Radio Broadcast Monday 09/19/2022

Classic Christianity – A Closer Look at Law & Grace P01 (09-19-22)

Law Was Given by Moses ~ Grace Was Given by Jesus Christ

~ The Contrast Between Law and Grace
The Word of God makes abundant use of a very helpful teaching tool—contrasts: light and darkness, the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan, life and death, lost and saved, just to name a few. And one very beautiful and educational contrast found throughout the Bible is law and grace.

Far from being a dull theological subject, law and grace is the very backbone of the gospel. The difference between the two is at the heart of how a person is saved and, equally important, how a person will live the Christian life. Law and grace is not a side issue, it winds its way into every nook and cranny of the Christian life.

Without a proper understanding of law and grace, a person will be “double minded, and unstable in all his ways” (James 1:8). The Bible will be hopelessly contradictory for such a person and he will be unable to relate to God with confidence and thanksgiving.

However, those who have come to a fuller understanding of the grace under which we live have nearly felt “born again—again.” They have regained the joy, freedom, and spontaneity of their earliest Christian experience. This is the truth that sets men free (John 8:32).

Listen in to today’s lesson with more in-depth teaching, from the Bible study booklet, A Closer Look at Law & Grace, available for purchase from our online Bob George Ministries ecommerce store.

Jesus asked how does God love and accept us? And how does he expect us to live the Christian life? To answer those questions, this insightful study explores a vital issue at the heart of the Christian experience, the biblical relationship between law and grace, understanding their role in our relationship to God will bring joy, freedom and spontaneity to your Christian life. Now, let’s take A Closer Look at Law & Grace.

Bob George 0:39
You’ve heard me say on so many different times in so many incidences, that if I had one message to give, it would be a message on the New Covenant. Because it’s in that message that sets the foundation for the entire understanding, in my opinion of the grace that we stand in today. And when you’re dealing with new covenant, you’re dealing with the contrast between law and grace. And so that’s what the New Covenant is, is it is usher in something brand new, called the fullness of grace, in contrast to what you were referring to the law, which was up to us to keep, and the blessings of God came from our obedience, which we could not do, rather than the fact that the blessing of God came to us in a person, which he could do. Yes. And so it’s it is it is a total contrast. So if I had one message to give, it would be the message on the new covenant. But the implications of that new covenant and contrasting the new cabinet to the old covenant is a subject that’s probably going to take us about six months on the radio here. And so in announcing that I would advise you to pick up the book called “A Closer Look at Law and Grace.” And we you can get that from the ministry, you could probably pick it up in a one of your Christian bookstores. Available from Bob George Ministries shop.bobgeorge.net online ecommerce store. But if you want to order it from us, why you can do so very easily by calling our 800 number. And we’ll be more than happy to get that into your hands. And it is a very, very insightful Bible study book with these Bible study books, folks, it is not a commentary what it is it enables you to go into the scripture, and a pull out of the Bible itself. These contrasts, law and grace is not something quite frankly, it needs to be debated is there Yes. And the legalism that is so prevalent in Christianity today comes from a total lack of understanding of what we have been freed from, but even more so what we have been called to, and that is to walk in a newness of life in Christ Jesus. So folks, we’re going to be in this study for a number of months, believe me. And I, of course, if we taught this, until the Lord came back, it would be all right with me because it is such an important subject to grab a hold of. And it’s one of those things that we have to keep reminding ourselves of, because Satan is constantly going into be bombarding you and me to get us back under the law. And there is a reason for that is under the law, you’re paralyzed under the law. Fear is under the law. And fear keeps you from the perfect love of God. And so in as much as it is God’s goal for each and every one of us to come to a point in our lives of experiencing the height and depth and breadth and width of the love of God that has been given to us in Christ Jesus, our Lord, that’s unconditional love and acceptance. And to know that love that surpasses knowledge, it goes beyond what we can stick in these heads of ours. It’s experiential knowledge of the love of God. There’s a result of that, and that is it says, We will be controlled to the measure with the fullness of God.

So it is God’s will for us to be in a situation whereby the control factor in our life comes downward from him, not inward from us, but downward from him. And whereby he and his Spirit is leading us not my will but Lord, Yours be done, where his Spirit is leading us. And he leads us in the pathway of love and of grace, and always leads us in a way that is best for us. Satan, who has no desire at all, except to destroy God’s kids will do everything in his power to pull you away from that lifestyle of joy and peace. And the method that he uses is fear. And the and, and the weapon that he uses to produce that is the law. And so we will see and John 1:17 as we begin our study, that the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ, and we’re going to hit on that in just a moment. Before we do one more reminder, pick up the book, “A Closer Look at Law and Grace” and follow along with us over these next number of months, as we explore this subject in its inner depth, and I guarantee if you’ll keep in there with us, that at the end of the time that we’re finished with this study, that you will have an understanding of the grace of God, and that God’s word will do precisely what it says it will set you free, free from the law, so that you can be free to walk in the newness of life. Chapter 5 of Galatians says it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourself be burdened again, by the yoke of slavery. What’s the yoke of slavery, the slavery under the law?

