Grace Vs Law

Sunday, June 13, 2010 at 12:56am

By Tonie Campbell.

I have had it on my heart for awile to write a note on Grace vs Law because it seems to be the biggest controversy in the body of Christ and few understand the difference. They want to argue that those who trust in Grace are wanting a license to sin and don't believe you should do any works while those trusting in the law and commandments say faith without works is dead. It appears that some on either side do not fully understand what happened on the Cross or what Grace truly is. Let me say upfront that I'm not a theologian I'm just a student and lover of God's Word. Grace is God's power in you to do what you could not do on your own. It is God looking at you when you stand and when you fall and seeing the blood of Jesus covering it all but it is not a substitute for obedience. The reason is as a new friend of mine Lori said "Many in the church have an identity crisis and do not know who they are in Christ. They are still identifying with the old dead sin nature, that we are commanded to reckon (consider) dead!!! So as a man thinks within himself so is he/she. If we think like old sinners, we will behave like old sinners and therefore the world sees no change. We have to stop identifying with the old and put on the new man who is created in true righteousness and holiness."~quote from Lori Thank you for speaking truth!

I think the majority don't realize what happened on the Cross. Most think we just got forgiveness of sins and of those even fewer understand what complete sozo(salvation) we received which includes healing among others. God didn't just rescue us; He made us Whole on the Cross. When I stop and think about what happened to me when He hung on the Cross it is mind boggling. He didn't just die for my sins He took my sin nature itself and crucified it on the Cross. He became the putrid hated thing in Adam that caused all mankind to fall and delievered us from it (He Who knew no sin became sin so we could become the righteousness of God~2Cor 5:21.) He went to hell for us not only so we wouldn't have to but so that He could take back all authourity and the bible says He made an open show of satan and his demons. (And having spoiled principalities and powers, He made an open show of them, triumphing over them in it~Col 2:15) He didn't just take our sin nature from us and destroy satan's power over us but He went all the way to heaven after He was risen to pour His blood on the mercy seat of the altar in heaven so that He could even cleanse the heavenly Temple from where satan had been there before his fall.(Heb 9) This is why when Jesus saw Mary after He had risen He said "Touch Me not for I have not ascended to My Father; but go to My brethren, and say to them, I ascend to My Father, and your Father; and to My God, and your God"~Jn 20:17. He then later that same evening lets His disciples touch Him. Why? He didn't tell Mary to not touch Him because she was a woman but because He had not risen yet to cleanse the heavenly Temple. A mere human could not touch Him and defile Him then. But after He went to the mercy seat and sat down cleansing all of the Temple in heaven itself even from the effects of satan (who if you remember had access to the Temple even after his fall, read Job); then He returns to His disciples and everyone is now free to touch Him.

It all amazes me to think on. He didn't just even take our sin nature itself but He deposited a new "recreated" spirit in us which is what becomes "born" again. He also leaves us with a measure of His Holy Spirit.(I believe in a subsequent baptism in the Holy Spirit which I wrote about in another note) "You are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwells in you. Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if you live after the flesh, you will die: but if you through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, you will live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the children of God. For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but you have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father."~Romans 8:9-15. What that is saying is the very same power it took to raise Jesus from the dead lives in us. We received God's Spirit of freedom. We do not have the spirit again to bondage and fear. What is the spirit of bondage and fear? Before we got saved we were by nature children of wrath; children of satan and we had his spirit working in us. "And you has He quickened , who were dead in trespasses and sins; wherein in times past you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience: among whom we also had our way of living in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the mind and flesh; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others are now. Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood. He(Jesus) also Himself likewise took part of the same that through death He might destroy(paralyze & render completely useless) him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage."~Ephesians 2:3, Hebrews 2:14-15.

You either have God's Spirit or you have satan's. There is no inbetween decision making. Jesus didn't die on the Cross for you to have a ticket to heaven and struggle with satan while on the earth. He completely took satan's spirit out of you and gave you His Spirit. He completely destroyed satan's power over you and translated you into His kingdom where you are seated with Him, by the Spirit, in heavenly places far above satan's power. "Giving thanks to the Father, Who qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: Who has delivered us from the power of darkness, and has translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son"~Col 1:12-13. Paul said it best in his letter to the church of Ephesus when he said "I never cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you, in my prayers; that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him: That the eyes of your understanding be enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, and what is the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints. And what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: And He has put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be the head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fulness of Him that fills all in all. And has raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus"~Ephesians 1:16-23, 2:6.

