As Americans, we look forward each year to celebrating Independence Day. It is a time to remember the freedoms our nation enjoys and to give thanks for those who sacrificed to secure them. Freedom is something we naturally treasure. Yet as wonderful as our national freedoms are, they remind us of an even greater freedom that every believer possesses through Jesus Christ.
The Biblical Resource Group is currently working on a new paper entitled Sanctification by Grace: How the Christian Life Flows from Our Position in Christ. Although the paper is still in progress, one of its central themes has been both refreshing and encouraging to study: the believer’s freedom from the Mosaic Law.
This truth is often misunderstood. Some assume that if Christians are no longer under the Law of Moses, then they are free to live however they please without experiencing any consequences. Others believe that spiritual growth requires placing believers back under the Old Testament Law as a rule of life. Scripture teaches neither of these positions.
The apostle Paul plainly declares, “For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace” (Rom. 6:14). He also explains that believers have “become dead to the law through the body of Christ” (Rom. 7:4). These are remarkable statements. Through our union with Christ, we have been set free from the Law’s condemning authority and from its role as the governing rule of life for the Church.
This does not diminish the value of the Old Testament. God’s Law is holy, righteous, and good. It reveals God’s character, exposes our sinfulness, and points us to our need for a Savior. But the Law was never designed to produce sanctification. It can tell us what is right, but it cannot give us the power to do what is right.
That power comes through the indwelling Holy Spirit. Under grace, the Christian life is not driven by external regulations but by an internal transformation. We obey Christ not in order to gain God’s acceptance, but because we have already been accepted in Christ. As we walk by faith and depend upon God’s grace, the Spirit produces genuine holiness from the inside out.
As we celebrate Independence Day, we value the political freedoms we enjoy. But even greater is the spiritual freedom Christ has secured for us through His finished work on the cross. We have been delivered from condemnation, liberated from the Law as a means of sanctification, and invited to walk in the freedom of God’s grace.
On a personal note, I had a colonoscopy June 12th. My doctor reported that my colon was clean and I had no polyps. PTL!
Blessings,
Bob
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The Believer and the End of the Law
According to the New Testament, the Christian is “delivered from the law.” This is the central argument of Romans 7. Any failure to see and accept it leads inevitably to that moral and spiritual defect pictured so vividly later in the chapter. … The same book sums up the argument in one irrefutable statement, “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth” (Rom. 10:4). The Greek arrangement of the words here puts the word “end” first in the sentence. This is where the emphasis must be put—the end of the law has come for all believers in Christ. God says “end.” Let there be no equivocation here. –Alva J. McClain