Well, Bob, I feel like that before we begin our time together in this study, I’d like to just commit this to the Lord and ask God to open up our hearts so that we might be able to understand and comprehend the fullness of this these messages. Father, we thank you for the love of God that has been extended to us freely and abundantly in Christ Jesus our Lord. And we know from your word that our eye cannot see and our ear cannot hear or our mind cannot conceive of those things that God has prepared for those who love Him. But it must be revealed by the Spirit. And so we ask that each and every one of us, and each and every person who is listening today, that you by your Holy Spirit, will open up our hearts and take the scales off of our eyes so that we might see more clearly the fullness of the grace of God that has been extended to us freely and abundantly by Christ Jesus, our Lord. And we thank you for this and praise You for it. In His wonderful name, amen. Amen.

Go ahead and turn to John 1:17. And then we’re going to elaborate on the meaning of that verse and also set some foundation in regard to that verse before we get into the meat of the study. Let’s start with John 1:17, the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. Now, folks, when we see that passage, you’re seeing the law was given through Moses, we know that at Mount Sinai, and then grace and truth came through Jesus Christ, in his life, and ultimately, through His death on the cross and his resurrection, that we found out what grace and truth was all about. We’ve talked about it on programs in the past of the new covenant that we stand in today. And in the book of Hebrews that deals with that new covenant and chapter nine, where it talks about the fact that a will does not go into effect until the one who made it dies. Well, that’s what your scriptures are, the Old Testament is an old will. And the New Testament is a new will. And a new well goes into effect only on the day, that the one who made it dies, it never goes into effect, while the one who made it is living. So you had an old agreement between God and man. And then, after that old agreement that man could not fulfill, man could not fulfill the law because he couldn’t live in obedience to it. So Christ Jesus came to this earth and through walking in perfect love, fulfilled the law. So the law that was given to man to fulfill was fulfilled by the man who represents all of humanity, just like we all entered into sin by the one man, Adam, who went he fell, we all entered into that, that fallen nature of Adam. And so it was a representative. It’s kind of like the David and Goliath story. Whoever won that battle, the people that were represented the people that David represented, we’re either going to live in slavery to the giant, or we’re going to be free from the giant, and those followers of the giant were either going to be living in victory or defeat, because he represented the people. Well, Adam was the representative of all of humanity. When he fell, we all fell. That’s why I said, all of us were born, in Adam dead in our sins. And Christ Jesus came and through His resurrection enabled all who are in Him to be made alive in him. And so he fulfilled the law that was given to man. He became a man and fulfilled the law. Now having fulfilled it, He then went to a cross and upheld it and the upholding of the law is that the wages of sin is death, and he upheld the law by becoming death for us. In other words, the blood of bulls and goats cannot substitute for a man.

Jesus became a man. He came to this earth as a man, in the beginning was the Word the Word was with God, the Word was God, the word God became flesh. So he took upon himself our humanity, took that humanity to a cross and died for the forgiveness of all mens’ sins, not only ours, but the sins of the whole world. And he took it away, totally in contrast to atonement, using the blood of bulls and goats that cover sin. When Jesus the Son, God, the Son came to this earth, He took away the sins of the world, as a result of his sacrifice on our behalf. So his physical life, fulfilled the law, his physical death, upheld the law, so that his resurrected life could now enable you and me to walk free from the law, but walk now in the newness of life under the grace of God that has been given to us freely and abundantly in Christ Jesus our Lord. So that was the plan of salvation, and that is the contrast between law and grace.

Now, when we look at this passage of Scripture, the law given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ, there is also another thing to take into consideration. And that is that it is not that there was not law before Moses, and any more than it’s not that there was no grace prior to Moses, you saw both of those things in action, but it wasn’t the law. Nor was it the grace. In other words, the final Law was given through Moses written on stone, and the introduction of the finality of grace and truth was introduced through Christ Jesus our Lord. As an example, in the Garden of Eden, was there law? Well, yes, there was, Adam was told that of all the trees in the garden you’re free to eat, except the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, on the day that you eat there of you will surely die. So there was a law in the Garden of Eden, do not eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. In other words, God was saying to Adam, Adam, as a created being, you have no ability at all, to determine right from wrong and good from evil on your own. I God alone can determine that for my creation. As a created being, you have freedom to do anything else besides that, but the very day that you decide that you want to be the determining factor for right and wrong and good and evil. On that day, you will, in your own mind be becoming like God, and you will die. So there was law in the Garden of Eden, and there was a punishment for a violation of that law, in the Garden of Eden. There was also grace in the Garden of Eden, because as Adam and Eve fell, they found themselves naked. And as God said, How do you know you’re naked? In other words, prior to that time, they weren’t even aware of that fact.

