Reckoning and the Law - Part III
April 2023
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Efforts in using the Mosaic law or any other laws that we create to gain or maintain righteousness are doomed to fail. If believers fully understood the first part of Romans 7, then they would not experience the defeat of the latter part. Romans 7 deals mainly with the principle of law.
POSITION
In Christ, no believer is under law:
• “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth” (Rom. 10:4).
• “For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ” (John 1:17).
The law governed Israel and placed restraints on the “old man”—who we were before we were born again and regenerated. The Mosaic law had no power to help anyone walk in holiness. However, Paul would say that “the law is holy…just and good” (Rom. 7:12).
The law does not make us sinners but reveals to us that we are sinful: “By the law is the knowledge of sin” (Rom. 3:20).
Although the Mosaic law seems negative to us, the law was a faithful ministry to bring light and cause us to face up to the fact of our sinfulness, weakness, and bondage.
The principle of law applies to our “self” life, and can only produce self-righteousness. Therefore, the law convicts us of our need of life in Christ Jesus.
To be clear, anything that we seek to do or keep from doing by using our own willpower places us under legal bondage. That includes any vows or promises we make to God, any code of ethics or rules of conduct that we establish for ourselves or have placed on us—these are on the basis of law, and their end result will be failure and an ever-deepening enslavement to sin.
STRUGGLE
As believers, our audacious efforts to thwart sin only produce struggles that result in experiences of failure. These failures not only prepare for liberation from the tyranny of the principle of sin, but also from the bondage of the principle of law. Not only are we are brought from the release of the dominion of sin (Romans 6), but also to deliverance from law (Romans 7).
In Romans 8, we learn with gladness that we exchanged “the law of sin and death” for “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.” However, as long as we depend on our own strength, the only thing that we can produce is sin; we hungered for life and brought forth death.
But in the midst of our attempts to be delivered from the “body of this death,” we find ourselves wretched and miserable. Meanwhile, during our time of failure, our faithful heavenly Father was teaching us what we had to know of our freedom in Christ Jesus—that self is our greatest enemy, and Christ is our only hope. Romans 7:5 says, “For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.”
VICTORY FROM THE LAW’S AUTHORITY
The believer must reckon—take into account—that “I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God” (Gal. 2:19).
We must further reckon. So, on to the next verses, which tell us where our victory is (Paul takes us to the cross): “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” (Gal. 2:20-21).
What can interfere with the amazing life-giving power of God? What can stifle our progress and spiritual growth? Simple answer—law! It could be the law of Moses or any law that we subject ourselves to that we might gain or maintain righteousness.
In essence, we can make the work of our Lord ineffectual to us if we do not keep our faith in Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Paul instructs us: “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith” (II Cor. 13:5).
This is all part of the reckoning process. Failure is an opportunity for us to see our misappropriated object of faith. As believers, we can frustrate the grace of God. Paul said, “For I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain” (Gal. 2:21). Again, to be clear, we died to the principle of sin in Christ Jesus on the cross, but there we also died to (came out from under the dominion and authority of) the principle of law.
Every believer is “dead to the law” (Gal. 2:19); we were “delivered from the law” (Rom. 7:6); and we are “not under the law” (Rom. 6:14).
RECKONING WITH RESULTS
As we reckon on having died to the principle of law, the Holy Spirit carries out the will of God in our lives as His perfect will becomes a delight to us and not a duty. We are His children and heirs to His promises. We grow in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord and become more dependent upon the Lord to work in us as He conforms us to the image of His Son Jesus Christ. We’re to go forward and not backward; not from grace back into law.
Paul instructs us with the need for more reckoning: “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage” (Gal. 5:1).
Every believer is a new creation in the last Adam, Jesus Christ.
Judicially, the old things of the first Adam have passed away, both to their penalty and their power. Our history with the earthly Adam was brought to an end at Calvary. We now reckon on our new relationship to the heavenly Adam to conform us to His image. Our reckoning has to do with our new position in Christ, not our condition in the body.
In the realm of reckoning, we are thereby yielding (presenting) ourselves to our risen Lord, and the fruit of His life is manifested in us by growth in His image. Everything that Christ had to do for us was done at the cross: our sins were forgiven, and we now have peace with God—justifying peace—through Jesus’ shed blood. The penalty for sin is fully paid, securing our redemption. The power of sin broken; the power of Satan destroyed; victory over the world and the flesh.
In reckoning, our attitude becomes one of a firm stand against self. When I speak of self, I am speaking of our abilities or efforts to gain spiritual growth. Since we have been united with Christ in His death, we must also remember that we are united with Him in His resurrection. We have a new source of life in the Holy Spirit. Paul said, “Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh … But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law” (Gal. 5:16,18).
To walk in the Spirit means that our faith must be in Christ and Him crucified alone. The Holy Spirit will then supply all that we need for spiritual growth and Christlikeness. This is the “rest” in reckoning. Now stop working and believe!
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