Let us turn to Romans, chapter 7, verse 4.
Therefore, my brethren, ye also were made dead to the law through the body of Christ;
that ye should be joined to another, even to Him Who was raised from the dead,
that we might bring forth fruit unto God.
Let us pay attention to the phrase: through the body of Christ, you are made to die to the law.
We know that the theme of this conference is The Way to the Eternal Purpose of God: The Cross. It is a continuation of the theme of last year’s conference.
This time, we want to see three aspects: how the cross deals with the world, how the cross deals with the law, and how the cross deals with the flesh.
My responsibility this morning, and again on Saturday evening, is to speak on the cross dealing with the law.
The Scripture we have just read says that you were made to die to the law through the body of Christ. Then verse 6 says:
But now we have been discharged from the law, having died to that wherein we were held;
so that we serve in newness of the spirit, and not in oldness of the letter.
To die to the law means to be delivered, or released, from the law.
Let us turn to Galatians, chapter 2, verse 19:
For I through the law died unto the law, that I might live unto God.
Here Paul says, “For I through the law died unto the law.” How did he die? Verse 20 explains:
I have been crucified with Christ;
and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me.
In Romans, Paul speaks of “you” and “us.” Some are Jews and some are Gentiles. But here Paul says, “I died to the law.”
Paul’s entire life could not be separated from the law. Paul was born under the law. When he speaks of the law, he is very proud. When he speaks of the law, his face shines.
Paul was born a Jew, somebody born under the law. Even after he was saved, when we read Philippians, he reminisces about how he was born under the law. You can feel that the law was born in him and grew in his flesh. He could not be separated from the law.
For a Gentile, being separated from the law may not seem special. But for Paul, who was proud of being born under the law, he could not fathom being separated from it. If he lost the law, he would lose everything. If he lost the law, he would lose all of life.
For Paul, the law was supreme. The law was everything. Yet Paul tells us, “I died to the law.” In other words, he was delivered from the law.
If Paul rejected the law, it meant that he rejected his own past and rejected his own self. Yet one day he tells us that he died to the law.
We who are saved have also died to the law. We have been delivered not only from sin, but also from the law. Paul tells us that sin shall no longer have dominion over us because we are no longer under the law, but under grace.
Being under grace does not mean that the law disappears. It does not mean lawlessness. Rather, the result is that sin can no longer reign in our lives.
If sin cannot reign in our lives, then we are freed from the dominion of sin. But do not forget: if we are to be delivered from sin because the Lord has put us under grace, then we need to be delivered from the law.
The basis of being delivered from sin is to be delivered from the law. Paul shows us that if we want to be delivered from sin and from its power, we need to be delivered from under the law.
For Paul, to be delivered from or separated from the law was something he could never fathom. So this morning, we want to use Paul’s life to see how he was born under the law, how he came to know the law, and how God not only saved him but also delivered him and freed him.
Brothers and sisters, when we speak of the cross, there are two facets. On one hand, there is the salvation of the cross. This is what the Lord accomplished two thousand years ago.
But today the Holy Spirit abides in us. He wants to bring what the Lord did on the cross into our lives. This is the fellowship of the cross.
When we say that we take up our cross, that speaks of the fellowship of the cross. So when we speak of the cross and the law, on one hand we want to see the objective side, and on the other hand we want to see the subjective side.
The objective is what the Lord accomplished. The subjective is what we experience.
This morning, we need to pay attention to the salvation of the cross. What did the Lord Jesus accomplish on the cross for us? How can we be delivered from the law?
Paul could not do it himself. Paul was born under the law and grew up under the law. He could not be separated from the law. The reason Paul could be under grace and delivered from the law is the work accomplished two thousand years ago on the cross.
The relationship between a father and a son is one of life. You cannot separate it. Sometimes, when a father and son have severe difficulties, a father may post in the newspaper that he has disowned his son. He may speak it from his mouth, but that relationship is inseparable.
As long as the father and son remain, that relationship remains. Only death ends that relationship.
So how could somebody who was proud to be under the law say, “I have died to the law”? How could he say, “I have separated myself from the law. Now I have married grace. Now I have married Christ”?
In Paul’s life, this is something tremendous. In our lives, it is true also. There is no doubt about it; it is a fact. But how was this fact accomplished? It is based on what the Lord Jesus did two thousand years ago on the cross.
