ACTS 15:1 – “AND CERTAIN MEN WHICH CAME DOWN FROM JUDAEA TAUGHT THE BRETHREN, AND SAID, EXCEPT YE BE CIRCUMCISED AFTER THE MANNER OF MOSES, YE CANNOT BE SAVED.”

THE LAW IN THE EPISTLES

Paul also takes a system’s approach in his use of “Law.” But the system implicit in Paul’s use of “Law” has different elements. Paul is concerned with the interaction between the revealed Moral Code and human nature.

Viewed objectively and in isolation from human experience, the Law is “Holy, Righteous and Good” (Rom. 7:12).

But when looked at in its impact on human beings, the Law is a word of destruction and death (Rom. 7:9-19).

The very establishment of a Standard stimulates human beings to efforts to achieve Righteousness by coming up to that Standard. However, such an effort turns them from Faith to works as an approach to a relationship with God, which He cannot accept. Thus, the objectively “good” Law, when viewed in its interaction with human beings, is “powerless” because “It was weakened by the sinful nature” (Rom. 8:3).

In Paul’s letters this evaluation of the Law as a system of interaction between the Word of Divine Command and human beings is explored again and again.

We cannot understand Paul’s use of “Law,” as we will see, unless we realize that he includes in his use of the term the Commandments that express Righteousness via Statutes, the human beings who hear this Word, and every interaction between the Word and the natural man.

THREE FUNCTIONS OF THE LAW

Theologians distinguish three functions of the Law, using Law in the sense of the Old Testament Moral Code:

1. To Reveal The Nature Of God.

The first of these functions is to reveal the Nature of God. The thought is that God’s Own Character is revealed by the Standards He establishes.

The God Who gives Laws and announces “Be Holy because I, the Lord your God, am Holy” (Lev. 19:2) clearly expresses His Own Character in the Commandments He calls on Israel to keep.

2. To Reveal Sin.

The second function of the Law is to reveal sin. In the Old Testament, one who discovered he had violated a Commandment in the Mosaic Code was to come to the Lord with Sacrifice. Paul picks up and emphasizes this function of the Law: “Now we know that whatever the Law says, it says to those who are under the Law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God.

“Therefore no one will be declared Righteous in His sight by observing the Law; rather, through the Law we become conscious of sin” (Rom. 3:19-20).

Paul describes the Spiritual Process in Romans Chapter 7:

“I would not have known what sin was except through the Law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the Law had not said, ‘Do not covet’” (Rom. 7:7).

In revealing sin, Law points us away from our own efforts and directs our gaze to Jesus so that we may be Saved by Faith.

This view of Law contradicts the common view of the religious Jews of New Testament times. Consequently, this is what brought about the first Doctrinal error of the Early Church, and what was probably Satan’s greatest efforts to hinder the great Message of Faith. Many of the Jews held that Law marks out God’s Way of Salvation, and Paul’s preaching of Faith seemed to them a great heresy. But Paul asks: “Do we, then, nullify the Law by this Faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the Law” (Rom. 3:31).

Paul’s point is that the Gospel restored Faith to the place it had always had in one’s relationship with God, and the Gospel restored Law to its rightful place as well!

Law does not make anyone Righteous. Law brings to all who hear its demands and who honestly examine their own lives a consciousness of sin, which it was designed to do.

3. To Guide To A Holy Life.

The third function of the Law is hotly debated.

This function was to guide Old Testament Believers to a holy life. However, “Holiness” could only be defined then in the realm of obedience. So, that is what Israel knew.

The idea of the Holy Spirit coming into one’s heart and life, and thereby imputing Holiness and, as well, perfecting Holiness, was impossible then, because Christ had not yet been Glorified. So, the understanding of the Jews regarding Holiness, pertained only to obedience.

However, there is clear and convincing Biblical evidence that the Law does not function this way today. “Sin shall not be your master,” declares the Apostle, “Because you are not under Law, but under Grace” (Rom. 6:14).

The same thought is expressed elsewhere in other ways. Believers died to the Law with Christ (Rom. 7:1-4). We are released from the Law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit (Rom. 7:6).

