UNCOMPLICATING THE LAW

 Scripture is often confusing; salvation is by faith and not of works, yet the righteous are to do good works. That is the “Jesus’s Paradox of Grace.” A paradox is a true statement that seems absurd or self-contradictory. How can salvation be by grace but also by works? That is absurd!

Luke wrote about grace and works: 

We believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they (the patriarchs of old). (Acts 15:11) 

Somebody seems to be wrong, but Jesus made it clear what Luke meant. John intervened to clarify the paradox: 

¹⁶ And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace. ¹⁷ For the Law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. (John 1:16-17)

 Jesus is the fulness of the Law, as He explains in the KEY VERSES below. Because He has grace on us, then we should have grace for Him. It is not I have grace, then you must have grace, but because of His grace, we too should display grace. Or is it, because we have grace, He will have grace? It is neither; it is concurrent grace. Hence, grace is bestowed upon the graceful.

Moses gave the Law. That seems to be how the patriarchs demonstrated grace. It was not the Law to the faithful but nature of those who believed in the invisible God.

Explaining that more; they could not see God face to face but knew that He was real. Paul wrote, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Heb 11:1).

“Now” in that passage seems to discern between then and the present. It is seldom used in the New Testament as “now.” It is a conjunction joining the previous thought to the present verse. Paul was speaking of the present because he was contrasting it with the past, “the former days” before they were illuminated by Jesus (Heb 10:32).

Therefore, NOW faith is the evidence of things not seen before they were illuminated with the Light of Jesus — the Truth. THEN (before they saw Jesus) the Law must have been the evidence of the unseen. How could that be? The faithful obeyed the Law and through it, God was manifested by His people who obeyed. It is not so different now; Jesus said, “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15).

Therefore, agape love is commandment keeping, or essentially showing goodwill toward God and man (Strong 1890). The Law was dispersed in commands written on stone.

The Law came by Moses, but he only carried the message. The Law was written by the very “finger of God” (Deut 9:10). His “FINGER” was manifested to Moses, so the Words of those tablets are Jesus manifested in the days of old. They had faith that Jehovah wrote those words, and we learn from John (John 1:1-14) that the “Word” was Jesus.

The patriarchs of old had grace for Jesus before He was ever called “Jesus.” They obeyed the Law because of the grace that God had for them and through the Law Jesus was revealed as the “Word.” They understood that the commands were not mandates at all but various ways to demonstrate goodwill toward God (the first four sayings) and mankind (the last six sayings.” Jesus, speaking of the “Greatest Commandment” said about them: 

³⁷ Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. ³⁸ This is the first and great commandment. ³⁹ And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. ⁴⁰ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. (Mat 22:38-40)

 Commandment keepers for the sake of commandments as much as worship the Law. However, the patriarchs worshiped the One who wrote the Law, and that One was Jesus, as John revealed.

Christians do not worship images of God made in stone, but the One Living Image revealed in the flesh of Jesus. Commandment-keeping strictly for the sake of the Law is foolishness, but keeping commandments out of grace is wisdom and love.

With that said, Christians must be careful in venerating images. For instance, just as it was not the tablets of stone that provided grace but the Holy Finger of God; it was not the Cross that provided grace; it was the Substance of Jesus on the Cross.

Likewise, it is not the water that makes a new creature of the old, but the “Living Water,” the Holy Spirit, that the moving water represents. In all three cases: the Law, the Cross, and the baptismal water, are images of God but not Jesus Himself. Jesus, and only Him, is the Way to salvation, and the Holy Ghost of that One man is how God manifests himself NOW since we have seen the Light and the Light is Jesus.

With that explanation, the Hebrews saw tablets of stone with commands written on them, whereas the patriarchs and prophets saw Jesus rather than the stones. That is how Jesus fulfilled the Law. He was the Law, not those stone images, and certainly not sinful Moses!

NOW, consider the Words of Jesus: 

KEY VERSES: ¹⁶ Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. ¹⁷ Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. ¹⁸ For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. (Mat 5:16:18) 

Your light (your illumination) shines toward men to show them your good works. The good works of the Law is not the Light itself, Jesus, but the grace of Jesus shining forth to the world. The Law is how the lost can see the unseen; they are the Words of God that shines forth from Jesus just as Moses was illuminated: “When Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone” (Exod 34:30). Then Moses spoke the Law (Exod 34:32-33).

Just as the Law is the Spirit of God that illuminated Moses because it was the invisible God shining forth, when Moses spoke the commandments, he was illuminated. In both cases objects seemed to shine, but both the written commandments and the oral ones that Moses spoke were images of God, and not to be worshipped.

Christians must discern between the images of God and God Himself. The only image that is Jehovah, as it turns out, is the Living Image, Jesus. The Law, the Cross, and water baptism, as well as the sacrament of bread and wine, are all just images of invisible God, the latter of which we are to “Do in remembrance of Me,” as Jesus pointed out.

What about the Law? We do it in remembrance of Jesus. The Ten Sayings express the Will of Jesus since it was written by the Holy Finger of God. The Law is not “God” but the “Last Will and Testament of God” that we should do in remembrance of His grace.

Jesus said, “I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil” the Law. His invisible Existence was revealed to Moses and from Moses the “Holy Ghost of Jesus” emanated from that man, long before He was made manifest in material substance.

Moses was not Jesus but revealed Jesus. The Hebrews thought that he was revealing rules and regulations, but the Law was by grace… Moses was revealing the grace of God and Jesus, the coming Messiah, who would fulfill the Law with His physical presence. In other words, the “Angel of God” that wrote the Sayings on stone and who wrestled with Jacob was the invisible bodily shape of Jesus (Luke 3:22) that would conjoin with the person of Jesus at His baptism.

The baptism of Jesus fulfilled the Law, and the Holy Ghost remained on Him alone. The person of God — Jesus — fulfilled the Law, and as such the Law was the “body of knowledge” that exposed the invisible identity of Jesus to the Hebrews.

NOW, according to Paul, Jesus fulfilled the Law. Before the Law was the Holy Ghost of the Messiah, the “Christ.” Since Jesus is on the throne of God in Heaven, again, it is the Holy Ghost that Comforts Christians and since the Law has already been fulfilled, we can return to faith in the invisible God again.

Remembering the Law and keeping it is how we show grace to Jesus who wrote it. It is not the Law that is the goodwill toward Him and our fellow man, but remembrance of who wrote the Law.

It was written on stone for perpetuity and for an eternal purpose; it is the Light that shines forth from Jesus to discern just who are the Christians. Not very many; it seems!

Since Jesus fulfilled the Law, then Jesus began the Law. It was His Holy Finger who wrote it and Him alone, who kept the whole Law. In effect, Jesus was the walking, talking Law, and as He pointed out, they were metrics that manifest Himself. Nobody can manifest God except Jesus because only He was able to keep the Law. Therefore, the Law represents the invisible image of Jesus or the Will and Testament of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus rewrote the Law with the Beatitudes as I explained in the previous commentary, so His sayings were not to be commands, but be-attitudes.

(picture credit: Psephizo)