May our eyes be opened to see the objective side of the cross. Through Paul’s entire life, we want to see how this happened and how it happens in our lives.
Many of us are Gentiles. We may feel that we have nothing to do with the Lord’s covenant. But do not forget: you, Paul, and I have all died to the law. The cross has dealt with the law.
We need to review Paul’s entire life. If we know how heavy the weight of the law was in Paul’s life, and how great the law was in his eyes, then we will understand.
Paul had certain nerves that you could not touch. If you touched them, he would jump. These nerves were not only in Paul’s life but among all the Jews. There were two things you could not touch: first, the law; second, the temple.
The Jews were closely connected with God’s Word and the temple. They were as though they shared one life with the temple and the law. You could not separate them.
As soon as they were born, they had a relationship with the law and a relationship with the temple. What is Judaism? There are two great pillars in Judaism: God’s Word, which is the law, and the temple.
Before Paul was saved, he thought the proudest moment of his life was that he was born under the law. If you listened to him speak of his past, it was a proud past. His eyes and face would shine because it was a glorious past.
Nobody wants to say goodbye to a glorious past. This was Paul.
Do you remember Philippians? When Paul spoke of himself, he said:
Circumcised the eighth day,
of the stock of Israel,
of the tribe of Benjamin,
a Hebrew of Hebrews;
as touching the law, a Pharisee.
He immediately spoke of being circumcised. Circumcision had to do with the law. How did he know he was chosen by God? He had a mark on his life, and that mark was the mark of the law.
On the eighth day, Paul received that mark. No matter where he went, the mark went with him. He was of the nation of Israel and of the tribe of Benjamin.
Jacob had twelve sons, but only Benjamin was born in Canaan, the promised land. Paul was not merely an Israelite; he was from the tribe of Benjamin. He was a Hebrew of Hebrews.
Then Paul said, “As touching the law, a Pharisee.” Listen to the tone of his voice. It is a very proud tone.
Who was a Pharisee? In the Jewish mind, if there were only two people who could go to heaven and have eternal life, one would be a scribe and the other would be a Pharisee.
The scribes were Bible scholars who interpreted the Old Testament. The Sabbath command says that no work should be done, but what constitutes work? The scribes interpreted that.
The Pharisees separated themselves for one purpose: to keep the law of God. Not only did they keep the law; they also kept the scribes’ interpretations of the law.
For example, on the Sabbath one could not carry water because water had weight. But how much water constituted work? You could not find that definition from Genesis to Malachi. The scribes gave the definition.
The Pharisees kept both the law and the interpretation of the law. They bound themselves by the law. Therefore, Paul could say, “As touching the law, a Pharisee.”
Then Paul continued:
As touching zeal, persecuting the church;
as touching the righteousness which is in the law, found blameless.
Brothers and sisters, this is a very important phrase. Paul did not lie. He was found blameless according to the righteousness that is in the law.
Can you find someone who was closer to the law than Paul? He did nothing except keep the law. That was his life. That was what he did daily.
Because he kept the law, he said, “As touching the righteousness which is in the law, found blameless.” Why did he persecute the church? Because he had zeal for the law. He wanted to keep the law and exalt the law.
To protect the law and keep the law, Paul felt that he had to persecute the church.
Yet Paul later interpreted his former life in this way:
Howbeit what things were gain to me,
these have I counted loss for Christ.
Everything he had mentioned was gain to him before salvation: circumcision on the eighth day, the tribe of Benjamin, being a Hebrew of Hebrews, being a Pharisee, persecuting the church, and being blameless.
All these things had to do with the law. But once he was saved, he counted the things he had formerly prized as loss for the sake of Christ.
Then he said:
Yea verily, and I count all things to be loss
for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord:
for Whom I suffered the loss of all things,
and do count them but refuse, that I may gain Christ.
Paul returned again to the matter of the law:
And be found in Him,
not having a righteousness of mine own, even that which is of the law,
but that which is through faith in Christ,
the righteousness which is from God by faith.
And then:
That I may know Him,
and the power of His resurrection,
and the fellowship of His sufferings,
becoming conformed unto His death.
Now we see the fellowship of the cross. Before Paul was saved, he was proud of the law. If he gained the law, he felt that he gained the entire world. But now he says that he wants to know Christ, the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.
Paul changed.
