MR. LAW AND MR.GRACE. PART III.

April 23, 2008


For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under the law, but under grace, Rom.6:14.
(It is highly recommended to carefully read Romans chapter 7.)

We ended our last discussion by asking: How do we enter this new way of living, which is so vastly to be preferred over the present conditions that so many of us find ourselves in? If we were to attempt to live the truth of Rom. 7:24 and 25 intellectually, it would be just a repeat of vs. 18 and 19.
But how do we live and experience that truth spiritually then?
First, it must be said that our God has designed a different pathway of life and grace for each of His children.
Therefore, what follows may be taken more as an illustration than as a pattern to follow. And yet……? Come with me and let’s see where God’s provision for us leads to.

The short answer to our question might be found in Psalm 139:23 and 24.
“Search me O God and know my heart, try me and know my thoughts.
And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting”.
This is equivalent to giving God permission to “clean” us up, individually.
We really have no inkling of how wicked we are until our Father reveals that to us in His great mercy towards us, even if we are His children.
Praying this prayer might lead to what follows in this article in God’s own time.
Remember, our God follows no set patterns in His dealings with His dear children.

How do we come to the place where Rom.7:24 is the cry of our heart: O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me…..?
Not just mental assent, but an agonizing cry from the depth of our being.
Many of us do not relate to this, because we have grown up and/or live in a spiritual environment where we believe that doing our best for God in all kinds of activities that enhance the coming of his Kingdom will give us favor with God. Obedience is the essence of this way of Christian living.
God is well aware of our many sins, but He knows that we are weak and therefore He also knows that He cannot expect that we would keep His commandments perfectly all the time, so the reasoning goes.
When we do the best we can, He would be satisfied, even though we come far short of His commands and expectations.
Because we love Jesus with all our heart, we do not want to sin, but we just can’t help it.
Since we are sinners, we need to ask for forgiveness every day.
Our traditions, not the word of God, has taught us that’s the way it is.






And then for some of us comes the day when we realize that there is no Scriptural basis for this way of living and reasoning at all.
To the contrary, when God commands us to love Him with all our heart and soul He really means it. Or when He commands us to be perfect even as He is perfect, He means it, no compromises. He gave us 10 commandments, not 10 suggestions.
Do we really love Jesus? Well then keep His commandments.
Can we honestly say that we keep His commandments? No? Well then, we do not really love Him, no matter what we tell ourselves.
And if we do not love Him who is light, then we are in darkness and our Christianity is futility.
Jas.2:10 makes it even worse: when we fail in one command, we are guilty of breaking the whole law.
That is the implication of John 14:15 and 21: “If you love me, keep my commandments.
He that has my commandments and keeps them, he it is that loves me”.

When we become serious with God and His Word, we become acutely aware of our own wretchedness, even though we might have been Christians for a long time.
We then become acutely aware that we are completely unable to please God when we break His whole law every day again.
Yes, the cross of Jesus has delivered us from our sins. But now we begin to sense that that is not enough. We also need to be delivered from self, the sinful self that is the source of those sins.
This deliverance was 100 % incorporated in the death of Jesus on the cross for us.
It is just that we cannot appreciate this deliverance from self until we have been painfully confronted with our own depravity.
Rom. 7:24 does not say: “Who shall deliver me from my sin?”
It says: “Who shall deliver me (self, myself) from this body of death?
Who shall deliver me from this personality that keeps on producing sin?.
We now begin to see that even our good works mean nothing in light of our being such a failure at living the Christian life.
Knowing this leaves a person wanting to throw in the towel for good.
Moses, the man of God must have felt this way when he fled for his life into the desert.
Or Peter when Jesus turned and their eyes met, after Peter had sworn that he did not know this man from Nazareth, the man he so dearly loved.
Or Paul when he came face to face with Jesus on his way to Damascus.
When we have come this far there is nothing left but to abandon ourselves upon the mercy of God. for there is no other option left to us.

Not every Christian will experience this kind of agony of spirit.
Blessed is the child of God who travels through this “valley of the shadow of death”.
Every step through this spiritual desert, however painful, is ordained of God.
The failures of Moses, Peter or Paul and so many others were all ordained of God for the purpose of His glory and their good.
This is the way He prepares for Himself a vessel for His own purposes.
This is the way He removes all confidence in ourselves, our own abilities to serve God.
John 12:24 “Unless a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it remains alone. But if it die, it brings forth much fruit”.
This is all so that we might (intimately) know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable (like Him) in his death, Phil.3:10.
When there is nothing left, it is like death.
All the agony of our troubled hearts He knows of and He allows it to come our way so that we, after we have experienced this agony of spirit and now experience His great mercy to us, that we might call Him “my Husband” and no longer “my Master”,
Hosea 2:16.
The relationship of a servant and his master will always be that these two have separate lives. They may live in the same house, but they live their lives separately.
In contrast, the word “husband” implies a union of body and spirit, becoming one body.
This union produces far more than good works performed in obedience to a master, this union produces Life. And this Life will bear fruit that is pleasing to the Father.



O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me ……?
The answer is provided in the next verses.
I thank God (it is) through Jesus Christ our Lord.
There is therefore now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus! Rom.8:1.
The Bible says that we are in Him, therefore we are one with Him and share in His Holiness and Righteousness.
Our God’s grace extended to us means we need not earn His favor.
He loves us unconditionally because He chooses to do so.
In our past we used to do our best to live a good Christian life for God, now we seek to let Jesus live His life through us.
The agony of spirit displayed in Rom.7:18 and 19 is now a thing of the past when we look to Jesus to fulfill the law in us and through us. Whereas in our past we struggled against sin in our own strength, we now know that we have no strength.
Phil. 4:19 “I can do all things through Christ who is my strength”.
That also means that without Him I have no strength.
There truly is nothing left for us to do than to cast ourselves on our Father’s mercy.
That is the only place where we will find rest, the rest that Jesus promised in Matt. 11:28 “Come unto me all of you who are burdened and heavy laden, and I will give you rest”.
For sin (the law of) shall not have dominion over you; for you are not under the law, but under grace, Rom. 14:6.

Is this then the end of it all?
Fortunately, no. Our Father will continue to purify us through trials and difficulties to wean us more and more from our self-confidence and self-sufficiency in order that we might be more and more conformed to the image and likeness of Jesus in faith, character and life.

St. Thomas, Jan.’08.