Christ is the end of the Law (Rom. 10:4). Believers died to the Law so that they may live for Christ (Gal. 2:19).

Redeemed from under the Law, we now have full rights as Sons and Daughters (Gal. 4:5).

In Truth, the modern Believer is obligated to the Moral Law (The Ten Commandments minus the Fourth, “Remember the Sabbath Day”), simply because Moral Laws cannot change. (Sabbath-keeping was not a Moral Law.)

THE DIFFERENCE IN THE NEW AND THE OLD

However, the difference in the New Covenant and the Old Covenant is twofold:

1. Under the New, Jesus has kept the totality of the Law, which we could not do, and upon Faith in Him, His total victory is given unto us, and we become Law-keepers (the moral sense) instead of Lawbreakers. As the Representative Man He did for us what we could not do for ourselves, and what Old Testament Believers could not do either.

2. As well, due to what Jesus did in taking away our sin, the Holy Spirit is now given to Believers, in order that we may have power to appropriate these great victories to our hearts and lives (Rom. Chpt. 8). This, as well, was lacking in Old Testament times.

Due to what Jesus did at Calvary, and the Advent of the Holy Spirit, Believers by Faith become obedient to the Moral Law. However, such obedience is not by our performance, but by Faith in His Perfect Performance. The Holy Spirit will help us to appropriate Jesus’ victory into our lives, but not to gain some type of personal victory of our own.

The Early Church recognized the issue in its first decades. A decision was necessitated by the fact that some Jews were insisting that the Gentile converts be required to accept Circumcision and keep the Mosaic Law.

They did not seem to understand that all of the Ceremonial and Ritual Law, which constituted the Sacrifices, Circumcision, Sabbath-keeping and the Feast Days, etc., as well as the entirety of the Temple, were all symbolic of Christ. Upon His Coming, the symbolism was no longer needed, and for the obvious reasons.

Understanding that, the Council at Jerusalem, which we will later see, agreed not to put “On the necks of the Disciples a yoke that neither we nor our fathers were able to bear” (Acts 15:10). With Christ, a new Way is opened up, and the Believer finds a Principle of Life that supersedes the way of Law.

THE WEAKNESS AND INADEQUACY OF THE LAW

One problem we have in understanding the New Testament view of Law is rooted in the shifting meanings of the Law throughout the New Testament. “Law” sometimes indicates the Books of Moses or Scripture itself (Rom. 3:21).

Law can be a universal principle (Rom. 3:27; 7:21). In Hebrews, Law usually means the total way of life prescribed in the Old Testament, including the moral, cultic, and other regulations.

Paul presents to us our greatest difficulty. In his writings, the meaning of Law shifts often and subtly. At times he clearly means the Moral Requirements of God that are established by the Old Testament. Then in the same context he seems to shift, to mean a “works” approach to Righteousness, which assumes that one’s actions provide the basis for acceptance by God or a means to become Righteous.

This tendency to shift emphasis makes it difficult to interpret a verse such as Romans 6:14: “Sin shall not be your master, because you are not under the Law, but under Grace.”

Is Paul talking of freedom from the Old Testament Moral Code? Or is he referring to the cultic aspect of the Old Testament?

Or is he simply saying that sin will not master us because we no longer approach Righteousness as if it were something we could attain by our own efforts?

THE KEY IS IN THE FOLLOWING

We should not try to make this kind of distinction.  In fact, Paul realizes that we cannot separate an expression of morality in Commands and a works approach to Righteousness. The reason he shifts focus so often and so subtly when he writes of Law is that each meaning is implicit in the other!

To express Righteousness in Commands creates a necessity for efforts to achieve. This is why the Law is so effective in convicting of sin. We see the Standards. We try to attain a degree of obedience, and we see how far short we fall.

Thus, it is in the very nature of Law to stimulate effort. When Righteousness is expressed in a form that by its nature stimulates human effort, looking to Law will bring moral defeat, even to the Believer.

With this in mind we can explore key Passages in which Paul critiques the weaknesses and the inadequacy of the Law.

