Filling All things with Himself
The law is a school master to lead us to Christ. But Christ is not a school master to lead anyone to the law. Jesus lives to draw all people to Himself and thereby make them one with the Father. Living in the Father as sons, human beings represent the law of the spirit of life as Jesus fills them and the entire universe with Himself.
The Mosaic law was a shadow of what was to come. Now that the reality is here, we live in it and this reality lives in us. But the ‘it’ is actually a ‘Him.’ We live in Christ and not in representations and shadows. Thus we are made real as human beings rather than shonky or shoddy representations of lists. We grow into the dignity and authority of the sons and daughters of God as the Son of God lives in us. Let’s be clear. Jesus is not Moses amplified. He does not minister the law of Moses. God the Holt Spirit ministers Jesus as an impartation of sonship to us. The law of the Spirit of life is the personification of Jesus. It is a Him - Christ in you.
The Father’s command escapes the religious and self-centered. But it is there to be perceived by the humble and hungry. His command is this: “Live in My Son.” His Son’s testimony is “I AM YOUR LIFE.”
Having attempted life as a ‘commandment keeper’ I can testify to the bankruptcy of the law’s ability to make one whole or holy. The attempt to live in law makes us aware of sin, invigorates sin and maintains sin’s control over one’s life. I have seen that ‘commandment keeping’ actually multiplies sin and creates ‘sins’ from things that are not sinful. Why? To live outside Christ is innately sinful. It is to remain in the sinful independence of the knowledge of good and evil when God has given us a new and living way: His Son.
I have also seen that ‘commandment keeping’ creates the illusion of ‘keeping the commandments’ by drawing people to focus on one command while ignoring the rest. This is why some bandy around the Sabbath as a kind of talisman to fend off the coming judgment. For many Sabbath-keepers the second-coming is publicly the ‘blessed hope.’ Privately it is their worst fear.
A sad thing about ‘commandment keeping’ is that it is not about God. It is about us. Commandment keeping creates pride, religiosity and vanity. It can make people ridiculous and blind them to the true potential of their life as a son of God in Christ. Law mongering maintains people in the knowledge of good and evil that Adam chose and leaves them outside the life in God that Jesus makes available to all. Jesus had real authority while the ‘authorities’ had none because He lived in His Father as a son while the ‘authorities’ lived in the law.
The commandment keeper lives in a double-bind. Not only is righteousness beyond his reach, but the christ (sic) he has imagined is incapable of helping him keep the commandments because he is no christ at all. The commandment keepers’ christ is hand-maiden to the law and under the feet of the law. With the real Jesus Christ, all things are under His feet and where they are not, we as His representatives live to place them there.
‘My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21I do not treat the grace of God as meaningless. For if keeping the law could make us right with God, then there was no need for Christ to die’ Gal 2.20-21 NLT.
No comments:
Post a Comment