We are His body so that puts all things under our feet as well. "For both He that sanctifies and they that are sanctified are all one"~Heb 2:11. "For in Him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily and you are complete in Him, which is the head of all principality and power"~Col 2:9-10. The problem comes when the body of Christ doesn't renew their mind to this. It will never become a reality for you and you will never walk it out if you don't renew your mind. We are a three part being. We live in a body. Your body is not the real you. We have a spirit(either satan's or God's). And we have a soul which is our mind, will, and emotions. Hebrews says that the Word of God is alive and is sharper than any two-edged sword diving asunder the spirit and soul; if they can be divided then they are seperate. The only part of you that is saved is your spirit. If you do not make it to the rapture and die before then your body will return to the ground. Your soul is not saved as well which is why the Word says to "renew" your mind to what you got at salvation. Your soul would be your flesh or carnal nature which wars against your born again man. This is why Paul said at one time "the things I want to do I don't and the things I don't want to do I do." He also said later on that he renewed his mind so we are without excuse to say that we are just old sinners saved by Grace. NO! You were a sinner and then you got saved by Grace; your sin nature died! You were crucified with Christ so it is not the "old" you that lives but Him in you. Philippians 2:12 says to "work out your salvation with fear and trembling". What salvation are we to work out? It's not the salvation of your spirit "for by grace are you saved through faith; and not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works lest any should boast"~Eph 2:8. It is the salvation of your soul that you are to work out by renewing your mind to what the Word actually says.

The bottom line is that you are not you anymore when you got saved. The old man died and you now have God's very own Spirit living in you that enables you to not sin and to live a holy and sanctified life. If you are still acting the same as you did before you received salvation then you have not renewed your mind and your flesh is in control of your life. Jesus said the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. Whichever one you tune in and cater to the most is the one that will rule you. If you do not daily spend time in His Word and prayer then your carnal nature will rule you and you will make excuses for why you act the way you do and say things you say. You will stay in bondage to alchohol, drugs, smoking, rage, anger, temper tantrums and etc.. If you, on the other hand, renew your mind and let His Spirit rule you then you will be changed from glory to glory: Meaning you will become more and more like Jesus because you will be allowing Him to work out of you. When the body of Christ sees this as a whole then we will see real change in this world because their will be unity in the body then. Grace is not a license to sin and there are some in the body of Christ who are abusing it and I would have to say that if you are "fighting" for your right to sin then you are not saved or are ignorant of salvation. Where does works come in then? Faith without works is dead and without faith it is impossible to please God for he who comes to Him must believe that He is and is a rewarder of those that diligently seek Him scripture says. This is the faith: God so loved you that He sent Jesus to die for you on the Cross when you were dead wrong, in sin, and not agreeing with God. Receive that and go show others the same love. Love your enemies; those not saved, while they are dead wrong, in sin and not agreeing with God. Freely you have received so freely give. The works comes in when you choose to serve and do for God out of love not out of obedience. You cannot earn favor from Him. You cannot do enough to get Him to like you. You do and "work" only out of love for Him. It's impossible for you to receive all that you received and not have the desire to go out and show mercy and do for others. "True religion and undefiled before God is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world"~James 1:27. "If you see a person naked, and deprived of daily food, and one of you say to them, depart in peace, be warmed and filled; notwithstanding you give them not those things which are needful to the body; what does it profit? Even so faith, without works, is dead, being alone. Yes, a man says, You have faith, and I have works: show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works"~James 2:15-18. "Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He laid down His life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoso has this world's good, and sees his brother have need, and shuts up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwells the love of God in him? My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth. And hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before Him. For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things. Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then we have confidence toward God. And whatsoever we ask, we receive of Him, because we keep His commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in His sight. And this is His commandment, That we should believe on the Name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as He gave us commandment. And he that keeps His commandments dwells in Him, and He in him. And hereby we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit which He has given us"~1 Jn 3:16-24. "Behold, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom, pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy"~Ezekiel 16:49.

