Renewal of Your Mind

Understanding Law vs Grace

September 3, 2010 at 2:39 PM Leave a comment

Image by Old Shoe Woman via Flickr

By Deryl S. Lampkin

In the beginning, before God officially instituted law, mankind was under self-government. Mankind was actively and aggressively engaged in ungodly behavior and activity. However, because there was no established law to transgress, man could not be legally charged as having sinned: for sin is the transgression or breaking of the law. Because there was no law saying you should not do…(whatever), although mankind was doing (whatever), sin could not be claimed.

Conversely, the Holy Ghost, which is the spirit of truth and love, empowers us to produce holiness and righteousness through obedience and the wages of obedience is life everlasting. Therefore choose which payroll you want to be on. For laboring to produce sinful, ungodly and wicked works, you will receive a nice fat paycheck of DEATH along with a host of taxing and unfavorable rewards. But for laboring to produce righteous and godly works, you will receive ETERNAL LIFE and many other righteous fringe benefits.

Every time you labor for sin, you receive a paycheck of spiritual death, which impairs your relationship with God by putting enmity between you and God.

And when you retire from life on this side, you will receive your retirement check of ETERNAL DAMNATION.

Subsequently, because mankind had no internal or external forces other than his conscience to restrain and control his ungodly desires and actions, he willfully pursued and followed after every imagination. God consequently destroyed all of mankind with a massive flood and only saved 8 people from this destruction.

God established through Moses a legal system of moral and ethical laws as well as a legalistic and ritualistic system of atonement and restitution. This system was instituted under the Mosaic administration. It was an innate part of the old covenant and was referred to as the law of Moses and the law of sin and death.

In this covenant God spoke through Moses and wrote his laws on table of stone and the law was without grace and mercy.

God established through Jesus a new and better covenant established upon better promises. This system is based upon the shed blood of Jesus Christ, the cross, his death, burial, resurrection and the promise of the Holy Spirit.

This system represented living by faith through Christ, which is to say we are authorized users of Jesus’ MasterCard.  We are credited with righteousness and right standing because Jesus paid the price for our sins with his blood. Therefore, God has wiped our sin debt clean and put us back in right standing with Him. We are no longer under the wrath of God nor the law of sin and death but are under the plan of salvation by grace.

Under the law of sin and death, men tried to obey God’s laws for fear of punishment not necessarily because of their love for God. But under the law of love and liberty, we serve and obey God from the heart and because we love Him and desire to do His will.

The old covenant was a legalistic relationship with God, but the new covenant is a love relationship with God through Christ. If we truly love God, we demonstrate it by doing what He says. We live our lives not according to legalistic, ritualistic and ceremonial laws, but by renewing our mind with righteous precepts and principles of truth acting in the spirit of love toward the just and unjust.

The law of sin and death only require you to restrain from bad and harmful behavior and actions and when you sin or break the law, to fulfill the restitution requirement for your violation. In other words, if you do the crime, pay the fine.

But the law of love and liberty empowers you to transform your mind and heart and do by nature that which is right and pleasing unto God. It requires you to yield your mind, body and soul over to deeds of righteousness. The law of love and liberty requires you to go beyond the requirements of the law of sin and death.  The law of sin and death said, “an eye for an eye and tooth for tooth” i.e. if someone hit you hit them back. But the law of love and liberty says, “if someone hit you on one cheek, turn and let them also hit the other.” This way, both sides of your face will still look identical. (LOL)

Entry filed under: Article. Tags: Christianity, Deryl Lampkin, God, Holy Spirit, Jesus, Jesus Christ, Religion and Spirituality, Salvation, Sin.