For a Jew, it was unfathomable that Paul could say, “I died to the law. I have been delivered from the law.” Paul’s testimony is important because his change was a marvelous change. He turned around one hundred and eighty degrees.
Before, he faced the law. Now his back was turned to the law.
Does this mean that the law is incorrect? No. From before Paul was saved, through the time he was saved, the law did not change.
Paul said that the law is holy and good. The law is not wrong. Who was wrong? It must be somebody else. Paul never thought that he was wrong, but one day he saw that he was wrong.
The correct law can only deal with the correct person. Is it possible that all those under the law are righteous? Paul says that only those under grace are right, and then sin no longer reigns in their lives.
Under the law, your purpose is not to sin, but you become a slave to sin. That was Paul’s experience before he was saved.
After he was saved, he said, “No longer am I under the law, but we are under grace.” This is not lawlessness. The result is that we are no longer slaves to sin.
If we are to be delivered from sin, we need first to be delivered from the law. That is Paul’s experience.
How did Paul learn this lesson? What Paul saw on the road to Damascus came in one moment, but his life needed to mature. The Holy Spirit needed to give him words.
When his understanding became rich and Paul matured, he could use abundant words to interpret what he saw in that light.
Paul did not grow instantaneously. He was an infant in Christ, then he grew from an infant to an adolescent, and from an adolescent to adulthood. Through this growth, Paul’s understanding of the law became clearer.
At the beginning, he saw that the righteousness of the law could not justify him. As soon as he was saved, he realized that the reason he could stand before God had nothing to do with the righteousness of the law.
We have been saved through justification by faith. Everything is grace. We are under grace; therefore, we are saved. No matter what you do, it cannot bring salvation to you.
Nobody did more than Paul. Yet on the road to Damascus, the reason he could stand before God was not because of what he had done. It was because Jesus Christ had already done the work for him on the cross.
Today, man only needs to believe. The law does not deal only with salvation. As Paul grew, he saw that we have a right position before God, and according to that position we can come before God.
Then we naturally bear fruit. This is the fruit of sanctification. As we continue to grow, there is not only justification, but sanctification and glorification by faith.
Through Paul’s life and growth, these matters became clearer and clearer. The light itself was given in an instant; it was not increased or decreased. But as the life of Christ grew in Paul, the Word of God became clearer to him.
Paul was born under the law. From childhood and youth, he understood the Bible. Jewish children played a game in which they searched the Scriptures, especially the Pentateuch, for a verse that could be called their personal verse.
They would look for a phrase in which the first and last letters matched the first and last letters of their names.
Suppose Paul had been an Englishman who read only the King James Version. He might have found Proverbs 16:18:
Pride goeth before destruction,
and a haughty spirit before a fall.
“Pride” begins with P, and “fall” ends with L. So Paul could say, “This is my personal verse.”
Before the age of twelve, a Jewish child was not considered responsible to the law. But when he became twelve or thirteen, he became a son of the law. From then on, his actions were responsible to the law.
Paul grew up in Tarsus in Asia Minor. Most probably, around the age of twelve or thirteen, he went to Jerusalem.
The Bible tells us that Paul was brought up at the feet of Gamaliel and taught according to the strict manner of the law of the fathers. Gamaliel was the chief rabbi of that time and a mighty scholar.
Paul did not merely keep the law. He determined to live for the law. He wanted to teach the law and wanted others to become the same as he was.
It was like attending a university, except Paul studied one Book: the Word of God. A rabbi was similar to a university teacher. He not only kept the law but wanted to teach it and wanted everyone to be as zealous as he was.
In rabbinical training, the Old Testament was studied from different viewpoints and at different levels. When one reached the fourth level, one was considered to have entered paradise.
Paul did not merely want to understand God’s Word; he wanted to enter paradise. Yet the rabbis did not make their living by teaching the law. God’s Word was given freely, so each rabbi needed a vocation.
Paul was a tentmaker. He made his living by making tents, not by teaching the law.
Paul could testify that it was not because he preached the Word of God that he became rich. He worked with his own hands. That was how Paul grew up under the law.
In Romans 2, Paul describes such a person:
Behold, thou bearest the name of a Jew,
and restest upon the law,
and gloriest in God,
and knowest His will,
and approvest the things that are excellent,
being instructed out of the law.
He continues:
And art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind,
a light of them that are in darkness,
a corrector of the foolish,
a teacher of babes,
having in the law the form of knowledge and of the truth.
