Re[2]: Tree of Knowledge

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Don wrote and quote:

>>Christianity is not LAW, but grace.  Law came meerely to show man
>>that man cannot make himself righteous through works.  If
>>righteousness come by the Law then Jesus died in vain.  There are
>>two roads to righteousness.  One will never get YOU there, though.
>>Law.  But GRACE WILL!

>Question: Then Why did Jesus come to fulfill the Law and not do away with
>it?

The manner in which Jesus fulfilled the Law is by producing in us the
very righteousness that the Law tried to put in us.  The reason Law
could not was due to the sin in our flesh.  But Jesus came to redeem
us, and cleanse us that the Spirit of God could indwell us.  With this
Spirit in us, sin in our flesh now has a competitor - The Spirit.

So we can lean towards the Spirit of God within us, or we can remain
carnal and choose to continue doing the efforts, as though under Law,
still.

He did not do away with Law, per se.  He fulfilled it in the sense
that the Law demanded a sacrifice for sins, since death is demanded
since we have sinned.  Therefore, He became that sacrifice.  We died
in Christ.  And the very righteousness that the Law also was intended
to give to man, but could not, Jesus gave to us.  The Law was a
schoolmaster to bring us to Christ (Gal. 3).  When Christ came we
were no longer required to exist under a schoolmaster.
Does that mean the Schoolmaster is abolished?  No.  But it does mean
we have nothing to do with it now.  It served its purpose.  It
EXPIRED.  The expiry date would have naturally occurred upon our
the date of indepenedent deaths, since the soul that sins, the Law
said, must die.  And we all sinned.  But when Christ died for us, the
expiry date was fulfilled for all who believe at the same time for
all of us!!  2,0000 years ago.

Expiration does not imply abolition.  It implies usefulness of
that which expired, but a usefulness that is now unecessary.   Grace
honours that Law which expired.  It COMPLETES the work.  Look at it as
though Moses brought man to the Jordan and Law could get no further,
in a sense.  Jesus began where Moses left off at the Jordan and takes
us in. (Joshua, in the Exodus story foreshadows Christ, for that name
is Hebrew for the Greek JESUS).

>It is true that righteousnes does not come by the works of the
>Law because the Law condemns all flesh revealing our sin as sin.(it
>reveals our separation from God) But through Faith by grace we uphold
>the moral part of the law (moral Law also referred to as the spirit
>of the Law) shown here: Mat 22:36  Master, which is the great
>commandment in the law?  Mat 22:37  Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt
>love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and
>with all thy mind.  Mat 22:38  This is the first and great
>commandment.  Mat 22:39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt
>love thy neighbour as thyself.  Mat 22:40  On these two commandments
>hang all the law and the prophets.  We are saved by grace (Jesus' act
>of self sacrifice and resurrection) but we are still responsible to
>obtain through this grace obeidience to the moral law.  God's law is
>not evil man is,

Amen.  I hope you are saying that we will live the very things the Law
commanded us to live, morally, but we will not do it through a
commandment and obedience type manner.  We will do it through grace.
I am stressing that GRACE will strengthen us to do what the MORALITY
of the Law tried to force us to do.  The ordinances and ceremonies are
nailed to the cross.

>before Adam and Eve blew it the upheld the law
>without knowing it because of there relationship with God.

That's it!! You got it!  We, too, uphold the Law almost as though we
do not know it due to the residing Spirit of God living through us.
The only difference is that we can know we are fulfilling Law since we
have its records in the Old Testament.  We are brought back to where
Adam was before the Fall in the sense you give above!

And I like the manner you or another said that we can measure our
leading of the SPirit by looking at the morality the Law demanded in
man.  But, for us, it is a looking back, in a sense, since we do not
look at the Law and THEN try to be good by obeying a list of rules.
We instead are already living righteously if we are truly led by the
Spirit and Christ lives in us, as He did in Paul, through our faith,
and we KEEP oursleves in Christ when perhaps prompted by Law reminding
us that, "Hey!  You must have pure love and unfeigned faith! (1 Tim.
1:5)")

>But once
>they got there eyes off of God and disobeyed.  Why? there confidence
>in the character of God was gone.  In Christ Don

And the same with us today!!!

Praise God!
MBlume