Lesson 12 - THE LAW OF LIFE VERSUS THE LAW OF DEATH |
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THE LAW OF MOSES is called the law of death.
The reason it is called the law of death is because it was God’s law that ruled spiritually dead men.
Romans 8:2, “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death.”
Paul could say, “I had been under the law of sin and death ever since I was circumcised as a child.”
On his way to Damascus he met Jesus and was circumcised in his heart or Born Again. In other words, he received there, Eternal Life, became a child of God, and came into the New Covenant which Jesus established when He had fulfilled the Old Covenant.
The New Covenant has a New Law, a new priesthood, new sacrifices, and a new walk.
It is vitally important that we understand that the Ten Commandments were not written for Christians, the New Creation; neither is the law of the New Covenant written for men outside of Christ.
Let us notice that scripture again; for the Law of the recreated spirit of life in Christ Jesus is Love.
Love is the nature of the Father, so when Paul received Eternal Life, the New Love Law entered into his spirit and became a part of his very nature.
Now we will read it: For the Love Law of the recreated spirit is the life that Jesus brought to us from the Father, and this new life made Paul free from the Law of Sin and of Death because the Ten Commandments could not rule or govern the New Creation.
As long as he was a Jew outside of Christ he was under that law, but now he is Born Again. God has become his Father, and he has come into a New Covenant under another regime.
The Law of the New Covenant
John 13:34, 35, “A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that you are My disciples, if you have love one for another!”
The word “love” here is “Agape,” the new word that Jesus evidently coined.
The New Covenant came into being in the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus. He had fulfilled the Old Covenant with its laws, ceremonies, and priesthoods, and had laid it aside. That is when He said on the Cross, “It is finished.”
Now God raises Him from the dead, the Head of a New Covenant. He Himself is the High Priest, and we are the holy priesthood and the Royal Priesthood.
The rules for our daily walk are found in Jesus’ teachings and in Paul’s revelation.
John 15:9, 10, “Even as the Father hath loved Me, I also have loved you: abide ye in My love. If you keep My commandments, you shall abide in My love: even as I have kept My Father’s commandments, and abide in His love.”
This New Love Law is interpreted in a special way in 1st Corinthians 13. It is a revelation of the grace of God. It is a revelation to the Sons of God.
You are to walk, not as the sons of Abraham walked in the realm of the senses, but as a New Creation man you are to walk in the spirit.
Galatians 5:16, “But I say, walk by the spirit (the recreated human spirit) and ye shall not fulfill the desires of the senses.”
This recreated spirit is to dominate the senses and to govern the individual.
“The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit” (Romans 5:5).
We have become partakers of the Divine Nature. 2nd Peter 1:4. That Divine Nature is Love.
1st John 4:8, “He that loveth not knoweth not God for God is love.”
And we have received this love nature into our spirits. This love nature now is to govern us as the Ten Commandments governed the Jew.
The Old Covenant was a covenant of death; the New Covenant is a covenant of life.
The Old Covenant commanded man to love God, but he could not. The only thing that a Jew could give to God was fear and reverence.
The New Creation gives Him real love.
You hear us singing, “I love Him, I love Him.”
Yes, we do – we love Him. We can’t help but love. Our spirits are filled with Himself, with His own Love Nature.
Believing in Love
1st John 4:16, “And we know and have believed the love which God has in our case. God is love and he that abideth in love abides in God and God abides in him.”
Now you can understand how this walk of ours is going to be governed by a new Lord. Satan has governed men because men choose to walk in hatred and selfishness. Now a new authority has taken us over in the New Birth, and our daily life is to be lived in love.
Ephesians 5:1-2, “Be ye therefore imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love.”
If I am an imitator of God, I will so love that I will give. As He walked in love, I will walk as Jesus walked.
In John 14:9, Jesus said, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.”
As we see Jesus walk in His earth walk, we see love walking. Love healed the sick. Love fed the hungry. It was love at work; it was God in Christ unveiling Himself. Love is the dominant law of God.
Romans 13:10, “Love worketh no ill to his neighbor: love therefore is the fulfillment of the law.”
Jesus is that love that fulfilled the Old Commandment and set it aside. Love established now another Commandment of Love. God does not command the man in Christ to love Him. If he walks in fellowship he cannot help but love Him. Man has become a lover.
Can’t you see how this is a solution of the human problem? If love governed, there would be no more wars; there would be no more lawsuits; jails and prisons would cease to be. What an object for us to aim at, to bring this old world to knowledge of Jesus Christ!
1st Corinthians 12:24-26, “Whereas our comely parts have no need; but God tempered the body together, giving more abundant honor to that part which lacked; that there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another. And whether one member suffereth, all the members suffer with it; or one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.”
What a law of love!
1st Corinthians 10:24, “Let no man seek his own, but each his neighbor’s good.”
And in the thirty-second verse, “Give no occasion of stumbling either to Jews or to Gentiles, or to the church of God: even as I also please all men in all things, not seeking mine own profit, but the profit of the many.”
