Seed for Nov 21

Paul explains in Romans 7, that a woman is bound by the law of marriage to her husband until the husband dies. Then she is free to marry another. Well, rather than the husband (the law) dying, the woman died in this illustration. We who are in Messiah, died in Messiah...freeing us from marriage to the law so we might be married to another...the resurrected Messiah.

Rom 7:4 Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto Elohim..

Note that THIS marriage brings forth FRUIT unto Elohim. Nowhere does the Scripture say that keeping the Law brings forth fruit. The keeping of the Law is something the flesh does. This can be illustrated by understanding that it is YOU that keep the speed limit without need of the power of the Spirit in your life. Even the lost are able to keep the speeding limit. Does that please Elohim? No. Paul states plainly in Romans 8 that it is impossible for anything that emanates from the flesh to please Elohim.

Thus, we are separated from a fleshly existence of keeping laws to walk in the power of the Spirit, after we are united with Messiah. We need not concern ourselves with the Ten Commandments when we are walking in the Spirit; because Paul tells us in Galatians 5 that the life that is produced by the Spirit is one against which there is NO LAW. He also says it produces FRUIT unto Elohim...which brings us right back to Romans 7:4.

Billy rightly declares that our freedom comes as a consequence of our having died in Messiah. That is the fundamental necessity to deliver man from the works of the Law; but it is not a mindset that comes to us easily. That is probably why Paul spends the first seven verses of Romans 6 trying to explain this reality to us.

Now, there is a movement that seeks to bring believers back to keeping the law; but not to obtain righteousness (for by the works of the Law shall no flesh be justified - Gal 2:16), but to please Elohim. This, of course, completely misunderstands the two-fold purpose of the Law: (1) Convince us that we are sinners and are impotent to keep the law perfectly; and (2) to bring us to Messiah. Once we have come to Messiah, the Law has fulfilled its purpose, like a pedagogue that has trained a child to walk and act and live maturely. The objective of a pedagogue is to make himself redundant. Once the child becomes mature, keeping the pedagogue around is just absurd and foolish.

A great question...thanks for the opportunity to blog on it.

Grace and peace,

Dana