Did Jesus Do Away With The Law? No.

How can we know anything about anything

To try to explain truth to him who loves it not is but to give him more plentiful material for misinterpretation. George Macdonald

Do we have to make a choice between science and the Bible?

NO!

That is NOT where the problem is, but that is what everyone seems to want to talk about.

Take science as an example. How can we know anything about the created material world around us?

How can we know anything from what we can see using natural sciences?

We all see the same things in the material world, but we don't come to the same answers.

Why is that?

How can we know anything about the Bible and what it teaches? Every person believes different things about the Bible and how it should be read.

Why is that?

Same scientific facts. Different answers.

Same Bible. Different answers.

Why is that?

The true question is this: How do we come to our answers that we get from what we can see through science or what we can read in the Bible?

How do we think about what we see using science or what we read in the Bible?

How do we analyze what we have seen and read?

How do we interpret what we have seen and read?

We use logic, but logic always has a foundation. Jesus talked about building on the Rock. That Rock is Jesus Christ. He is the true foundation. There are also the false foundations of the ungodly.

An example might help.

Question: Why do believe in evolution?

Answer: Because my science teacher told me that evolution is scientific fact.

Question: Why do you believe your science teacher?

Answer: because he agrees with the textbook he assigned us to read.

Now, we have asked, "Why?" twice.

If we continued to ask, "Why?" we would come down to the foundation of this person's thoughts.

When we get down to the foundations, there are no more questions that can be answered. So where to the foundations come from?

There are three possibilities.

things that we make up, pulled from the air
demonic lies
divine revelation

Question: Why do believe in creation?

Answer: Because God revealed this to me. He spoke to me through the Bible and gave me His faith so that I could believe Him.

See how quickly we got to the foundation. This is a belief that has a foundation that is solid and that cannot be moved.

In reality, the things that we make up, that are pulled from the air, are actually from demons and all the lies of demons spring from the prince of demons, Satan. So these are one and the same.

Divine revelation comes from the Almighty, Creator, God, Jesus Christ. So there are only two choices, but how do we know there are only two choices? Because God has revealed this truth to us.

The question then is how do we tell the difference between the revelation that comes from God and the lies of Satan?

The answer is that everyone who sincerely wants to do the will of God will know.

Jesus said, "If you really want to obey God, you will know if what I teach comes from God or from me"

The rejection of the revelation that comes from God is not an intellectual problem. It is a moral problem.

Jesus said, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you: For everyone who asks receives; and he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks it shall be opened. *

Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to those who ask him? Matthew 7:7-11 *

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. You can set the truth before someone, but you can't make anyone believe those things that they don't want to submit to. They have to want to obey God.

How frequently it is brought to our attention that nothing good can be done if the will is wrong! Reason alone fails to justify itself. Richard M. Weaver

Jesus said, "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:32)

"If we are not prepared to buy the truth at the cost of our own humbling we shall not receive it"

Lies appear to have no price upon them. They seem cheap and they abound everywhere. But for the truth there is always an obvious price to pay.

[God] has set a day when He will judge all the world's people with fairness. And He has chosen the man Jesus to do the judging for Him. God has given proof of this to all of us by raising Jesus from death" (Acts 17:31).

"There is a judge for the one who rejects Me [Jesus] and does not accept My words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day" (John 12:48)

That also stands for every person who speaks the utterances of Jesus. When we hear them, we hear Jesus Christ, and we either accept or reject. Every person who follows Jesus Christ is commanded to only speak His utterances and not their own.

"When we love others, we know that we belong to the truth, and we feel at ease in the presence of God" (1 John 3:19)

Ravi Zacharias did two open forums in a university. On the second night, one man told him that he had brought two Atheists in the night before who said that the arguments presented were so strong that they could not contend with them, but they were going to remain Atheists because that is what they prefer to be true.

In listening to an unbeliever and drawing out his reasoning, the unbeliever finally came to his foundations.

They turned out to be assumptions that were pulled from the air. When asked why he believed his basic assumption, the unbeliever looked startled and blurted out, “I guess I’m making the whole thing up.” It was quite a revelation to him since he hadn't even known that he had any assumptions. However, he decided to remain an Atheist because he didn’t want God to rule over him.

Some people have seemed to indicate that the NT (New Testament) eliminated the law. That's not true. Be careful that you don't accept rationalized supposition to interpret Scripture. You can rationalize anything, but if you believe that God will give the same revelation to everyone who's willing to submit to Him and ask for revelation, then the teaching of Scripture is clear:

Many NT verses show clearly that the law is in force. The good news is that, regardless of the sins we have committed, if we repent (turn from our sin), and commit ourselves to Christ, then He forgives us. Plus, He gives us power to walk in the Spirit rather than the flesh. Both gifts (forgiveness, and the will and power to obey Him who is love) are free to all who will receive, but God forces Himself on no one. Those who reject Jesus have rejected this salvation, and the Bible says that they reject Him because they love darkness more than light.

Those who walk in the Spirit fulfill the law, which is love. Those who reject Christ are judged by the law. For those who accept Christ, the commandments become promises of righteousness. Just change the inflection: Thou shalt not steal, and that's a promise.

We are all born as slaves to sin, every one of us, but we can be free. Through Christ, all can actually be removed from the family of Satan and born into the family of God. God loves us so much that He provided a way--Jesus. The cost was unthinkably high, but He loves us so.

In this new family, the Holy Spirit is training us as growing children. If I'm born with a tendency toward, let's say, drunkenness, I can be freed. The same could be said for lying, smoking, drugs, sexual sins, envy, greed, violence, worshiping false gods, etc. Without the free gift (grace), we remain slaves of sin, for without Jesus, we can do nothing. In fact, all human-generated righteousness, Christian or not, is as filthy rags compared to what God requires. If we do anything pure and righteous, it's God's grace in us that does the work. He can do good works through us. When we turn from sin and to Jesus, we are new creatures. The old is passed away, though our bodies are not yet redeemed, hence the inner struggle.

If we're tempted to sin, we disregard the flesh, the emotion, the soulish nature, and we walk in the Spirit. If we stumble, we repent and we're forgiven; we get up and begin to walk in the Spirit again. We don't identify with our sin. We identify with Christ and His righteousness in us. Christians have scarcely scratched the surface of being able to appropriate what they have been so freely given, but some are now progressively pressing in. Whoever will may come.

Freedom is progressive, rather than complete and instantaneous. 2Corinthians 3:18

If we do anything pure and righteous, it is God's grace in us that does the work. 2Corinthians 9:8

If we are tempted to sin, we need to disregard the flesh and walk in the Spirit. Romans 8:1

If we slip, we are forgiven, we get up and begin to walk in the Spirit again, but we certainly don't identify with our sin. We identify with Christ and His righteousness in us. Romans 7:16

Matthew 5:18 "Till the heaven and the earth pass away, not one jot or one tittle shall in any way pass from the Law until all is fulfilled."

Matthew 5:17 "Do not think that I have come to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I have not come to destroy but to fulfill."

The New Testament is clear that "there is salvation in no other One [speaking of Jesus]; for there is no other name under Heaven given among men by which we must be saved." Acts 4:12

"He who believes on Him [Jesus] is not condemned, but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God." John 3:18

There would not even be death without sin: Romans 5:12 "so death passed on all men inasmuch as all sinned."

God's law is love. Romans 13:9 "Do not commit adultery; do not murder; do not steal; do not bear false witness; do not lust;" and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this word, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

Did Jesus Do Away With The Law? No.

How can we know anything about anything

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