This was Paul. He was a rabbi, a master, a guide to the blind, and a light to those in darkness. He was zealous for the law.
One day, as Paul read Deuteronomy, he encountered this word:
Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.
This is from Deuteronomy 21. Paul never doubted God’s Word or God’s law. He knew that Jesus had been hung on a tree. Jesus called Himself the Son of God and was proclaimed to be the Christ.
But according to the law Paul knew, everyone who hangs on a tree is cursed. How could the Messiah be cursed? According to Paul’s former logic, if you believed in the law, you could not believe in Jesus. If you accepted the law, you could not accept the cross.
What is the cross? The cross is to be hung on a tree. According to Deuteronomy, this meant a curse.
Therefore Paul felt that Jesus could not be the Son of God. Jesus had entered into glory, but His followers remained on earth. Paul felt that he had to wipe out His followers.
In Paul’s mind, if there was a cross, there could be no law; if there was law, there could be no cross. The two could not coexist. To protect and exalt the law, Paul persecuted the church.
Paul saw the followers of Jesus as the greatest threat to the law. If they were not wrong, then he was wrong. If the law was not wrong, then the cross must be wrong.
For this reason, he persecuted the church and wanted to wipe it out.
So Paul went to Damascus to seize Christians. But on the road to Damascus, our Lord met him. A light surrounded him.
This was the greatest turning point in Paul’s life.
Why did the Lord not shine on Paul in Jerusalem? Why did He allow Paul to walk all the way toward Damascus? Perhaps it was a week-long journey, a lonely journey.
Paul was a Pharisee. Pharisees did not deal with common people. But during that journey, the Spirit was moving in his heart.
It was like Genesis: everything was darkness, but the Spirit of God moved, and God said, “Let there be light.” Then there was light.
As Paul approached Damascus, the light of the gospel shone on him. The Lord said:
It is hard for thee to kick against the goads.
What does this mean? When a farmer tills the ground and an ox tries to go its own way, the farmer pricks the ox with a goad. If the ox kicks back, it only hurts itself and suffers.
All the way to Damascus, the Lord was like that farmer. He was pricking Paul’s conscience. That is why Paul finally surrendered.
Before Paul’s conversion, the Holy Spirit had already done a wonderful work through Stephen’s testimony. Stephen was a martyr, and Paul probably debated with him in the synagogue.
Acts says that Stephen’s face was like the face of an angel. Luke was not there. Who told Luke that Stephen’s face was like an angel’s face? It may well have been Paul.
Paul saw Stephen’s angelic face. Here was the problem: if Stephen and the believers were to be wiped out, their faces should have looked like the faces of devils. But Stephen had an angelic face.
If Stephen was right, Paul had to be wrong.
In Acts 7, Stephen gave one of the longest messages in the Bible. He began with Abraham and spoke through the history of Israel all the way to Solomon.
Paul had been trained under Gamaliel. He knew the Old Testament thoroughly. Yet when Stephen expounded that same Old Testament, it was as though Paul was hearing something entirely different.
The Old Testament was no longer merely history. There was the interpretation of the Holy Spirit. Stephen possessed something Paul did not have.
Paul was a Bible scholar and an expert in the law. Yet he heard someone interpret the Old Testament in a completely different way.
Stephen spoke of the law given through Moses and then spoke of Solomon and the house Solomon built. Again, these were the two pillars of Judaism: the law and the temple.
Then Stephen said:
Howbeit the Most High dwelleth not in houses made with hands.
This touched the nerve.
Stephen continued:
Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears,
ye do always resist the Holy Spirit:
as your fathers did, so do ye.
And:
Which of the prophets did not your fathers persecute?
And they killed them that showed before of the coming of the Righteous One;
of Whom ye have now become betrayers and murderers.
Stephen ended his message with this word:
Ye who received the law as it was ordained by angels,
and kept it not.
What part of the law had Paul and the Jews failed to keep? They had betrayed and murdered the Righteous One. That is the story of the cross. They had nailed Him to the cross.
They said that they kept the law, but they had committed the greatest sin: they had crucified the Son of God. They may not have committed other sins, but one sin was enough to break the law.
The sin of sins was that they took the Son of God, the One Who was to be their Savior, and crucified Him.
Paul was the same. He wanted to wipe out the followers of Jesus. He thought that if he destroyed the cross, then the law would be protected.
