Deliverance From The Law

Arthur Licursi

 

Gentiles were not given the Mosaic Law - it was given to the Jews. Then what relationship does the Gentile, have to the “outer law” or commandments of God? What about the born-again, in Christ, who according to the Apostle Paul are neither Jew nor Gentile? Moses gave the law (10 commandments and over 600 Mosaic Laws) to Israel, but all humanity lives under another law, written in our hearts. This law is in all mankind is the law which is of “The Tree Of The Knowledge Of Good & Evil.”

By this law in our minds and hearts, all mankind knows God, and all are without excuse. Romans 1:19-21 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. 20For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: 21Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

The conscience of the human spirit in all men accuses or excuses, indicating an inward law is operating in their hearts. Romans 2:14-15 For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do (try) by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: 15Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;)

If we picture our tri-part human being (spirit, soul and body 1Thes 5:23), as concentric circles with the spirit innermost, the soul the middle circle, and the body as the outermost, then all the laws of religion come to us from outside our spirit. Religion’s laws are external to our spiritual being. This includes the law of “The Tree Of The Knowledge Of Good & Evil”, written in our soul’s mind and heart, outer from our spirit that empowers us to live as Christians. Thus written and implied outer laws and principals are demanding but unempowering.

Many Christians still labor under their laws that their parents imposed upon them. We were all under our parents “law of merit,” as I call it. It was a law of doing in order to get approval, acceptance, and even love, etc. Consequently, most have labored and never known unconditional love, so long as we’ve been apart from union with Christ in our spirit. The term “unconditional love” really does not do justice to the love of which I speak - I speak of the “Father’s love”. His love not only comes without condition but it is a love that causes us to respond to Him as our Father. We can be unconditionally accepted into a group or association but not have the care of a human association as we have with God our Father.

Gal 3:10 For as many as are of the works of (“of,” Gk., apo, works having law as their “indirect unempowering provocation of activity”) the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. Whosoever is “of the works of the law”, then bears its curse of the law that requires perfection. If we work to meet these outward demands of outer law placed upon us, including God’s written commandments, and also the law of “The Tree Of The Knowledge Of Good & Evil,” we are under the associated curse of the law, which I will define later.

100% Grace and 0% Law:

Romans 11:6 And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work. Paul makes it clear here that law and grace are 100%, one or the other, they are mutually exclusive.

Serving any outer law is considered dead works (Heb. 6:1, 9:14), because these are works you do while operating on your own, to meet an outward standard, while being separate from Christ’s life in you to regulate and empower you. These are works done in our deadness. In that condition of serving, we essentially make Christ “of no effect” in our lives - He and His provision for us then are useless to us. It’s simply us trying to be good Christians by our own futile effort. Galatians 5:4 Christ is become of no effect unto you (you are severed from), whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace. So, Christ becomes “of no effect” if we live by outer laws: e.g., laws of God, laws of men’s religion, and our parent’s laws.

What then is God’s purpose in having given law into man’s heart and then specifically through Moses for Israel? In order to understand the law we must understand sin and its realtion to law. Many think law was given to make us decide or choose to live Godly lives - this is totally erroneous. In fact, In fact, the law was given so that sin in man (by his sin nature) would become fully activated, stirred up, to become exceedingly sinful and obvious, so man would see his neediness. Man needs not only remedy for sins committed, but also has need for some way to overcome the sin nature within his flesh, which is contrary to mans knowledge and will. Romans 5:20a Moreover the law entered, that (so that) the offense might abound. …

We need to see that the “sin” nature (“sin” singular, as a noun, speaks of a nature) is actually empowered in the flesh by the law (commandment). 1 Cor. 15:56b … the strength of sin is the law. In Romans 7 Paul makes it clear by several verses that sin is actually empowered by the law.

Romans 7:5 For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. Romans 7:7-9 What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. 8But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead. 9For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. Romans 7:11 For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me. Romans 7:13 Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.

Note that even the outer “law of God” is powerless, inert, lifeless, and impotent, yet we know that God Himself is living and empowering. Romans 8:3a For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, Interestingly, God wrote the 10 commandments on lifeless and unempowering stone. In Acts 17 we see that God likens himself not to inanimate things like gold and silver since He is a life-giver to offspring. Acts 17:28-29 For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. 29Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device.

1 Cor. 15:45 And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam (Christ) was made a quickening (life-giving) spirit.

So we see that God’s outer written law, as all laws upon man, actually provokes the sinful flesh of a man negatively, to commit acts of sin, even contrary to that man’s will and desire. Romans 7:23 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.

We must see that man has been set-up by God and His law to have us fail. The following, to me, is the prime curse of the law as I see it for mankind.

