The Offense of the Cross

 ^“But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” Jeremiah 31:33 RSV

“This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord: I will put my laws on their hearts, and write them on their minds,” Hebrews 10:16 RSV

Our God who never changes always had a plan. He gave the law to Moses to share with His people to show them their need for a savior. Moses faithfully transcribed God’s perfect and beautiful standard and in doing so, God opened His people’s eyes to their inability to earn their salvation.

For once we have broken the law, we cannot go back. And we have ALL broken His law. (Romans 3:23) We were born into sin.

Many today wonder of the relevance of the law. Some have added to it and try to live by it, or some form of it–the scripture refers to the traditions of men (Mark 7:8). Others deem it irrelevant and live as they wish, knowing that we are now in the dispensation of grace. (Romans 6:1)

Paul was very clear in his teaching that both of these are inconsistent with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Our salvation is a gift given to us by a merciful God through grace because He loves us. Due to our sin nature we acquire at conception, we are spiritually incapable of keeping God’s law and being born with a dead spirit, we have no power to reject sin. We are slaves to our fleshly or carnal nature (Romans 6:20). And we are not justified by the law—it does not have the power to save us (Galatians 3:11). If it had, Christ would not have needed to die for us (Galatians 2:21). So, we are not saved by our own good deeds, but only because He offers us a gift of His own righteousness and we choose to receive it.

The law, though unable to make us righteous before God, still has an important purpose. It serves to show unbelievers that they need Christ, that they are unable to ever be good enough. And it reminds us believers that without Him we in our flesh are nothing. We are reminded to never fall back into trusting on our own goodness–this is pride and pride is a sin.

We can boast that through Him we can do all things, but not on our own. The law reminds us to give Him all the glory for the blessings and accomplishments in our lives for His kingdom.

When our flesh compromises His laws, our born again spirit full of God’s goodness aches and is grieved because our new nature–our Godly nature–is not a nature of sin. Our new nature wants His holiness. It wants no part of sin and darkness.

Our flesh fights because it is still tainted by the leftover scars of the sin nature that dominated us in the past. But the Spirit of God within us is stronger. We now choose to be slaves to Christ rather than slaves to sin. We choose to let Him rule and fight the flesh.

We must reject sin and we must let His laws that He wrote on our hearts rule our lives. God loves us enough to give us a free choice and if we don’t love Him enough to choose to walk in His holy ways and let Him rule, someday, we won’t want Him around at all (Matthew 6:24). That is a dangerous road to apostasy.

For those of us born again, God’s law of love is a part of our new nature. His love leads us to holiness. Paul ever reminds us, “walk in the Spirit and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.” (Galatians 5:16).

Living true to our new nature and keeping our minds on Him will lead us to peace, joy, and victory over all the attempts of the enemy to derail us. Anything else will lead us in the wrong direction.

We are soldiers of this war that our Lord has won but we are temporarily in enemy territory and we must fight to enter into our homeland that God has gifted to us. Those of us who are too busy enjoying the enemy’s territory will lose sight of our goal and suffer grievous consequences.

Do not get distracted and take wrongs turns. Do not let sin reign over you any longer (Romans 6:12). This will lead you away from God. Mind God’s law that He has put within you and fight to enter in. (Luke 13:24, Hebrew 4:11)

Praise be to God who has delivered us from this body of death!

To God be all the glory and Praise to our Lord Jesus Christ!