But Stephen reminded them: you think you are blameless and sinless, but you have committed the sin of all sins.
The Holy Spirit continued to work in Paul’s heart. Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God. He saw the heavens opened.
Ezekiel saw the likeness of the glory of God. But Stephen saw the glory of God and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.
If Stephen was right—if he saw the heavens opened, the glory of God, and Jesus standing to welcome him—then Paul had to ask, “If he is right, then I am wrong; or if I am right, then he is wrong.”
Paul was being pricked in his heart.
The people covered their ears and stoned Stephen to death. They did not want to hear. But one person was listening, even though he did not want to hear. That person was Paul.
What he saw and heard, the Holy Spirit used to prick him. But Paul kept kicking back. He could not allow the law to fall, and he could not admit that he was wrong.
From that day on, the church was greatly persecuted. Saul made havoc of the church. It was like a bear entering a vineyard and destroying it.
Paul was a scholar, a gentle man, a professor. How could he have the blood of the saints upon him? He wanted to keep the law, so he had to suppress the voice in his conscience. The only way he could suppress that voice was to shed the blood of the saints.
But on the road to Damascus, our Lord did not let Paul go. The Lord knew that someone who was absolute for the law would eventually become absolute for grace.
On the road to Damascus, Paul saw the Lord, and Paul was saved.
Paul said that it pleased God to reveal His Son in him. That is the story of Damascus. When Paul saw the Son of God, he recognized Christ.
From that time, he had eternal life. Yet his mind was still full of the law.
The Bible tells us that Paul did not immediately go up to Jerusalem. He went to Arabia. Galatians speaks of Mount Sinai in Arabia, and this suggests that Paul may have gone into the wilderness near Sinai.
God’s Word remained God’s Word, but Paul was no longer the same person who had read it before salvation.
Before he was saved, Paul had God’s Word, and many rabbis attempted to interpret it. But only the Holy Spirit can interpret God’s Word. Now Paul was saved, and the Holy Spirit abided in him.
The same Bible began to speak to him again. The law was still holy and righteous, but the Holy Spirit interpreted it anew.
When Paul arrived in Arabia, he brought the entire Old Testament with him—not necessarily in written scrolls, but in his memory. When we read his epistles, we see how accurately and extensively he quoted the Old Testament.
At that time, the Bible was not divided into chapters and verses. It was written on scrolls, without the punctuation and reference systems we use today. Paul had not only studied the Scriptures; he had memorized them.
When the Holy Spirit communed with him and shone upon him, Paul saw what he had never seen before. The Old Testament did not change. Every letter and every word remained the same.
God’s Word was not wrong. The law was not wrong. But the person reading the Word was wrong. The one keeping the law was wrong.
The Holy Spirit was not merely dealing with what Paul had done. The Holy Spirit was dealing with Paul himself.
The same Bible and the same Old Testament were now being read by a different person—a person in whom the Holy Spirit dwelt. Therefore, Paul could see what he had never seen before.
The statement that everyone who hangs on a tree is cursed was true. It was not wrong. But how could Jesus, Who was hung on the tree, also be the Savior and the Messiah?
The Holy Spirit explained it to Paul.
When Paul read Galatians, he discovered that the one who deserved to be hung on the tree was himself. The one who deserved the curse was himself.
“I should have been hung on the cross, because everyone who hangs on a tree is cursed. But Jesus is my Savior.”
Jesus did a work of salvation and redemption. From what did He redeem Paul?
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law,
having become a curse for us;
for it is written,
Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.
Now we see the gospel of the cross. God’s Word is the same. Those who hang on a tree are cursed. But for you and for me, our Lord was crucified so that we could be delivered from the curse of the law.
Paul had committed the sin of sins by persecuting the Son of God and His followers. He was under the curse. But Christ redeemed him from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for him.
When Paul was in the wilderness, Mount Sinai must have been before his mind. Whether he was physically on Mount Sinai is not the important point. In Galatians, Mount Sinai represents the law.
The Holy Spirit spoke the Old Testament to him again, and Paul began to see the relationship between the law, Pentecost, and the Spirit.
According to Jewish teaching, the first Pentecost was when the people of Israel stood at the foot of Mount Sinai in the wilderness. For the Jews, the great event of Pentecost was the giving of the law and the making of the covenant.
The people of Israel became distinct as a people through their relationship with the law.