THE BLESSING COMES BY FAITH

Romans 4:13-16: Blessing comes through the Divine Promise, accepted by Faith. Paul says, “If those who live by Law are heirs, Faith has no value and the Promise is worthless, because Law only brings wrath” (Rom. 4:14).

Law and Faith are totally different approaches to relationship with God, and elements of the two systems cannot be mixed.

THE LAW STIMULATES SIN

Romans 7:4-6: Paul says that man’s sinful nature is stimulated (energized) by the Law. Actually, this is what it was designed to do. It was meant to show man how to live, and that within himself he did not have the power to live as the Law demanded.

The Law had no Salvation, it only had a penalty which is “The fruit for death” (Rom. 7:5).

Paul contrasts systems when he says, “We have been released from the Law so that we may serve in the new way of the Spirit” (Rom. 7:6). The two operating systems Paul describes, the one by works (Law) and the other by Faith, show us his conviction that no elements of the systems can be mixed.

And this is the great problem! Some in the Early Church and even many today, desire to mix the systems, and in doing so, nullify the Work of the Spirit.

In the context of this teaching we see the force of I Corinthians 15:56: “The power of sin is the Law.” Of course it is! The Law tells us what sin is, and relates to the old nature and arouses it to sin.

THE LAW IS GOOD, BUT NOT FOR SALVATION

Romans 7:21-25; 8:3: Paul recognized the Law’s Commandments as “Holy, Righteous, and Good” (Rom. 7:12). Although as a Believer he yearned to keep the Law, he found even as a Believer, that the principle of sin was so firmly rooted in his personality that his efforts fell desperately short:

“I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s Law (desperately want to keep the Law), but in the sinful nature I am a slave to the Law (principle) of sin” (Rom. 7:25).

In Romans 8:3, as Paul is sharing his solution to the dilemma, he explains that the Law was “Powerless . . . in that it was weakened by the sinful nature.” In other words, due to the sinful nature of man, and we speak of Believers, the Righteousness of the Law had nothing on which to hold. Therefore, Righteousness as proclaimed in the Law could not be made a part of the Believer, at least on that basis.

There is nothing wrong with the Law of Moses. Actually, and as we have repeatedly stated, in its own way it is perfect. But the Law System falls short where it touches humanity. And, it was designed that way.

A ship’s anchor may be carefully cast and its size matched to the vessel. But if the ocean bottom is soft mud covering a hard, impenetrable surface, there is no way the anchor can grip. The anchor is useless to hold the vessel. Just so, the Law is good and righteous, but there is no feature in human nature, even in the nature of Believers, where it can obtain a grip.

EVEN THOUGH THE LAW HAD RIGHTEOUSNESS, RIGHTEOUSNESS COULD NOT BE IMPARTED TO THE BELIEVER THROUGH LAW

Galatians 2:21; 3:21-22: Paul said that if Righteousness could come by the Law, then Christ died for nothing. In other words, if Redemption could be provided by the Law as some of the Jews were teaching, why did Christ have to come down here and die for lost humanity? However, Law could not impart spiritual life, which should have been obvious to the Jews.

Galatians 3:10-14: Paul criticized those Believers who, having come to Jesus by Faith, were now trying to attain spiritual goals by human effort (by observing the Law) (Gal. 3:2-3).

Paul showed that “The Righteous will live by Faith” (Gal. 3:11). However, the Law is not based on Faith. So, one cannot try to keep the Law and at the same time live by Faith.

Here again Paul insists that one cannot mix Faith and Law in approaching Christian experience.

IT IS CHRIST WHO HAS DELIVERED US

Galatians 5:1-6: Developing the thought that Law and Faith are opposing principles, whose system elements cannot be mixed, Paul insists that “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free” (Gal. 5:1).

One who seeks to be justified (to become or be declared Righteous) by the way of Law has “Been alienated from Christ” (Gal. 5:4).

In effect, Paul is threatening the loss of Salvation. He teaches that the Source of Righteousness is known through intimate relationship with and dependence on Jesus. To turn to Law as a path to Righteousness is to turn away from Jesus, which constitutes the loss of the soul.

Each of these Passages develops a common view:

Law must be seen as a total system and evaluated as a system. In other words, one has to accept all of the Law or none of the Law. This was a rebuttal against the Jews attempting to mix Law with Grace.

