WHAT THE LAW COULD NOT DO
Jesus Christ came to fulfill the Abrahamic Covenant, and He did. The Abrahamic Covenant did not follow the law of Moses; the law of Moses followed the Abrahamic Covenant. This is very important to understanding the plan of God. Why was the law of Moses given? The Bible said, it was given as a school master, for the purpose of leading us to Christ. The law was given in order to keep man from going outside the limit of God's set boundary. God had a people and He intended for them to walk with Him in righteousness. Since man natural instinct is to go against the will of God, and since man could not possible know the righteous demand of a just God, He had to set forth a standard with the intent that they would after seeing His mighty works in Egypt, trust And obey Him. The law was therefore given as perimeter to keep God's chosen people from wandering into the sinful parts that the heathen nation around them was walking in. We know how that turned out. Man could not and will never be able to keep the law of God. Anyone that is consume with keeping the law as a means to justified themself before God, Paul said, have fallen from grace. Why is that you might ask? Let's see why that is.
If man could keep the law of God, then ask yourself this question. How could God be a loving God? What do I mean by that? Is man could keep the law of God, and yet God send His only Son to die a cruel death for something man could have done, tell me how could God be characterized as a loving Father? He would have sent His Son in vain.
The Abrahamic Covenant was a Covenant of blood, (without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin). The Law of Moses was not. The Abrahamic Covenant was a Covenant of life; the Law of Moses was unto death. When the Abrahamic Covenant was made, only God walked through the animals that were cut and placed on both sides, in fact God let a deep sleep fell on Abraham that he was not even aware of the awesome act that He was about to do. Had Abraham walked between the pieces with God, then the Covenant would be between Abraham and God in a different sense. What this would mean, is that when a person would sin against God, it would call for that person be be killed instantly like the animal that was cut in pieces at the blood Covenant.
In a blood Covenant there is no room for messing up. So God did not allow Abraham to walk through the pieces of animal, He alone walked through them, this is why you will never see anywhere in the Bible God reference this Covenant by saying our Covenant, but in every place what you will find God saying is my Covenant. Therefore, the certainty of the covenant God makes with Abram is based on who God is, not on who Abram is or what Abram does. This covenant cannot fail, because God cannot fail.
In a sense, the Father walked through the broken and bloody body of Jesus to establish His covenant with us, and God signed it for both of us. We merely enter into the covenant by faith; we don’t make the covenant with God.
By entering into this contract, there is a sense in which God was saying, “If I don’t keep My word, let Me be put asunder.” God was putting His Deity on the line as a confirmation of His oath to Abram.
This covenant God signed alone; Abram did not haggle with God over the terms. God established and Abram accepted. Abram cannot break a contract he has never signed!
The New Covenant also was not between God and man, it was between God the Father, and God the Son. Had Jesus sinned once, just once, man would have no hope of Eternal Life. This also is why Jesus had to die, because it takes a blood Covenant to affect our forgiveness. Without the shedding of blood there can be no forgiveness. When Jesus died he was fulfill the Mosaic law by keeping every part of it. The reason for Him doing this was that when He died, (the act of bringing us into right standing with the father) He could give His perfect life to them that would accept His finish work as a full payment for their sin. When we accept Jesus, Romans 1 tells us, that the law of the Spirit of life hath made us free from the law of sin and death. The law of the Spirit of life is what Christians live by not the law of sin and death.
What is the law of the Spirit of life, and what's the law of sin and death? The law of the Spirit of life is Jesus establishing in us the promise of Abraham, received by faith alone, on the basis of Christ finish work and not our own works. Jesus has become the wrath removing sacrifice that a just God has demanded. The justice of God means He must punish sin. Jesus took all our punishment upon Him and satisfied the requirement that God the Father so demanded. This should be a sobering thing to those who refuse to accept Jesus Christ as savior and Lord. Every sin that a man commit he will have to pay the penalty for. The moment you accept Jesus, those sin past, present and future is wiped clean as if you have never sinned, God sees you as perfect, not because we are but because of the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ. For that person that refuses to accept Jesus, then what happen is that person will have to pay for their own sin. The Bible tells us how they will pay for it in Revelation chapter 20; they will be cast into the lake of fire.
There is no redemptive quality in the law of Moses. The Bible tells us that the sting of death is sin, but what give strength to sin is the law. We would not have known what sin is if there was no law. The punishment for sin does not exist where there is no law. We see the children of Israel as they left Egypt, they grumble and complained yet God did not kill any of them. When they reached the red sea they more that grumble and complained against Moses, and yet God did not kill any of them, why? There was no law given. The moment the law was given at Sinai, and they told Moses all that God commands us, we will do, and death started in the camp. The Bible said, the law kills but the Spirit gives life. Right after he law was given at Sinai, 3000 souls perish. When the Holy Spirit was given at Pentecost, 3000 souls were saved. The law kills but the Spirit gives life. Why would anyone seek to live by the law today is beyond me. No one can be save by keeping the law; it has no redemption in it.
Christ did not die to bring us into the law, He died to bring us into the promise. The promise preceded the law, not the other way around. The promise was by faith alone apart from works. The law of Moses is a work based relationship, God said, if you do this, I will do this. The Promise however is a faith based relationship; it was established by God alone walking through the cut up animals at the institution of the Abrahamic Covenant. The New Covenant was established by Jesus Christ alone dying on a tree.
Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree: That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
So Christ did not die to bring us into the law but to redeem us from the curse of the law. The cure of the law is sin. Now never for a minute think that the law is bad or that it is sinful. The law is good; the problem why it became a curse to us is that we could not keep it. Because we could not keep it, the penalty for breaking it was death. Jesus removes that death, that cure from those who trust in Him for Salvation, by dying in our place.
So today if we revert back to the law as a mean of justification, Paul said we have fallen from grace. For by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified in the sight of God. This is the source of my confidence, that God so loved me that He would make this grand provision for a sinful wretch like me. Now you know why I cannot walk around with a long face as one who has no hope.
I will bless the Lord at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul shall make her boast in the Lord: the humble shall hear thereof, and be glad. O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together.
Patrick
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