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To: Repent and Believe

There are over 600 laws in Judaism the Ten Commandments just being a part. There is no way anyone can keep just those ten; either in thought, word, or deed you’ve broken all of them. Since the Law belongs to the Jews, Christians are under Grace.


3 posted on 03/27/2014 10:36:11 AM PDT by SkyDancer (I Believe In The Law Until It Intereferes With Justice. And Pay Your Liberty Tax Citizen.)
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To: SkyDancer
Christians are under Grace.

This is an aphorism that is often misused to lead into error. In a sense you are absolutely correct, but in another sense the Christian saved by grace is still under the law of gravity. The moral law reflects the character of God as do the operational laws of creation. If one jumps off a tall building and believes that no harm can come them because they are under grace they may find that death was the result of breaking the law. Their eternal status will only be minimally affected, but their temporal life will be fundamentally altered. In yet another sense Christ fulfilled the law on our behalf. Thus the law does not pass away, it is part of the unchangeable character of God, but the law is satisfied by the substitutionary atonement of Christ. Christ was also under the law in that it was necessary that He be absolutely righteous so that His sacrifice was not for His atonement but for His elect. Thus when a christian proclaims to under grace, what he is really saying is that he has broken the law and is guilty before the perfectly holy God of the universe and that only a blood sacrifice of a righteous man is efficacious as a propitiation. That alien righteousness is an act of grace received by faith alone. But is the elect of God now free from the law to a liberty of sin, no! The temporal consequences are just part of the created order and James points out that faith without works (not merit) is no living faith at all, but a dead faith or a faith not unto life but death. What is more our Lord says

Matthew 18:6-8 6 " But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea. 7 "Woe to the world because of offenses! For offenses must come, but woe to that man by whom the offense comes! 8 "If your hand or foot causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you. It is better for you to enter into life lame...
Note that the Lord still finds sin (the transgression of the law) to be a grievous matter.
7 posted on 03/27/2014 11:02:17 AM PDT by DaveyB ("When injustice becomes the law; rebellion becomes duty." - Thomas Jefferson)
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