The Law and a New Creation

.... To complete this module let’s return, once again, to the heart and origin of the law. Based on the concept that "from the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks," God gave the law as a re- flection of His own character (Luke 6:45). Basically, He was telling us what He would have done in each of those situations. Since His Divine nature was the source of the law, it is also higher than the law, though the law does mirror His heart and mind very naturally (1 Corinthians 13:12). As such, we know that the law is holy, just and good (Romans 7:12).

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.... But for man, the comparison is different. Our flesh is so weak that we can never fulfill the law in our own strength (Romans 8:3). Yet through the new life Jesus gives and the grace He supplies in response to our faith, God takes us to His own, higher perspective on the law, by changing our very nature from within us:

.... "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new."

(2 Corinthians 5:17)

.... ". . . by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature . . ."

(2 Peter 1:4)

.... Through Jesus Christ, as a new creation, we now have the same nature as our heavenly Father. Notice, therefore, the same natural correlation between our new nature and the righteous requirements of the law:

.... "But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more."

(Jeremiah 31:33-34)

.... And here is another point of similarity. Just as God, by His Divine nature, is above the law (though the law still matches His nature perfectly,) we, as partakers of the same Divine nature, are no longer under the law (though our lives and the righteous requirements of the law still match each other naturally).

.... "Do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not! On the contrary, we establish the law."

(Romans 3:31)

.... Just as we saw in the example of Jesus Himself, in His relationship with the Father, our hearts are now knit with God’s in a way that truly knows Him, harking back to the original intention behind the law, which was to share our lives with Him. For this is both the true intention and true benefit. Rather than doing works in order to have a relationship with God, we begin with the relationship itself and the works follow it naturally, by His grace, like fruit that grows naturally on a tree:

.... "But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter."

(Romans 7:6)

.... "For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but a new creation."

(Galatians 6:15)

.... You have now completed the Faith and Grace Module. To procede to the Module on the Holy Spirit, please click here.

Daily Bible Reading: 1 Corinthians 7