There is no law for the born again Christian. "We are aware that law is not for a person who is righteous, but for those who are heedless of the law and rebellious, ungodly and sinful, wicked and worldly, for people who kill their fathers and mothers, for murderers, the sexually immoral - both heterosexual and homosexual - slave dealers, liars, perjurers, and anyone who acts contrary to the sound teaching"~1 Timothy 1:9-10. We are not under the law because we have God's own Spirit in us. The law was given to show man his need for a savior. Grace is apart from the law as a gift from God. If you are going to live by the law to justify yourself then you had better be prepared to follow every letter and commandment of it for if you break one then in God's eyes you are guilty of breaking all. The law is to bring sinners to the realization of their own guilt and need of Jesus. There are many gifts of the Spirit but the greatest gift God ever gave us was His (agape) love poured out in us. "And hope makes us not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given us"~Romans 5:5. The Old Testament saints did not have what we have so they can't love like we can. The world does not have what we have so they cannot love like we can. The very unconditional agape love of God Himself is in us so we are without excuse to walk in sin or discord. We don't just have forgiveness; we have God in us the hope of glory and it is Him working through us that does the works not us working them; that's the difference. "For it is God which works in you both to will and to do His good pleasure"~Philippians 2:13. There is works to be done but they are done through us by Him and they are done for the purpose of reaching a lost and dying world for Him. He works through us so that the world can see Him. The world will only know that Jesus is alive to the extent that the Church lets Him reveal Himself to the world. Greater works that He did we should be doing which includes healing, raising the dead, miracles, signs, and wonders but they can only be done when we die to ourselves and let Him reign supreme. We cannot show the world Him if we are walking, talking and acting like the world. The body of Christ as a whole is not abiding in Him because there is too much darkness in it. There is too much of the world in it. There is too much of us and not enough of Him. He said that whoever follows Him will not walk in darkness(sin) and if we say we are children of the light and yet walk in darkness then we lie and know not the truth. There is too much sin in the Church and it needs to be dealt with and that begins with renewal of the mind.

Think for a moment about what happened to you and it will almost seem like some weird science fiction zombie movie in a sense. You were dead and then you came to life. You now have another being living on the inside of you and you have supernatural communication with another planet. Everyone else that is not "born" again is the walking dead "spiritually" and for some insane reason the body of Christ wants to be like the walking dead. Come out from among them and be ye seperate. You are a Priesthood, a peculiar(strange to the world) people. You are the called out ones; seperated by and to God for His purpose so live like it. Notice he said to walk in the light, not stand in it. To walk implies faith. How do we walk in the light. We do it by love(His love flowing out of us) . Here's the thing you can't do it in your own love. You can't go by the Old Testament commandment of "loving God with all your heart, soul, strength and might and loving others as yourself" .What happens when you don't love yourself? They had the law but not Grace and Truth. Grace and Truth came through Jesus. Jesus said you have to receive His love for you before you can even love God or anyone else. You can't even know God until you know Jesus and you don't know Him if all you know is His name or Jn 3:16. You know someone by what they say and do. Too many Christians profess to know and abide in Him yet they don't actually know what He did or said. If they did it would take away many of the confusing doctrines people have. God's Word is His will. Jesus was and is the Word of God in action. God stepped out of the invisible into the visible through a human body and showed us in action how He works. If you want to know God's will concerning anything just look at Jesus. If He did or said it then it's God's will but if He didn't do or say it then it's not. To live as a Christian requires death. Death of my voice, my opinion, my flesh, my way. It requires me to die to myself so He can reign Supreme. Dying to myself means that I don't get to hold on to bitterness and unforgivness. I don't even get to choose what I want to do with my life if He really is Lord. It is not easy but it is worth it to know that my King is glorified. He can not be glorified if we are not walking after Him. It's time for the Church as a whole to get to "know" the One we profess to follow. God's Love never fails but the Church is failing in many areas because we are not walking in His love. Jesus said to Philip "Have I been so long time with you and yet you have not known Me?"~John 14:9. I think that statement is relevant to the Body of Christ. Have we been with Him for this long and yet we still don't know Him. You don't know somebody because you know their name. You know them by what they say and do and when you have an intimate relationship with them.

