Thrive: Law or Spirit

Week 3 of VCF's preaching series entitled Thrive.

In the old testament, there are 248 affirmative commands and 365 negative commands.  These are the laws that Jews of that period needed to follow every single day.  That is a lot to remember and even a lot to follow.  No wonder why there was too much focus on the law during and the corresponding consequences and penance for violating it.  Moreover, "For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it." (James 2:10)

The law is powerless to save us.  In fact it arouses sin (Romans 7:5a), reveals sin (Romans 3:20) and magnifies sin (Romans 7:13b).

In Paul's letter to the Romans, he determined that:
1) Knowledge of the law is not the answer.
2) Self-determination will not work.  "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do." (Romans 7:15)
3) Reading the Bible is not enough.  "For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?" (Romans 7:22-24)

Jesus did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it.  Jesus became a sin offering for us so that once and for all, we will be cleansed of sinfulness and be clothed in righteousness.

So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God. For when we were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death. But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code. (Romans 7:4-6)


So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith.  Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law.  (Galatians 2:24-25)

Pastor Jeff Eliscupidez, VCF Fort
Januay 21, 2012

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