The Letters of the Law Part Three
Don’t forget Men’s Fellowship Night this Thursday. Pastor Bob Nash from Building on the Rock will be our guest speaker. Dinner at 6:15 PM followed by a great service of praise and then fun in the Activity Center. Call for reservations: 732-350-1187
“For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.” Romans 10:2-4 (ESV)
So now after our line by line session with the “Law” and all that chatter about some word, “antinomianism”, we can move into Paul’s encounter with Christ on the Damascus road. In some Bibles , like the ESV, when we get to the ninth chapter of Acts we see the title “The Conversion of Saul.” This conversion of Saul happens after the stoning of Stephen. This “stoning” may look like a martyr’s death to some but to put on a matter of fact level it was an act of murder that the Roman government of that time turned a blind eye to. Frenzied acts like this by Jewish hierarchy may have received a Roman wink and nod but it wasn’t allowed to become everyday living.
I mention the Stephens martyrdom because it took that event for us to see the zealousness of law enforcement. The rabbi’s of that time thought human history was sectioned off into three zones. The zone of chaos between Adam and Moses, the zone of the “Torah” which lasts from Moses to the Messiah and then the zone of the Messiah. Since those rabbi’s couldn’t accept The Messiah from a manger, they used or they bent the Law to ensure that the Mosaic view of the Law remained the absolute. I wonder if they thought they would be the ones The Father would use to announce the Messiah and not what we read in Luke’s account? Hmmm…
Anyway, as Paul describes when God “was pleased to reveal His Son to me” or where “Christ Jesus has made me His own” he arrives at the place of understanding. For all that commitment to the Law and zeal to uphold it, he comes to that place where he now knows he has actually opposed the purposes of God. Paul had fought against the breaking in of the Messianic Age ( Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come.--1 Cor 10:11 ESV) by the extreme act of trying to keep the Law. The Bible doesn’t say how much of Jesus Saul may have heard or understood while he was out holding robes for the guys while they had a good ole’ fashioned stonin’ but he did come to this understanding.
“Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Rom 7:24-25 ESV) And why? Because Jesus Christ is the end of the Law, that’s way!! The word end or telos can be viewed as either the outcome, the purpose, the goal to which something is directed, or the “end,” “cessation”. There have been many interpreters who believe that both meanings get tied up in our English translations. So…let’s see here, hmm….change a word, keeping the meaning upfront and just maybe….I think I can say this. Jesus Christ is the outcome of the Law. After all if you are His and He is yours and He boiled the Law down to these two commandments…“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
So I wonder what the Antinomianist would say to Jesus? How would they feel about the two commandments being the central idea for spiritual living? I am glad that I stumbled across this word “antinomianism.” It has taken me through a journey where I got to see the Law differently and gave me a chance to dig into a hard saying of Paul’s. “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.” Now I understand that Jesus Christ just might be the outcome of the Law and it that I can examine the Deuteronomical wonder that are the only two commandments we need to keep. Could it always have been this simple? – Chris Hughes is a frequent Freedom Fighter contributor and a graduate of the Colony of Mercy
Compass Pointers: “Grace always comes by Jesus Christ. It didn’t come at His birth, but it came in God’s ancient plan. No grace was ever administered to anybody except by and through and in Jesus Christ.” The Radical Cross A.W. Tozer
Anchored to the Rock: Prayer is the key to heaven’s treasures. John Gerhard
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