Clearly
no one who relies on the law is justified before God, because “the righteous
will live by faith.”1 The
law is not based on faith; on the contrary, it says, “The person who does these
things will live by them.”2 Christ
redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is
written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole.”3 Galatians 3:11-13
Christ came to fulfill the Mosaic Law, not eliminate
it. So are we still bound by it
today? No. I believe that when an individual allows
their will to come under the control of the Lord, that person will inherently
abide by the letter of the Old Testament law, though they are not bound by
it. Christ’s death on the cross opened
access the God for all those who believed.
Christ became accursed for our sake. Since sin cannot abide
in the presence of God, the Father rejected Christ momentarily while His blood
was applied to man’s sin. Once finished,
man’s sin was completely paid for. It would never to be held against him
again. Paul was making a point in this letter
to the church in Galatia, that the law was powerless to remove sin forever and
all time. The curse of the law was
removed by Christ’s selfless act. He
allowed himself to be beaten, scourged and nailed to a wooden cross. The thought of such a thing happening to me
sends a shiver down my spine. I could
never stand the pain, yet Jesus bore our guilt and our pain for us. He who knew no sin became sin for us
all.
The notion that the law is required of true bible believing
Christians is false. Christ died once to
remove the stain of all sin and as a result, because of who He was, essentially
God Himself in the flesh, it completed the deal. No longer was past sin to ever be held
against man again. The caveat in all
this is that one must embrace the forgiveness offered and allow it to change
the course of their life permanently.
Our salvation is attained through faith and divine grace
alone, not through the law, even though we obey the OT law despite being free
from it. This can be referred to as an antinomian
way of thinking.4 If we let
the Holy Spirit has His way in our lives, then we will live for God freely and
abide by the Mosaic Law as a consequence.
Until next time, walk with the King and be a blessing!
1 Habakkuk 2:4
2 Leviticus 18:5
3 Deuteronomy 21:23
4 In Christianity, an antinomian is one who denies the fixed
meaning and applicability of moral law and believes that salvation is attained
solely through faith and divine grace. Many antinomians, however, believe that
Christians will obey moral law despite being free from it.