However, if the Law is accepted by modern Believers as a total system, which it must be if it is to be accepted at all, the following must be understood:

1. It cannot give Life.

2. It is opposed to Faith as an approach to a relationship with God.

3. It actually energizes man’s sin nature and produces sin.

4. It cannot produce Righteousness.

So, to accept that system, is to accept a system that was never designed to give Salvation. And if it could not give Salvation under the Old Covenant, how does one think it can bring Salvation under the New.

The teeth of Paul’s remarks are, and as we have stated, that if a modern Believer is going to attempt to force a part of the Law into Grace, he is obligated to take on the whole system. In other words, he must go back to offering Sacrifices, keeping the Sabbath, Feast Days, etc. Of course, he is going to have great difficulty in doing this, considering that first of all it must be done in Jerusalem, and second, it must be done at and in the Temple. That is going to be difficult considering, that there is no Temple.

THE CHRISTIAN ALTERNATIVE TO LAW=

The issue raised in the New Testament, particularly by Paul, is whether or not Law can help the Believer attain to Righteousness.

The reason this is approached so strongly, is because there is a tendency in man to attempt to earn his own Salvation, even as Cain did originally, and most of the world thereafter. The Law makes an excellent vehicle for this effort.

However, the Law as Paul explains such, includes not only the Law of Moses, but any type of Law (a designed system) that one may manufacture, and, thereby attempting to add it to the Finished Work of Christ.

To all Law, and it helping the Believer to attain to Righteousness, Paul’s answer is a decisive “No!”

So it is important to go on to see what the New Testament provides as an alternative to the way of Law. To discover this, there are two different questions we must ask and answer:

1. Can we conceive of Righteousness apart from Law?

2. How do we achieve Righteousness apart from Law?

RIGHTEOUSNESS AND THE BELIEVER

Can the Believer conceive of Righteousness apart from Law?

Actually, both Testaments tell us that we can. There is the witness of the Old Testament. Enoch “walked with God” before the flood (Gen. 5:22).

As well, Abraham was credited with Righteousness long before the Law was given (Gen. 15:6).

These men attained to Righteousness strictly by Faith. Actually, there is no other way that Righteousness can be attained.

In fact, during the time of the Law of Moses, Righteousness continued to be attained by Faith. Habakkuk said, “The Just shall live by his Faith” (Hab. 2:4).

Of course, the New Testament, which is the New Covenant, continues to proclaim and actually flowers into full bloom, the subject of Righteousness by Faith.

RIGHTEOUSNESS BY FAITH

Paul answers carefully as to how the Believer can achieve Righteousness.

Romans 6:1-10: Christians are persons who have been given New Life by Jesus. United to Jesus in His Crucifixion, so that His death is considered ours, we are raised to a New Life in Him.

Righteousness now becomes a matter of living that New Life, for the deadly and powerful grip of sin on our personalities has been broken by Jesus. The possibility of a Righteous Life is established by what Jesus has done and by the newness of Life we have in Him.

Romans 7:1-6: In these verses, Paul establishes a basis on which Christians can claim to be free from a responsibility to live under the Law: in marriage, the death of one partner frees the other from “the Law of Marriage” (Rom. 7:2).

By analogy, the death of Jesus, to Whom we are united, frees us from obligation to the Law. After all, Law has no jurisdiction over one who is dead.

Paul then shows the need to be free from the Law; the reason is that Law energizes our old nature.

In contrast, the Spirit of God energizes the new nature in Christ, so that we may produce “Fruit to God”
(Rom. 7:4). It is by relating to the Spirit and not to the Law that Righteousness is produced.

THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF THE LAW

FULLY MET IN US

Romans 8:1-14: Paul explains that the Law was powerless to make us good. But he goes on to show that the death of Jesus, and our Faith in His death, established a basis on which “the Righteous requirements of the Law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit” (Rom. 8:4).

God does intend to produce Righteousness in human beings! But He will not do it through Law. He will do it only in those who rely on and yield to the Work of the Holy Spirit.