Fallen man has gained, via heredity from Adam and his one bite of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil , the correct knowledge that is of Good & Evil, but man, in himself, lacks a sufficiently potent life to match or live according to that knowledge of good and evil.

Hence we have the frustration of all men knowing, trying and failing, in themselves, to do good and not do bad. The Christian, attempts observing the law of God, people in general, try to match the Knowledge Of Good & Evil. Since all outer law empowers sin, this effort is an impossible task and it is automatically destined for failure.

Actually, God expects our failure, under the law; otherwise we would not recognize our need for Christ and never turn to Him in utter dependency. Otherwise, we would be content with reconciliation and salvation from judgment, never going onto see that we need to be saved (Rom 5:10) from our self-godhood (Gen 3:5, 22). Yes, we need to be saved from our self-as-god of our lives. This self-godhood is an illusion that must become broken, and this comes, most often, by our recognized failure to meet any kind of genuine righteous standard. Have you ever noticed in the Gospel accounts that Jesus had a different standard for the self-righteous from what He had for the humble and needy? For the self-righteous He raised the bar to impossible heights “then give all you have to the poor.” To the humble “thy sins are forgiven.”

So, don’t be disappointed in yourself. Bill Landon says that we should never be disappointed since God is not disappointed in us. To be disappointed is to have an unfulfilled expectation - God has no expectation of us in our self. God is not disappointed in you because His expectation is that you should give up trying to be a good Christian and make abiding in Christ and obeying His inward speaking as your ONLY objective. Christ is the Christian in you - you are not the Christian. Abide in Him for your daily living. Christ knows exactly how to be the perfect Son of God. He only did, spoke and judged things as He heard and saw His Father. Our Father is working to turn us to trust Christ within.

We’ve always thought that we needed to be delivered from sin, the world, the flesh, etc. But actually, we needed to be “delivered for reliance upon the law,” to trust Christ in us.

The Father wants us to know we’re delivered from the demand of the outer law because Jesus has fulfilled it. Matthew 5:17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. We are also redeemed fro the curse of the law. Galatians 3:13 Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree: 2 Cor. 5:21 For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Col. 2:14 Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;

Thereby also He has liberated us from the tyranny of sin in the flesh. By liberating man from outer law, Christ disarmed sin of its power and dominion over us. Romans 6:14 For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace. He disarmed sin by our dying with Christ and in Christ. Romans 6:7 For he that is dead is freed from sin. How are we saved subjectively? It is by knowing “we as the Old Man individually died in & with Him.” Romans 6:3 so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Romans 6:6 Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed (Gk. kartargeo, made of no effect), that henceforth we should not serve sin.

Christians have been taught and believe that we can please God by law keeping, but it does not work, so we put ourselves under the law with the bar not so high. Often this is done out of pride, so as to at least be seen as a good Christian. Law keeping avoids intimacy and union with Christ. We intuitively know that intimacy with Him may cost us our “self-rule.” Recall that we do initially want to be “God of our life”. Law keeping serves to keep us separated from the Christ in us, which is the only hope we have. Col. 1:26-27 Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: 27To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:

The religious systems of the world, with its priest, pastors and the like have taught us the erroneous understanding, that we need the law and outward authority over us. Actually, God is not seeking to have us act as good people; He is seeking to have His own offspring, who bear the Seed of His life (Christ) in them to be expressed as they were created to be. I’ve had pastors of born-again Christian churches tell me flat out; “We need a little law.” I say, “Okay then, you must keep it ALL.” So they mix law and grace, which as we’ve seen is no grace at all. Any degree of mixture emasculates the Seed within, making it “of no effect.”

The core issue is that the law cannot give God’s life to anyone. Galatians 3:21b Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid: for if there had been a law given which could have given life (zoe, God’s vitalizing life), verily righteousness should have been by the law. This is why Christ came, to be life to man. Let’s contrast law and God’s life. 1. Law-keeping promotes outer doing in body (mostly to be seen) by your soul’s will power and effort. But Life is inward in your spirit - unseen. 2. The Law is powerless, but Christ is life and the power of God, a spontaneous, self-regulating nature called the “law of the Spirit of life” in Rom 8:2.

Then what is the “ultimate purpose of the outer law”? The Law is to cause us to FAIL. By the way, God does not sweat our sins and failures on the way to coming to know Him. Would you punish a child for messing his diaper? No its part of training. Our failure never kept us from being saved and it will not keep us from growing in Him. Failure in our self-effort is a necessary experience, so we will recognize our need of depending upon Christ in us. Failure is to convince us that we are hopeless in ourselves and need another, more capable life. The Father uses “all things”, including failures, to show us our need of Christ as our life. Romans 7:13 Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.

