Wednesday, April 15, 2020

SIMPLIFYING the Law & Grace (the Inverse Relationship)

And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work....For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.
Romans 11:6/1 John 5:3

"The law of God, spoken in awful grandeur from Sinai, is the utterance of condemnation to the sinner.
---It is the province of the law to condemn,
---but there is in it no power to pardon or to redeem.
The Moral Law (10 Commandments)
*It is ordained to life; those who walk in harmony with its precepts will receive the reward of obedience.
*But it brings bondage and death to those who remain under its condemnation.
*The moral law was never a type or a shadow. It existed before man's creation, and will endure as long as God's throne remains.
The Ceremonial Law
*The types and shadows of the sacrificial service, with the prophecies, gave the Israelites a veiled, indistinct view of the mercy and grace to be brought to the world by the revelation of Christ.
The slain lamb typified the Lamb that was to take away the sin of the world.
SUMMARY
The law and the gospel are in perfect harmony.
Each upholds the other.
In all its majesty the law confronts the conscience, causing the sinner to feel his need of Christ as the propitiation for sin.
The gospel recognizes the power and immutability of the law.
"I had not known sin, but by the law," Paul declares.
*The sense of sin, urged home by the law, drives the sinner to the Savior."
E.G.W.