Pt. 3 The Law

This one will be short and sweet.

Many see the law, as some sort of opposite to grace, but it is not. The law is a part of grace and vice-versa.

We are under grace, "Yet that does not mean that we need not keep the law. We are not under the law in the sense that it condemns us; it no longer pronounces judgment or condemnation on us. No! but we are meant to live it, and we are even meant to go beyond it." - Studies in the sermon on the mount.

I have been absorbing this book slowly, Studies in the sermon on the mount, by Martyn Loyd-Jones. I have been pondering this dichotomy for a while, and then this book plops into my hands one day, and finaly clears some things up for me.

"But let me put it this way. Is it not true to say of many of us that in actual practice, our view of the doctrine of grace is such that we scarcely ever take the plain teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ seriously? We have so emphasized the teaching that all is of grace and, that we ought not to try to imitate His example in order to make ourselves Christian, that we are virtually in the position of ignoring His teaching altogether and, of saying that it is nothing to do with us because we are under grace. Now I wonder how seriously we take the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." - Studies in the sermon on the mount.

As the final thought I will leave you with this idea.

The law is not something you do to be/become Christian. Because you are Christian you will live the law, because that is how you ought to live; and that is how you are meant to live.

"If my heart has been broken in the presence of God I cannot refuse to forgive; and, therefor, I say to any man who is imagining fondly that his sins are to be forgiven by Christ, though he does not forgive anybody else, Beware, my friend, lest you wake up in eternity and find Him saying to you, 'depart from me; I never knew you.'" - Studies in the sermon on the mount.

Harsh.