But after Paul was saved, the Holy Spirit abided in him and opened his eyes. In Acts, the Holy Spirit was poured out, and believers were baptized into one body.
Pentecost is very important to the redemptive work of the cross, because at Pentecost the Holy Spirit descended. The salvation accomplished by Jesus on the cross could now become our experience.
From the first Pentecost at Sinai to the Pentecost following Christ’s resurrection was about fifteen hundred years. One Pentecost was the giving of the law; the other was the giving of the Holy Spirit.
The law speaks of God’s requirement. The Holy Spirit speaks of God’s giving.
God did not throw away His requirement. God did not stop requiring righteousness. But who can meet that requirement? This is what happened at Pentecost.
Galatians speaks both of the cross and of the Holy Spirit:
But if ye are led by the Spirit, ye are not under the law.
Those who are justified by faith receive the blessing of Abraham. What is Abraham’s blessing? It is the Spirit.
If we are descendants of Abraham, then this is the story of Pentecost. If we are led by the Spirit, we are no longer under the law.
The law represents God’s requirement, demand, and standard. But the Holy Spirit represents God’s giving—His supply.
Therefore:
For sin shall not have dominion over you:
for ye are not under law, but under grace.
What does Paul say in Galatians 3? Why was the law given?
It was added because of transgressions,
till the seed should come to Whom the promise hath been made.
That Seed is Christ.
Christ is the goal, and the law is the process. Romans 10 says that Christ is the end of the law.
The law shows us that we cannot do anything. Over fifteen hundred years, God demonstrated that no one could keep the law.
God was not looking for ordinary people. He found the experts—the Jews. If the experts failed, nobody else could do it.
Throughout those fifteen hundred years, especially in a person like Paul, the more they tried to keep the law, the more they discovered that they could not keep it.
The Jews were very careful about Sabbath observance. If pressing a button was considered work, then before sunset on Friday they would turn something on or off in advance.
They did not eat pork because it was unclean. Some even found ways to keep pigs from touching the holy land by raising them on planks. Nobody kept the law as carefully as the Jews.
Yet God found the best experts in history, and even an expert like Paul had to say:
For the good which I would I do not:
but the evil which I would not, that I practice.
This was not spoken by an ordinary person. It was spoken by an expert in the law, an expert teacher of the law.
For fifteen hundred years, God was waiting for man to reach his end before He could begin His work. Even the experts failed. Therefore mankind needs a Savior.
Jesus was born under the law so that we might be redeemed from under the law. This is glorious salvation.
The law leads us to the Lord. Those fifteen hundred years are like parentheses in history. They tell us that not one person could keep the law.
What we need is for the Lord to be crucified, to rise from the dead, and for the Holy Spirit to be given.
There is a precious statement from Augustine: God gave the law so that man might seek grace, and God gave grace so that man might fulfill the law.
The law has not been wiped away. The law is right; the law is correct. We are the ones who are wrong.
Who can save us? The work of the cross can save us.
From the first Pentecost to the Pentecost after Jesus was crucified, God was bringing us under grace, because the end of the law is Christ.
The word “end” has two meanings in the Bible. One meaning is “goal.” The other is “termination.” Christ is both the goal of the law and the end of the law.
God used the law to bring Paul around to Christ. This is what the cross shows us.
For fifteen hundred years, God allowed the strongest and most determined people, those most able to keep the law, to try. But even they failed. If the experts failed, then everyone failed.
But thank the Lord, we have hope. Jesus is the hope of mankind. He died for us on the cross, rose from the dead, ascended into heaven, and the Holy Spirit came.
The Holy Spirit not only has a requirement and a demand; He also gives us the supply. No longer are we under the law. We are under the supply of the Holy Spirit.
If we are under the supply of the Holy Spirit, that is grace. No longer are we under the law, but under grace.
Under grace, it is as though there is no law. We are no longer slaves to sin.
One under the law asks, “Did I sin?” Yet he becomes a slave of sin. But what is the cross? The cross means that we are under grace.
Thank the Lord Jesus. It is the cross that dealt with the law.
Lord, for these words, we want to give You thanks. Lord, speak to the depths of our hearts. If You are willing, please use these words.
Open our eyes, especially the eyes of the young ones from day one. May we not only be delivered from sin, but also from the law. Hear our prayer, in Jesus’ precious name.