Imitators of God
In Ephesians 5:1-2 he told us that we are to imitate God. Now Paul says to “imitate me.” Paul could not say that unless he was an imitator of God.
What does it mean to imitate God? It means to walk in love.
1st Corinthians 13 tells us that love seeketh not its own. Love beareth all things. The marginal rendering is “covers closely all things” so that no one can see or hear the unsightly scandal. And above all things, love never fails.
Sense Knowledge has failed, but here is something that cannot fail. Children brought up in the atmosphere of this new kind of love never become criminals. You cannot find a criminal in any of our penal institutions today whose father and mother walked in this new kind of love before that child was born and in its early years; for this Jesus kind of love does not produce criminals. Hatred and selfishness produce criminals. Love produces beautiful people.
Ephesians 1:4, “Even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blemish before Him; in love having marked us out for the position of sons through Jesus Christ to Himself.”
You see, the believer is a love creation. Away back before the foundations of the earth or heaven were laid, Love said, “I will have a family.” And then Love said, “Whosoever will may come into that family. That is going to be a new kind of folk.”
God was unhappy over His first creation, so He brings in a New Creation created in His own Son.
The failure of Christianity is not the failure of the nature of God in man, but it is because man has substituted church organization for the New Creation.
Sense Knowledge has gained the supremacy in the church, and Jesus is no longer Lord or Head of the Church. Worldly-minded men rule most of the churches.
2nd Corinthians 2:17, “For we are not as many, corrupting the Word of God (or, as it reads in the margin, making merchandise of the Word of God).“ That is preaching for a living, making money out of the Gospel.
Conybeare says, “For I seek not profit like most by setting the Word of God to sale (or by selling for retail), but I speak from a single heart, from the command of God, as in God’s presence, and in fellowship with Christ.”
It must be fully understood that the Ten Commandments were never given to the New Creation, and that the New Commandment was never given to Natural men. This, if it were known, would save much confusion among those who are teaching the Law today.
Law of Light and Darkness
1st John 2:9, 10, “He that says he is in the light and hates his brother is in the darkness until now. He that loveth his brother abides in light and there is no occasion of stumbling in him.”
There is no place for hatred in the New Creation. We are born in love; we are to walk in love; we are to speak the new love language; we are to bear the burdens of the weak.
The eleventh verse is striking: “But he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness and knoweth not whither he goeth, because the darkness hath blinded his eyes.”
The moment we step out of love, we step into darkness. All those “out of fellowship” are out of love. All the unseemly and wicked things that people do, who once walked in fellowship, are done through selfishness. Sense Knowledge rules them. Satan governs through selfishness.
1st John 3:14-16, “We know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brethren. He that loveth not abideth in death.” That is, he lives in the realm of spiritual death and he is ruled by the prince of the powers of the air (Ephesians 2:1-3).
“Whosoever hates his brother is a murderer, and ye know that no murderer has Eternal Life abiding in him.” You cannot commit a murder. Murder would be stopped if men would receive Eternal Life.
Here is God’s solution for the human problem.
Then 1st John 3:16, “Hereby know we love (or in this manner we know what love is) because He laid down His life for us; so ought we to lay down our lives for the brethren.”
Living the New Law
He laid down His life for us. We are to live for the brethren. He poured His life out. We are to pour ours out in love.
1st John 3:17-23. In this portion we see why prayer is not answered, why the sick often are not healed. We have not walked in love. We have not borne the burdens of the weak. We haven’t helped them in their financial distress. We have looked at them and said, “God bless you. Go, and the Lord will meet your needs,” when we were to take Jesus’ place and meet the needs.
In the twenty-first verse it says, “If our heart condemn us not, we have boldness toward God; and whatsoever we ask we receive of Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight.”
The commandments here are not the Ten Commandments, but new commandments of loving one another and bearing one another’s burdens.
Galatians 6:2 gives us a suggestion in the marginal rendering: “Bear ye one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.” The literal translation gives it: “Bear ye one another’s overload.”
Some are overloaded. Some cannot carry the load that they face. God help us to be ready to take the overload.
Do you want to be a soul winner? Do you want to be a teacher of the Word?
Let love rule your life. You can never amount to anything unless you do, for you can never be a blessing to the world until love dominates you.
I John 4:7-9, “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and everyone that loveth is begotten of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. Herein was the love of God manifested in us, that God hath sent His only begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him.”
QUESTIONS
1. Give scripture and show how the Law of Life set man free from the Law of Death.
2. How does the law of the New Covenant rule man’s life?
3. Tell why God does not command the man in Christ to love Him.
4. Explain why children who are brought up in the New Covenant never become criminals.
5. Tell how Christianity has failed.
6. Explain II Corinthians 2:17 and tell what Paul means by corrupting the Word of God.
7. How have we become burden-bearers?
8. What is God’s solution for the human problem?
9. What gives us boldness toward God?
10. How does one become a teacher of the Word and a soul winner?