The Dawning Reality

PRINCIPLES

• All of us are under some form of law
• Because of this all of us are in sin
• The Law will not allow us to love
• This doubly convicts us of sin
• Because of this we all need God’s solution to our sinful state
• His Son
• This solution is received by faith
• There is no other way to God but by faith.
• To be God’s Son’s and Daughter’s we are so by faith
• Those who truly walk by faith are dead to the Law.
• Joint heirs with Christ live by faith and love.
• Love is the fulfillment of the Law
• The Goal is to fully die to law, fully walk by faith, and fully love.
• This means being joint heirs with Christ.
• Through faith in Christ, who fulfilled the Law, we are able to overcome sin through death to the law by living to and in Him.

All human beings are under law from the time that we are born.  We all have conscience.  We all have the Law written on our hearts.  We all are without excuse.  Whether Jew or Gentile, every one of us need to become sons of Abraham through Isaac (and not Ishmael). 

Abraham had two sons – one from Hagar the bondwoman and one from Sarah the freewoman.  Paul has been writing to the church in Galatia that apparently sought to return to being under the law.  This caused him to call them foolish Galatians and much of the epistle is written to explain to them why he would say such a thing, why they were so far off in their thinking as people who had come to know the truth.

He begins in chapter one telling them that if anyone comes “preaching another gospel let them be accursed.”  He repeats this.  Then in chapter three he writes:

Galatians 3:1 O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you?

2 This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?

3 Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?

What is the problem with the Law?  It makes all people sinners. 

Romans 3:20 Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

Because we are all under the law to some extent or another we are all found to possess sin.  Those who do not break free from the law AND become children of faith (saved) will NOT escape afterlife loss – to what extent we cannot exactly articulate.

Jesus – received by faith – came to save all from afterlife loss.  He offers life to all who will walk by faith because to walk by our natural man makes all of us sinners – because we are all under the Law (to some extent or another).  Therefore, those who are His are NOT only not of the Law but are those who are of faith.  In chapter three of Galatians Paul continues with the subject of faith and says:

Galatians 3:6 Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.

7 Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham.

8 And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed.

9 So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.

10 For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.

11 But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith.

12 And the law is not of faith: but, The man that doeth them shall live in them.

13 Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:

14 That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

Those who are His, who are His children, sons and daughters, who are Joint Heirs with Christ, who will dwell with Him, are NOT of the law but of faith.

Chapter four really brings the point home where Paul continues teaching.  And in the first verses, speaking to a Gentile church he says:

Galatians 4:1 Now I say, That the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all;

2 But is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father.

3 Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world:

Remember, he tells these Gentiles that they were once in BONDAGE under the elements of the world.  We were not free.  We were in chains to sin.  And sin comes by the presence of the Law!  Then Paul writes:

4 But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,

5 To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.

6 And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.

7 Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.

This is the Goal, the objective of every person on earth – to become free from the Law (and therefore free from sin and its demands) and to become heirs of God through Christ by faith!  By faith which is not of the law.

At verse 9 Paul goes back to the reason he writes to them and says:

9 But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?

10 Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years.

11 I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain.

There is a movement afoot on earth today among believers who are going about to establish their own righteousness.  They are returning to the Law – which is a death nell to the faith.  Why?  By the Law is the presence of sin!

And then at verse 21 Paul launches into a fantastic explanation of who believers and followers of Christ really are.  Listen closely:

21 Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law?

22 For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman.

23 But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise.

24 Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.

25 For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children.

26 But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.

27 For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband.

28 Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise.

29 But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now.

30 Nevertheless what saith the scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son: for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman.

31 So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free.

The goal is Him.  Not only saved by His grace through faith but living by faith in Him and not to the Law as a means of becoming joint-heirs with Him.  In this we

• Will be saved.
• Not suffer loss.
• Receive the fullness of Christ in us.
• Granted a better resurrection
• Be joint-heirs with Christ

All the rest (and their lot) after suffering loss are in the hands of God for Him to do with them as He would.  But we are children of God by faith.  This faith is always manifested by love for God and Man.