LIVING BY THE SPIRIT

Galatians 5:16-25: Paul teaches that if we live by the Spirit, the Spirit will control our sinful nature. “If you are led by the Spirit, you are not under Law,” Paul says (Gal. 5:18). He lists, first, the sins that sinful human nature generates (Gal. 5:19-21) and then the Fruit that the Spirit generates: “Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self-control” (Gal. 5:22-23).

In adding the statement, “Against such things there is no Law” (Gal. 5:23), Paul describes the Law’s approach to Righteousness.

It points to Righteousness by standing against sin (“Do not murder,” “Do not steal,” etc.), but gives no power to obey.

In contrast, the Spirit generates Righteousness by creating within us the Love, Patience, Faithfulness, and simple Goodness that move us to want to do what is right. No wonder Paul reminded Timothy, “We know the Law is good if one uses it properly. We also know that the Law is not made for the Righteous but for Lawbreakers and rebels” (I Tim. 1:8-9).

Would there be any need for laws if everyone were truly good and only did the good?

God’s solution to the problem of Righteousness is to give us a New Life in Christ. God tells us to look to Christ and rely wholly on Him.

He then gives us the Holy Spirit to guide us and to energize the resources of that New Life. As we commit ourselves to following Christ, the Righteousness of which the Law testifies will become a reality in our lives.

AND FINALLY

Law is a difficult and yet critical Biblical concept. The Law in the Old Testament is the Divine Revelation itself, given to Israel through Moses. The Commands and Statutes of the Law establish the moral, social, and religious foundations for national and individual life.

As the Revelation of God committed by Covenant to Israel, the Law was a great and wonderful gift.

Through a study of the Law, True Believers found the Lord and understood His Way, and they knew that rich blessings would follow if they walked in the way its Commands and Ordinances marked out.

However, the warm breath of the Faith relationship that breathes through the Old Testament was stifled by the way many approached the Old Testament Revelation. They missed the Message of Forgiveness and took the Law’s careful description of life for God’s Old Testament people as a way of Salvation, which it was not.

Jesus affirmed the authority and trustworthiness of the Old Testament. But He directly challenged the Rabbis’ grasp of its meaning. The Righteousness that Christ’s contemporaries sought to establish by careful keeping of the Law’s detailed instructions is rejected by Jesus. He calls for a different kind of Righteousness — one that flows from an inner transformation.

THE GOSPELS

The Gospels also show us that the Old Testament way is to be superseded and transformed by Jesus. He is the Focus of the Old Testament, the One of Whom it testifies. Now that He has come, that era is brought to a close. It is fulfilled, and a new era with new patterns of life given to replace it.

THE EPISTLES

The new era is explained and developed in the Epistles. Paul shows that the Law’s statement of Righteousness in Commandments and as an aid to being good, cannot function in the Believer’s life of Faith. Faith, not Law, was always the way to Salvation. Reliance on the Spirit, not a struggle to keep the Law, is the way to live a Righteous Life.

It seems clear from Paul’s analysis of the weakness of the Law that the Old Testament Saint, like the Christian today, lived a Godly life by trusting God and having a personal relationship with Him rather than by looking to Law and trying to keep it.

How, then, are Christians today to regard the Moral Commandments of the Bible? With respect.

We look at them and sense the Holiness of God. We find them standing against us if we wander into sin. But they will not help us become good.

For becoming good we rely on Jesus and the Holy Spirit. When we read, “Do not” or “Do” in Scripture, we praise God, for we see the kind of person He intends to help us become. And then, without even trying, we simply give ourselves, reaching out to Love and to share, having Faith in what Jesus has done for us. In other words, He did for us what we could not do for ourselves, and then gave us the benefit of all that He had done.

How marvelous that in our loving — of God and others — we suddenly realize the Truth. The requirements of the Law are finding expression in our lives — not because we are trying to be good, but because the Love of Jesus is working to transform us from within, and the Holy Spirit is prompting us to acts of Love that fulfill every demand of the Law.

One can only shout “Glory!”

(Some of the material on “Law” was provided from the exposition of Lawrence O. Richards.)  

(The above article was derived from the Jimmy Swaggart Bible Commentary, “Acts”, Chapter 15.)