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The Daily Word of Righteousness
The Flesh Becomes the Law, #3
Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. (I John 3:4—NIV)
Sin is the breaking of the eternal moral law of God.
The Law and the Prophets are summed up as follows: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and your neighbor as yourself.
As you consider the above ten areas of moral behavior you will see that they all have to do with our relationship with God and with other people.
They were the Law under the Mosaic covenant. They are the moral law under the new covenant. They never change in intent, only in the manner in which they are applied to us.
The Lord Jesus Christ is the Word of God made flesh. As Christ is formed in us the Word, that is, the eternal moral law of God, transforms our personality, our "flesh" so to speak. Thus we are made in the image of Christ and become the word made flesh, or the flesh made the word, as you wish.
The new Jerusalem is the glorified Christian Church. It is the highest expression of the eternal moral law of God. The saved nations of the earth shall walk for eternity in its light, its guidance.
To this point, the only righteousness we have known is that which has been imputed (assigned) to us because we have received the Lord Jesus Christ and now are following His Spirit. The righteousness that thus is ascribed to us is the righteousness that comes from keeping perfectly the Ten Commandments. Christ kept the commandments perfectly and it is His righteousness that is assigned to us, the righteousness resulting from perfect obedience to the Law of God.
In order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit. (Romans 8:4—NIV)
The above verse does not mean because we have accepted Christ we are perfectly righteous and need make no other effort. It means, rather, that as we turn away from our sinful nature and live in the Spirit of God, learning each day to keep the commandments issued by Jesus Christ and His Apostles, we are regarded by the Lord as having the full righteousness of the Ten Commandments even though we are not as yet able to keep them fully.
We must keep the commandments of Christ and His Apostles now, as the Spirit of God enables us. As we keep the New Testament commandments, Christ is being formed in us. When Christ has come to maturity in us we will walk as He walks. We shall keep the Divine commandments by means of our new nature.
Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did. (I John 2:6—NIV)
This is the fulfillment of the new covenant and is our eternal life and righteousness.
Sin is sin, and is defined by the full application of the ten great commandments.
You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. (II Corinthians 2:3—NIV)
The primary emphasis of Paul's Epistles is righteous behavior—not imputed righteousness, but actual righteousness of behavior. Though written by Paul they actually are letters from Christ. They came forth from Paul's crucifixion with Christ.
To be continued.