Once the law has done its job and we come to trust Christ for our living (not just salvation from judgment) then we are no longer under the law or held by the sin that it empowered. Galatians 3:24-25 Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring (push us) us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. 25But after that faith (trust in Christ) is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster (law). << The Law did its job!

Okay, I’m dead to the law, what then could still be the problem? For most, we simply have not yet come to “hating our state of living.” More trying and failing may be needed. We see in Romans 7 the frustration of being under the tyrannical rule and dominion of sin in our flesh, provoked and empowered by the law. Again, God uses this failure to turn us to Christ - seeking the “Way” to live. Progress is usually preceded by dissatisfaction - hating what we do. God wants the law to cause us to be painfully aware of our helplessness under the law, so even law-keeping religion serves a good purpose. Rom. 7:15 that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. Romans 7:24 O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?

Our heart must “turn” from the law, usually out of recognized need. In order for the veil of the flesh to be made of no effect, we must turn from the outer serving of law to become occupied with the inner union we have with Christ as our life. 2 Cor. 3:15-17 But even unto this day, when Moses (Mosaic Law) is read, the veil (flesh) is upon their heart. 16Nevertheless when it (the heart) shall turn (from the law) to the Lord (Himself), the vail (flesh) shall be taken away. 17Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty (liberation is freedom found within the Spirit of Christ). The Spirit of Christ, as the empowering source, is clearly stated also in Romans 8:13 For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.

Christ’s broken flesh has liberated us also from the flesh’s hold, so we are free to enter and live by the Spirit. Hebrews 10:20 By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; Christ paid the price - redeeming us who were under the law. Galatians 4:5a To redeem them that were under the law,

Christ thereby liberated us from the law, the flesh and the penalty of the law. We formerly operated separate from Him, trying to keep the law. Law had us operating on our own - that’s the built-in curse of law. So we failed, if we were honest, looking at our motive and the intents of our heart. We were in a hopeless law-state of separation from Christ. We were on our own and powerless. So the flesh freely reigned over us. The living way of reliance upon the Spirit of Christ within is able to mortify the flesh. Romans 8:13 you… through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.

Now it’s a matter of to whom we yield. (“servants,” Gk. doulos, means “bondman or slave”). Christians are not bound, except as willing slaves to one or the other. Here we must note that we are never independent. We are either as a slave of Satan, or as a slave of righteousness by obedience to Christ life within (Rom 8:14). Romans 6:16 Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? Romans 6:19 I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness.

By now some would retort, “Are you saying we are totally free from any outer law? If that is the case then you are giving license for people to sin.” Actually, people have always had quite an easy time sinning, with or without a license. Fact is, in the act of sinning we will most often bear the consequences of our actions. Thus we may learn obedience by the things that we suffer as result of our sin. The issue is, not how close we can come to the edge of the target, it is to abide on center that is the issue. We must see the deeper relationship of union with Him as our source of righteousness and not our effort to keep the law. From the following scripture we see the basis of our being liberated from the legal requirement, unto one of intimate relationship with Him as our source of fruit bearing.

Romans 7:1-6 Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man (the Old Man, see Rom 6:6) as long as he liveth? 2For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. 3So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man. 4Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead (Ye = the Old Man, see Rom 6:6) to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. 5For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. 6But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.

Let me now decipher the above scripture. We must ask, “Who is the husband? Who is this woman? Who is “another?” All of us are as female to Christ, our true husband. We can actualize our freedom from the law and the power of sin after we come to see our death as an independent, self-reliant, self-sourced doer - a husband. The husband is the woman in the self-sufficient, self-completing role. By the husband now being dead with Christ, we are freed, as female, to be “married (bound and subject to) another - Christ, our true husband.” Note that in V2, we see “the law of her husband,” meaning, the law was intended only for the husband, not the woman. In our independent self-godhood, operating under the law, we are acting as the husband or the male to our female self. This does not work because we, as the husband or lord of our lives, are impotent. After God’s dealing and revealing to us our death as the husband or Old Man (Rom 6:6), we are then freed of the law of the husband, to take our proper place as a dependent wife of “another,” of Christ in us as our governing source (2Tim 4:22). Christ is our true husband and head. He is the legitimate, potent, empowering and governing life in us. This is God’s eternal plan and objective for us, to be taken up with this one Husband - Christ in us. With our independent self (Old Man) now crucified, we’re free to be married to and co-operative with our loving, living, potent Husband - no longer bound to serve the dead outer law we bore in our independence. Hebrews 7:16 (Christ) Who is made, not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless (limitless) life.) -END