6:1-3 NASB
Romans 6:1-3 (The Lee Whitman Translation) – “Can we continue in sin so that God’s grace will increase? Are you Nuts! You must not know who you really are!”
If we no longer live by a list of rules and standards (the Law) then how are we to live the Christian life?
But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law.
Galatians 5:16-18
But when you are brought into the full freedom of the Spirit of grace, you will no longer be living under the domination of the law, but soaring above it!
Galatians 5:18 TPT
Living by the Spirit in us is going to guide us to do everything that the law requires, but do it by empowering us to want to do it.
The spirit changes our “have to” into a “want to” or even “I get to”.
