Which Law do You Live Under?
Romans 8:1-4 “Therefore, no condemnation now exists for those in Christ Jesus, because the Spirit’s law of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. What the law could not do since it was limited by the flesh, God did. He condemned sin in the flesh by sending His own Son in flesh like ours under sin’s domain, and as a sin offering, in order that the law’s requirement would be accomplished in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” (HCSB)
There are two mounts that are central to the Bible, the Mount of Sinai, and the Mount of Calvary. At the former was given the Law of Moses, the latter brought the Law of Christ. The Law of Moses was brought to be a revelation of God’s holiness and our inability to imitate that holiness and to please Him. This law was intended to point God’s people to Him and to teach them to cry out to Him for help. We are to say with the Psalmist “I am severely afflicted; Lord, give me life through Your word.” (Psalms 119:107). What this law could not do was perfect its adherents; for no one perfectly adheres to it. This law cannot give life in and of itself, it can only show that life is impossible to reach by ourselves! God did not abolish the law, or overlook it, He accomplished the law’s requirements in His Son Jesus Christ. In Christ’s life the law was fulfilled, by His death our sin and death was put away. People have struggled for ages with the reality that we can do nothing to satisfy the Law of Moses. We cannot do anything in ourselves to please God and be brought into His Kingdom. This law, by itself, can not erase sin, it only magnifies it! This law, by itself, cannot give life, it can only take life away.
The Law that came on the Mount of Calvary is the law of life. This life giving law erases condemnation, it gives life freely. This Law of Life sets us free from the law of sin and death according to Romans 8. Here Paul proclaims that God did what the first law could not, He condemned sin in the flesh. God did not abolish the law, or overlook it, He accomplished the law’s requirements in His Son Jesus Christ. In Christ’s life the law was fulfilled, by His death our sin and death was put away.
The law of life is what now lives in the lives of believers. It is the law that exists when the need to fulfill a law no longer exists. Christ sacrificed His life so that the law’s requirements could be accomplished in us. Much more than just fulfill the law, Jesus credits the righteousness that He embodies to us who are completely unable to claim righteousness. Through the work of Christ on the cross we who trust in the Lord are renewed and reconciled. We are no longer outlaws but we are called friends, we are no longer enemies, we are now children and co-heirs with Christ. This work cannot be undone by our actions, because it could not be done by them either!
