Law vs Faith
Galatians 2 ~ TPT
"Jews and non-Jews are Saved by Faith"
Although we’re Jews by birth and not gentile “sinners,” we know that no one receives God’s perfect righteousness as a reward for keeping the law, but only by the faith of Jesus, the Messiah! His faithfulness has saved us, and we have received God’s perfect righteousness. Now we know that God accepts no one by the keeping of religious laws!
If we are those who desire to be righteous through our union with the Anointed One, does that mean our Messiah condones sin even though we acknowledge that we are sinners? How absurd! For if I start over and reconstruct the old religious system that I had torn down with the message of grace, I would appear to be a lawbreaker.
For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God.
My old identity has been co-crucified with Christ and no longer lives. And now the essence of this new life is no longer mine, for the Anointed One lives his life through me—we live in union as one! My new life is empowered by the faith of the Son of God who loves me so much that he gave himself for me, dispensing his life into mine!
Galatians 3 ~ TPT
"Faith brings Freedom"
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Holy Spirit = Gift
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New birth
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Awakening of your spirit
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Law = curse
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Impossible to keep the law
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Keeping the Law = self effort & works
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Christ paid the full price and set us free from the curse of the Law
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Christ fulfilled the Law
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Faith immersed you into Christ
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Covered and clothed with Christ
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A new generation
Keeping the law does not require faith, but works and self-effort.
Christ paid the full price to set us free from the curse of the law. He fulfilled it!
So that is why I don’t view God’s grace as something peripheral. For if keeping the law could release God’s righteousness to us, then Christ would have died for nothing..
So answer me this: Did the Holy Spirit come to you as a reward for keeping all the Jewish laws? No, you received them as a gift because you believed in the Messiah. Your new life in the Anointed One began with the Holy Spirit giving you a new birth. [The awakening of your spirit].
Why then would you so foolishly turn from living in the Spirit by trying to finish by your own works?
Have you endured all these trials and persecutions for nothing?
Let me ask you again: What does the lavish supply of the Holy Spirit in your life, and in the miracles of God's tremendous power, have to do with you keeping religious laws? The Holy Spirit is poured out upon us through the revelation and power of faith, not by keeping the law!
Long ago God prophesied over Abraham, as the holy Scripture say:
"Through your example of faith all the nations will be blessed!"
And so the blessing of Abraham's faith is now our blessing too. But if you choose to live in bondage under the legalistic rule of religion, you live under the law's curse. For it is clearly written:
"Utterly cursed is everyone who fails to practice every detail and requirement that is written in this law!"
For the Scriptures reveal, and is obvious, that no one achieves the righteousness of God by attempting to keep the law.
Keeping the law does not require faith, but works and self-effort. For the law teaches,
"If you practice the principles of the law, you must follow all of them.
Yet, Christ paid the full price to set us free from the curse of the law. He absorbed it completely [fulfilled it] as he became a curse in our place. Jesus, our Messiah, was cursed in our place and in so doing, dissolved the curse from our lives, so that all the blessings of Abraham can be poured out upon even non-Jewish believers.
And now God gives us the promise of the wonderful Holy Spirit who lives within us when we believe in him.
We also receive all the promises because of the Promised One - not because we keep the law!
Galatians 3:19-25
Why then was the law given at all? ~ TPT
It was given alongside the promise to show people their sins. But the law was designed to last only until the coming of the “Seed,” the child who was promised. When God gave the law, he gave it first to angels; they gave it to Moses, his mediator, who then gave it to the people. Now, a mediator does not represent just one party alone, but God fulfilled it all by himself!
Since that’s true, should we consider the written law to be contrary to the promise of new life?
How absurd! Truly, if there was a law that we could keep which would give us new life, then our salvation would have come by law-keeping. But the Scriptures make it clear that the whole world is imprisoned by sin! This was so the promise would be given through faith to people who believe in Jesus Christ.
So until the revelation of faith for salvation was released, the law was a jailer, holding us as prisoners under lock and key until the “faith,” which was destined to be revealed, would set us free. The law was our guardian until Christ came so that we would be saved by faith. But now that faith has come and we are no longer under the guardian of the law.
