Are We Under the Law?

October 18
I heard a man speak yesterday about whether we are under the law or grace. It troubled me because He seemed confused about the issue himself. He failed to make the distinction between sacrificial law and criminal and/or civil law. From Adam to Abraham to David to the Apostles to us today, all were/are saved by faith because of God’s grace. No man was ever saved by keeping the law. When Paul said, “We are no longer under the law” (Rom. 2, 3, 9; I Cor. 9; Gal. 3) his was speaking about the sacrificial law. One question settles the issue immediately. What part of God’s instruction to Moses does not apply to us today? Is it now okay to murder, steal, covet, be immoral, lie, cheat, or commit adultery? Of course not. Does God still require the blood of the one who took the life of man? Of course He does. What that man did yesterday in the pulpit of a local church continues to confirm to me the problem in churches throughout this land. People who are not called of God to preach His word are doing it anyway. People with a cursory knowledge of God’s word are standing in pulpits across this land saying, “Thus says the Lord,” when the Lord has not spoken. Most of them aren’t intentionally seeking to lie and deceive. That, however, is irrelevant. When one stands himself before God’s people and suggests he is speaking the word of God in behalf of God, he had best know about what he speaks (James 3:1).

God gave Moses the law. He gave him the sacrificial law, criminal law, and civil law. Jesus fulfilled all the sacrificial laws, all laws that had anything to do with forgiveness of sin. He was God’s perfect sacrifice for the sins of mankind. The Jews were not saved because they made the sacrifices; they were saved because they believed those sacrifices were symbolic of the Lamb of God, whom He would eventually send, to be the perfect sacrifice for their sins. One man put it this way, “Before Christ, people were saved on the basis of faith in the Messiah who would come. Since Christ people are saved on the basis of faith in the Messiah who came.” Clearly, until the actual coming, life, death, and resurrection of Christ, not even the disciples fully understood God’s plan of redemption. Nevertheless, no man who was ever saved was saved because he sacrificed a sacrifice to God. Only those sacrifices done according to the law and based on faith ever saved anyone. Just as people all over the world today continue to offer countless varieties of sacrifices to “a god” in hopes it will please that god or gods, so they have done from eternity past to and will continue to do until He Himself returns and establishes His eternal kingdom.

One of the reasons it is crucial we understand this is that honoring God on the Sabbath was also a sacrificial law which was fulfilled in Christ’s coming, sinless life, sacrificial death, and resurrection. When the New Testament church began meeting on the first day of the week, it wasn’t for the purpose of starting a new tradition. They did so to honor the resurrection of our Lord. Most Jewish converts to Christianity continued to meet on the Sabbath for instruction centuries after the formation of the church as it exists today. The Sabbath day was a sign of the rest we have attained who are in Christ (Heb. 4:8-11). While it’s perfectly okay for the church to meet on the first day of the week, there is absolutely nothing in Scripture declaring it essential. I would even suggest the traditional church’s insistence on doing so has actually done almost as much to harm true Christianity as it has to codify some of its traditions.
So, in closing, I would like to humbly suggest we all continue searching the scriptures daily to see if the things our pastor/teachers are preaching are in perfect harmony with God’s word. When they clearly are not, we should be bold enough to take our concerns to those claiming to speak in His name and ask them to correct their incorrect teaching before the people to whom they spoke it or, if we discover they are more interested in being perceived to be right than actually being right, I would suggest we would be wise to leave that church and seek another. And that’s God’s word for us today.