God says you can have faith to move mountains, prophesy, see signs and wonders, you can have wisdom and knowledge of the Bible but if you don't exercise the love He gave you then it profits you nothing. Faith without works is dead and faith only operates by love so without love you are operating in dead faith and are in fact lying when you say you follow Him. Where Jesus walks there is no darkness so for you to follow Him you can't be walking in darkness as well. There are too many Christians mad at others sitting in seats with dead faith deceiving themselves. As He loved you on the Cross you should go and love others. Jesus never gave anyone a reason to follow sin. He said "Go and sin no more" not Go and sin some more or Go and sin less. He also said "If you love Me you will obey" By their fruit you will know if they follow Me". You should not continue to walk in darkness. John writes in his letter "These things I write that you sin not but if you do miss it then confess" He has all the power to not only forgive your sins but to show you how to not do it again. If you miss it, it's one thing but to keep sinning and saying "well I'm just an old sinner and no one can be perfect like Jesus after all we're just human" is nonsense and contrary to the Word of God. He called you to be like Him. As He is so should you be. He wouldn't tell you to follow after Him and walk as He walked if it were not possible. We as a body are so far from Christ like it's sad. He has the Words of life and if we believed it we would know what He said and did. He said take My yoke upon you andn learn of Me. What is His yoke. His yoke is how much He loved you on the cross while you were yet a sinner. His love is extravagant not cautious on who it gives to. We don't throw away His teachings after the Ressurrection and just follow the Apostles. They followed Him. Their letters point to Him. Colossians tells us to let the Words of Christ richly dwell in us. He gave everything and submitted all to God. If we are still holding bitterness and offense then we are not in Him. I say this to my own shame as well. Too many are calling Christianity what isn't. You can't call yourself a Christian when you say and do nothing He said and did. If you're nothing like Him then you are not Christ like. "...Anyone who does not take up his execution stake and follow Me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his own life will lose it, but the person who loses his life for My sake will find it"~Mt. 10:37-39. He also said if we deny Him before men that He would deny us before the Father. How do we deny Him? One way is to lie against the truth, to continue in darkness and follow the world and it's ways. My friends a popular teaching is that He came to give us a good life but that is not what Scripture says. It says He came to give us Zoe life. The word Zoe is the God kind of life. Jesus showed us a life submitted to God not to ourselves. When you are submitted to God you die to yourself and live for Him and let Him live and love through you. "Therefore being justified(delcared righteous) by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: By whom also we have access by faith(not works) into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory(power and presence of God Himself, weighted down with God's goodness,an abiding sense of the value God has for us so we can reign with confidence) of God"~Rom 5:1-2.

It's not about us Church. It's about Him and when we realize that then much of the confusion and strife over doctrinal issues such as Grace and law will stop. When we realize it's Him working through us we will stop arguing. When we realize it's not about us we will stop sitting back and wanting to receive all the time without ever giving. I'm so tired of Christians wanting to shout for and argue prosperity out of pride and wanting to be "right" in their own eyes instead of love. I'm tired of us arguing period over which doctrine is right and whether it's Grace or law. I grew up in a denomination that doesn't believe in healings, tongues, signs and wonders. They taught it stopped in the first Church. I can not find that anywhere in the bible. I find the opposite. But here's the problem, I'm not going to argue with someone who doesn't believe that. Why should they believe what the Church is not demonstrating. Where are the miracles, signs, and wonders that we say exist. We say we believe but even demons believe in one God and tremble. Believing alone is dead faith if there is no action to it. The power has never left the Church, the Church let go of it when we stopped following Him. There is no love in the Body as a Whole and faith without love is void of power. I publicly repent in this letter of not truly following Him. For anyone I have offended, I am sorry. I am most sorry to Jesus Christ Himself for the way I have acted and the root of bitterness I have had in my heart. To unbelievers who may read this, I appologize for the Body of Christ not showing the love it was meant to show. I appologize for us not being Jesus to the World and instead being ourselves. I once had a small vision in my head. I saw Marilyn Manson on stage ripping a bible. If you know anything about him, you know how anti Chrisitan he is. I heard the still small voice of God as I saw Marilyn and He said "There are so many headed for hell and there are some My people want to go there and it will be My people's fault that they go because they didn't show them My love". I immediately repented because I for one had said Marilyn Manson deserved to go to hell and it would serve him right. I repented because he, and most unbelievers, would not feel the way they do if we were not showing true Love. If they deny Jesus then let them deny Him and Him alone; let's not be guilty of them denying Him because we were in the way.

This lost and dying world is waiting for an awakening to God. We need His power and it is going to be done through us but not if we remain in the condition we are in. Grace or Law; you choose. For me I will accept Grace and die to myself so He can live. "When all of me has been revealed are You the only One left that that lives? So let me come and die and lay down my life until the only dream left is Your will. Let me forget what I know and see Who You are; strip away the glory for my name until only you remain. Until only You remain I'll give up everything; lay down my will and follow You" (quote taken from a song by Noah Cleveland)

Your sister in Christ Tonie