Christian freedom under grace is freedom from the excesses of our sin nature and from the demands of religious law for righteousness. The Spirit supersedes religious law. It strengthens us so that we can live in freedom, which is not the license to sin. Paul says: “For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another” (Galatians 5:13).
In Galatians 5:4, Paul says: “Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace.” We draw grace from God by humility towards Him which is best described in 1Peter 5:5-7 which says: “be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble. Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time, Casting all of your care upon him; for he careth for you.” See also James 4:6-10, Philippians 4:6-7, Proverbs 3:5, Psalms 37:7, 55:22, Proverbs 3:5-6, Isaiah 26:3-4, and 55:7-9. When we abandon all of our cares in favor of God’s peace, He replaces them with the mind of Christ. We lose our chains.
The Mosaic Law was only a temporary schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. When we have Christ, we no longer need a schoolmaster. Jeremiah 31:31-34 tells us: “Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD: But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
Paul says: “But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law” (Galatians 5:18). The Holy Spirit, through the fruit of the Spirit, brings us to the place of freedom from religious law by moderating our tendency towards excess due to the law of sin (see Galatians 5:22-23). He describes the law of sin as the human weakness that we all share (see Romans 7:14 thru 8:2).
Peter speaks of “having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust” (2Peter1:4). Lust produces our excessive attachments, and brings us into bondage to things. Sin is slavery (see 2Peter 2:18-19). This is why it is difficult for us to resist it without Christ. Our motivation for not sinning is not the living up to the demands of religious rules and regulations, which have no transforming power, but it should be the maintaining of our liberty in Christ after we have been freed from the slavery of sin by the Holy Spirit. Paul asks in Colossians 2:20-22: “Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances, (Touch not; taste not; handle not; Which all are to perish with the using;) after the commandments and doctrines of men?”.
For more information and a FREE download of Peter Aiello’s entire book, visit http://www.hiddentreasure.website/.
Email comments to [email protected].
See an error in this article?
To contact us or to submit an article