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Bob George 14:01
They weren’t thinking what was right or wrong, or good or evil or anything else, they were just living in harmony with their Creator, would that have been a wonderful way to live. But all of a sudden, they found themselves self centered rather than God centered. Prior to that time, their occupation was on God, their Creator, now it was upon God’s creation, themselves. And so they hid and they made fig leaves in order to clothe themselves. God came along as seeing them in the pitiful condition that they were in. And for the first time, of course, in all of life that as we know it today, why they saw death and they saw death with probably their little animals that were pets things of, of a great affection between the animal kingdom and and the human kingdom, and all of a sudden, an innocent animal had to die in order to provide clothing now for Adam and Eve, not the kind of clothing they were providing for themselves, which was just a covering, but humanity was going to fall. And I believe the reason that you need animal skins is because cold was going to enter in, which leads me to believe that God never intended us to be cold. Good point, I think that’s an excellent point. Otherwise, he would have made us with bear fur on it instead of naked, so But at any rate, all of a sudden, a covering had to be made. And in order for that to be done, an animal had to be killed. That’s grace. It is also a picture, it is a foreshadowing of what was going to happen, obviously, 1000s of years later, when Jesus Christ clothed us in His righteousness. So the grace of God clothed man when he fell, and the grace of God clothes us today, in the midst of our sin, taken away at the cross, clothed in his righteousness, so that we stand today, not in our own little Christian fig leaves. But we stand today clothed in his righteousness. And folks today, as man today is still trying to find his acceptance in the sight of God through what he does. All that is, is making a bunch of dumb Christian fig leaves, and hanging them on yourself, instead of resting in the clothing that has been provided for you in Christ Jesus, and rest in the fact that you have been clothed in his righteousness.

So therefore quit going out and trying to decorate yourself up in your Christian fig leaves. And that’s all self righteousness is is Christian fig leaves. But it was a foreshadowing of that. So even though there was law prior to Moses, the law came through Moses. And even though there was certainly Grace prior to Jesus, the final Grace came through Christ Jesus, the ultimate form of grace came through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Now, the other thing that I want to mention that this particular point because it ties in to what we’ll be talking about in the rest of the lesson, is that when the law came to Moses, it was given to in essence to the Hebrew people. So there is a sense in which the Gentile never was under the law. The law was given to the Hebrews, given to Moses, to the Hebrew nation. And the fact that they had the law and attempted to live in submission to that law, is what sets them apart from every other person on the face of the earth. It’s what sets the Hebrews apart from the Hittites and the Amorites, in the mid tides and all those islands. It set them apart from the world. That’s why they were a distinct peculiar people. They were peculiar, because they were following God’s laws to the best of their ability. What made them peculiar was no one else was trying, no one else knew about them. They weren’t trying to here was a group of people had God’s law, trying to live according to them, and they were peculiar to the world, unusual to the world. A group of people had to be chosen, he had to choose somebody he chose the Hebrew he chose, chose the Hebrew for that, to be that that set of people now so in essence, folks that Gentile never was under the law.

Now, when the grace and truth came through Jesus Christ our Lord, what did he What do we have to do to put on something new? Now here the Hebrew was clothed now in these beat up clothes of theirs trying to obey the law with all their hearts and absolutely not being able to so just beat up unbelievably these old raggy clothes and God comes along and offers a new set of clothes, a new covenant. Now if someone offered you a new set of clothes, and you were standing there in rags, what would you have to do? Why you take off the old in order to put on the new that was the Hebrew. The gentile was standing there naked. Now when you offer a new set of clothes to the Gentile who’s naked, what do you have to do? Just put on the new you don’t have anything to take off. You’re naked.

You see the the new covenant that ultimately came to the entire world. But it said the gospel first went to the Hebrew and then after that to the Gentile. So obviously it would go to the Hebrew because the Hebrew was the one who the group of people, the Hebrews were the ones that God was dealing with, under the law. But the law was a foreshadowing, and the law had a terrific purpose. And like the scripture says that the law is not for the savedit was for the lost in order to show us that we cannot do something. So it’s, it’s my feeling that if you’d say, well, if any group of people on the face of the earth could pull this off, it would certainly be the Hebrews. But they couldn’t. And and that’s not a discredit to them. It’s just reality of all humanity. No humanity can live up to the righteous requirements of God, humanity cannot live up to deity. And so but we had to be shown that and so the Hebrews and their attempt of laws and following the laws tenaciously did nothing but fall on their face with it, and self righteousness kept growing and growing and growing. So when the gospel came, when grace and truth came through Jesus Christ, here’s a new covenant. And incidentally, that new covenant was announced in the Old Covenant in Jeremiah, it was announced that I’m gonna give a new covenant where their sins and all his acts are, remember, no more, it was announced in the old, said, you’re gonna get one, when they got it, they didn’t believe they got it did that strain, that’s why we are.

