By James Niles
At the highest level GOD’s Law makes the following demands (amongst many others in the OT and the NT):
o Deuteronomy 6:4-6 reads: < “Hear, O Israel! The LORD (YHWH) is our God, the LORD is one! You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart.” >
o Leviticus 19:2c reads: < ‘You shall be holy, for I the LORD (YHWH) your God am holy.’ >
o In Matthew 5:48 YESHUA (JESUS) declares: < “Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” >
o In Matthew 5:44-45a (NKJV), JESUS declares: < But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven … >
The demands of the Law are clear. And, these demands must be met. How can the demand for perfection (Matt 5:48), in a holy (Lev 19:2) love (Deut 6:5), be met by us who are fatally flawed?
As Scripture declares all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of GOD (Rom 3:23).
The solution flows in and by and through YESHUA, the WORD become flesh, who came to fulfill the demands of the Law.
In Matthew 5:17-18 YESHUA declares: < “Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished.” >
There is no question as to where the Law stands in fulfillment. The Law stands fulfilled – exclusively – in the (Logos) Testimony of YESHUA.
Revelation 19:10c declares that the Testimony of JESUS is the Spirit of Prophecy.
Hebrews 10:14 reads: < For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. >
The fulfillment of the Law is – exclusively – communicated by the HOLY SPIRIT in the (Rhema) Witness of YESHUA.
As YESHUA declares in John 6:63, < “It is the Spirit (referring to the HOLY SPIRIT) who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the (rhema) words that I have spoken to you (communicating My Testimony) are spirit and are life. >
As YESHUA declared in John 16:14, < “He (the HOLY SPIRIT) will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.” >
How will the HOLY SPIRIT declare the fulfillment of the Law?
By uniquely creating our hearts as Epistles of CHRIST (see Matthew 5:8).
2 Cor 3:3 (NKJV) reads: < clearly you are an epistle of Christ, … written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone (which Moses received on Mount Sinai) but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart. >
This reality of what is accomplished in the Epistle of CHRIST written into us is prophetically foreshadowed in two verses in Exodus that declare:
o Ex 31:18 … < And when He had made an end of speaking with him on Mount Sinai, He gave Moses two tablets of the Testimony, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God. >
o Ex 32:16 … < Now the tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God engraved on the tablets. >
The Epistles of CHRIST are wholly the creative work of GOD (see Eph 2:10) and they are a living and growing, eternal expression of the righteousness of YHWH.
Hence, Romans 8:2 declares: < For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. >
What the righteousness of man FAILED to accomplish by observance of the Law (even Moses failed; see note on Isaiah 64:6 below), is in the New Testament, the exclusive work of GOD in His Sovereign Righteousness, manifested as we choose to put on CHRIST JESUS – by faith through grace.
As John 1:16-17 (NKJV) reads: < And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace. For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. >
As 2 Cor 4:6-7 (NKJV) reads: < For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. >
The Law and its demands are only fulfilled as we put of CHRIST JESUS (who is the glory of GOD). Trying to observe the Law in our own strength has been and will be always a failure.
We need to get out of legalism and put on CHRIST JESUS. Unless CHRIST is formed in us, the demands of the Law can never be met! See Galatians 4:19 and Colossians 1:28.
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Note: Isaiah 64:6 (NKJV) reads: < But we are all like an unclean thing, And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags; We all fade as a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, Have taken us away. >