POST #3 THE SPIRIT OF LAWLESSNESS
In the last study I posed two questions. Why did God give us moral laws to follow? Why was the law given if we are to be people of faith and grace?
1. The law placed all mankind in a condition of being without an excuse:
We are a people who like to live in the shadow of being a victim. It is always easier to blame someone else for our condition mentality, emotionally, and spiritually then to take personal responsibility for our own actions. The giving of the law set it straight that we are all guilty before God in the inability to obey the commands of God. Therefore in obeying “some laws” we are not justified, because we cannot obey all of them. Our Lord said that if we failed in one, we have failed in all.
Romans 3:19-20 ESV Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. (20) For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.
2. The law put a name to our sins:
Romans 7:4-8 ESV Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. (5) For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. (6) But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code. (7) What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” (8) But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead.
You can see from these texts in Rom.3:19-20 and 7:4-8 that God the Father defines sin through the law. The law brings sin to one's notice. It details the behavior of man in word, thought, and deed what the Most High God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob considers right and wrong. Humanity is incapable of defining sin because we do what is right in our own eyes. Only the Creator of all things can define sin.
In the last study I posed two questions. Why did God give us moral laws to follow? Why was the law given if we are to be people of faith and grace?
1. The law placed all mankind in a condition of being without an excuse:
We are a people who like to live in the shadow of being a victim. It is always easier to blame someone else for our condition mentality, emotionally, and spiritually then to take personal responsibility for our own actions. The giving of the law set it straight that we are all guilty before God in the inability to obey the commands of God. Therefore in obeying “some laws” we are not justified, because we cannot obey all of them. Our Lord said that if we failed in one, we have failed in all.
Romans 3:19-20 ESV Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. (20) For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.
2. The law put a name to our sins:
Romans 7:4-8 ESV Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. (5) For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. (6) But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code. (7) What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” (8) But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead.
You can see from these texts in Rom.3:19-20 and 7:4-8 that God the Father defines sin through the law. The law brings sin to one's notice. It details the behavior of man in word, thought, and deed what the Most High God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob considers right and wrong. Humanity is incapable of defining sin because we do what is right in our own eyes. Only the Creator of all things can define sin.
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