So it was one of those things that it isn’t like all of a sudden, this new covenant was made up over here by Jesus and his apostles, it was announced in the Old Covenant that a new one was going to come. But the old covenant had to be fulfilled, it could not be fulfilled by us. And so God became a man and fulfilled it, like we say, upheld it at the cross, and then offered in new life. Now, so to the Hebrew, the announcement had to be take off the old and put on the new. Ultimately, then when the gospel went to the Gentile, the Gentile wasn’t take something off, they didn’t have anything on, it was put on the new see. Now, what has happened, obviously, over these years of Christianity is that the that basically was, although in the early stages, it was all all of the apostles, all of the people were Hebrews who couldn’t who realize that Jesus was their Messiah, and were born again. And then that message started going to the Gentiles. And at the same time, the Hebrew leadership continued in their rejection of Jesus to the point where finally, God put them on the back burner, and said, We’re going to take the message to the Gentiles. And so, so now what happens? Well, the Gentile, who all they had to do is put on a new covenant See, it’s kind of like we went back to Jerusalem, and just dug up all those old rhaggy clothes, and put them all put them all over our new suits, so that we could walk around with our new suit on covered with old raggy laws. And that is the condition of a person today who is supposedly in Christ, and under the law, what’s he done? he’s got a new suit on, and that has been absolutely destroyed by all these old raggy clothes that he’s put on over not even underwear outerwear, that we’ve got over our new clothes. And that’s the stupidity friends, of trying to live under the Law and Grace at the same time. God never did put you Gentile under the law, you never were under it. The law was used in your life to show your sinfulness so that you would turn to Christ, which was universal in scope, but you never were under the law. The law came through Moses, to the Hebrew grace and truth came through Jesus Christ for the entire world. So you talk about being stupid we are as Gentiles are really stupid because we have ourselves under a bondage that God never did have a surrender to the Hebrew, they were under the bondage of the law. And they have to put something off in order to put it on to the Gentile all we had to do was put it on. But what did we do why we adopted the new inheritance and grabbed the law and are more stringent, and, and hypocritical in our attempts to follow it than the Hebrew ever thought of being.

Now, folks, let’s turn to Acts 15:1, to kind of get a clue of this as to what was taking place in those early days after the New Covenant, the teaching of Christ came to the Hebrew. Some men came down from Judea to antibiotic access from antiA to Antioch and we’re teaching the brothers quote unless you are circumcised according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved. So what was taking place? Well, the Hebrew had received salvation, he was already circumcised, that all Hebrews were circumcised. So that had already taken place. So now he had salvation. So now all of a sudden, this gospel was starting to be opened up to the Gentiles, they start hearing these Gentiles have received the Lord. Well, they said, Well, you can’t be saved unless you’re a Hebrew. I mean, God gave salvation the Hebrews. So how could you be saved as a Gentile, you’re gonna have to be a proselyte, you’re gonna have to come over and be a Hebrew, and then you can be a Christian. So that was the early teaching now, folks, again, I think the I think one of the benefits of seeing statements like this, in the book of Acts, is, as we’ve said before, if the book of Acts was a doctrinal book, then Gentile you need to get circumcised before you need to get saved. But the book of Acts is not a doctrinal book. It’s a historical book of what took place. From the day of Pentecost on in the early church, and in the early church. That was the teaching of some people coming down from Judea to Antioch, teaching these people, you unless you’re circumcised size, in other words, you become a Hebrew. According to the customer, Moses, you cannot be saved. Now if you’ll get circumcised become a Hebrew, then you’d be saved. But God didn’t save anybody except the Hebrew. Was that true? No, wasn’t true. Was it taught? Sure. Was it recorded in the Book of Acts? Absolutely. Is it a doctrine? Certainly hope not, and you’d better too. So but it’s there. Now, Acts 5 15:5 some of the believers who belong to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, the Gentiles must be circumcised circumcised and required to obey the law of Moses. So here again, were people, believers who belong to the party of the Pharisees.

Thank you so much for tuning in to Classic Christianity, with Bob George. We hope you’ve enjoyed today’s program. We truly hope that today’s message has inspired you to walk a life of faith in the Lord, find more information online at shop.BobGeorge.net. There you’ll also find available CDs, DVDs, and bible studies available for purchase. It’s through your help that we are able to spread the good word of Jesus Christ. Until next time, walk in faith, be good to one another and praise the Lord. Amen.