We have all become true children of God by faith in Jesus Christ! Faith immersed you into Christ, and now you are covered and clothed with his life. And we no longer see each other in our former state—Jew or non-Jew, rich or poor, male or female—because we’re all one through our union with Jesus Christ. [A new generation.]
And if you belong to Christ, then you are now Abraham’s “child” and a true heir of all his blessings because of the promise God made to Abraham!
Galatians 4:4 ~ NKJV
But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.
Jesus was born of a woman - he was human. He was born as a Jew - he was subject to God's law and fulfilled it perfectly. Thus Jesus was the perfect sacrifice because, although he was fully human, he never sinned. His death brought freedom for us, who were enslaved to sin. The law does not set you free but keeps you in bondage; obliged to daily try and fulfill the law yourself and this is humanly impossible.
~ Taken from footnotes NKJV
Ephesians 2:8-9 ~ TPT
For it was only through this wonderful grace that we believed in him. Nothing we did could ever earn this salvation, for it was the love gift from God that brought us to Christ! So no one will ever be able to boast, for salvation is never a reward for good works or human striving.
Galatians 5 ~ TPT
"A life of Freedom"
At last we have freedom, for Christ has set us free! We must always cherish this truth and firmly refuse to go back into the bondage of our past.
I, Paul, tell you: If you think there is benefit in circumcision and Jewish regulations, then you’re acting as though Christ is not enough. I say it again emphatically: If you let yourselves be circumcised you are obliged to fulfill every single one of the commandments and regulations of the law!
If you want to be made right with God by fulfilling the obligations of the law, you have cut off more than your flesh—you have cut yourselves off from Christ and have fallen away from the revelation of grace!
But we have the true hope that comes from being made right with God, and by the Spirit we wait eagerly for this hope. When you’re joined to the Anointed One, circumcision and religious obligations can benefit you nothing. All that matters now is living in the faith that works and expresses itself through love.
Dear friends, why do you think the religious system persecutes me? Is it because I preach the message of being circumcised and keeping all the laws of Judaism? Not at all!
Firmly refuse to go back into the bondage of your past.
Religious obligations can benefit you nothing.
Galatians 4:21 - 31 ~ NKJV
Two Covenants (Isaac and Ishmael)
Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not hear the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons: the one by a bondwoman, the other by a freewoman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and he of the freewoman through promise, which things are symbolic. For these are the two covenants: the one from Mount Sinai which gives birth to bondage, which is Hagar— for this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children— but the Jerusalem above is free, which is the mother of us all.
Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are children of promise. But, as he who was born according to the flesh then persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, even so, it is now. Nevertheless, what does the Scripture say? “Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman.” So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman but of the free.
Circumcision was a symbol of having the right background and doing everything required by religion. No amount of work, discipline or moral behaviour can save us.
If a person were counting on finding favour with God by being circumcised, he would also have to obey the rest of God's law completely.
Before Christ's coming, Gentiles and Jews were kept apart from one another. Jews considered Gentiles beyond God's saving power and therefore without hope.
Gentiles resented Jewish claims.
Christ revealed the total sinfulness of both. Only Christ breaks down the walls of prejudice, reconciles all believers to God, and unifies us in one body.
~ Taken from footnotes NKJV
Christ also came to establish a whole new nation. He came to banish the racial hatred between nationalities and unite us into a New Generation - united in Christ.
Here again, we see how the enemy copies everything God does. He too is creating a New Generation; a New Age Generation. Read more about it here..
Colossians 2:20 ~ NKJV
Not Legalism but Christ
If you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations - "Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle," which all concern things which perish with the using - according to the commandments and doctrines of men?
These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion, false humility, and neglect of the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh.
Old Testament laws, holidays, and feasts pointed toward Christ. Paul calls them a "shadow" of the reality that was to come - Christ himself. When Christ came, he dispelled the shadow. If we have Christ, we have what we need to know and please God. For those who do want to keep the feasts, there is no wrong with that, in fact, it may bring richness and understanding to your relationship with God. But let no one judge Christians who do not keep them, and do not think that you have to keep them to earn favour with God.
The law opposed us by its demands for payment for our sin. Though no one can be saved by merely keeping that code, the moral truths and principles in the Old Testament still teach and guide us today.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace. For the law was given through Moses,
but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. ~ John 1:14, 16-18 NKJV
More will follow..