Rightly Dividing the Word

God gives two words. These two words are law and gospel. Neither necessarily carries more weight, but each has a particular function in Christian life and preaching. They stand as complete words separately, yet complement each other beautifully. Failure to distinguish between the two words or to preach some mixture of them as the same word invariably leads to confusion and often to exasperation and rejection of both. It is, therefore, of utmost importance that we learn to carefully distinguish between the two and understand their respective functions.

The Law is meant to terrify. It never comforts, and offers no relief from its relentless demands of perfection. It says “Thou shalt” and “Thou shalt not” and can bring nothing but wrath upon those who fail to keep it. It does nothing to woo us to obedience, but demands obedience with no offer of aid. We cannot be justified by doing it because it was never intended to justify. As Paul states in Romans 3:20, ”…by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.” This passage indicates what the law does and does not do; it does not justify but makes us aware of our sin.

The first function of the Law is to show sinners their sinfulness. It is the very thing that destroys our illusions of self-righteousness. It shows us that we are law-breakers, and in so doing leads us to despair. We might be ever so secure in our sinning – imagining ourselves to be ‘pretty good’ relative to others – until the law comes and shows us that the standard is not ‘pretty good’, but perfection. Since none of us is perfect, the law passes judgment on our imperfection and exposes us to the truth that we are “vessels of wrath prepared for destruction.” (Romans 9:22 ESV) The law is meant to terrify.

The other word of God is the gospel. It is meant to comfort those who have been terrorized by the law. The law points the accusing finger at us and declares “guilty”. The gospel says to us, “There is one who has fulfilled the law on your behalf. Believe that He has done it and be declared righteous.” The gospel, unlike the law, makes no demands of perfection. It is an invitation to enter into the rest which was won by Christ – to be sheltered from the terrifying demands of the law. The person who has accepted this invitation has been released from the tyranny of law.

In practice, as Christians, the law will often come to terrify us with its threatenings. It will repeatedly remind us that we are not yet perfect in thought, word or deed. But, for the Christian, the law does not carry the promised wrath that it does for the non-Christian. “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 8:1 ESV) The law still threatens us, but has no power to condemn us. To the Christian, the law is a sheep dog. If a sheep strays from the heard, the purpose of the sheep dog is to threaten it in such a way as to drive it back to the safety of the shepherd without injuring it. Like the sheep, we don’t always understand that the law has no intention of injuring us. When it barks at us, we might bolt away from the shepherd in terror or stubbornly challenge it. This causes the law to redouble its efforts to drive us back to the shepherd and safety. If we learn that comfort and safety are found when we are near the shepherd, we can save ourselves much grief and terror. The shepherd is the only one who can truly protect us from both the threats that lay outside the heard and the sheep dogs within. We must come to understand that the shepherd and the sheep dogs are on the same team, and the goal of the team is our safety, but they have very different functions. In the end, we must not run at the dogs, but to the shepherd. The closer we stay to him, the less the dogs will threaten us.

This is where we so often get ourselves in trouble. When we sin, we fall back into our old habits of either softening up the law to make it appear possible to keep, comparing ourselves with others to justify our sin, or believing that this is the only word of God that applies to us and running from it. This is because we misunderstand the purpose of the law, again thinking that we are somehow justified or condemned by it. When we sin, it is not struggling to meet or run from the law that will bring us back to God, but the richness God’s mercy which is demonstrated in the gospel. If the gospel of God’s kindness is mixed with the wrath of the law, it cannot comfort us but only force us to continue running. This ‘law/gospel hybrid’ does not maintain either the sharp edge of the law or the welcoming comfort of the gospel and in the end is good for nothing.

It is important for us to learn to make a sharp distinction between the two words of God and allow each to function as it is intended in our lives. It is doubly important that we understand this when presenting the two words to others. If we terrorize with the law without offering the comfort of the gospel, there is no balance in our evangelism and we will produce sheep that run from the shepherd. If we comfort the self-righteous who have never been broken by the law, we will produce sheep that have no regard for the safety that the shepherd alone offers and wander without regard for the law. If we mix the two as if they are one, we produce sheep that are ultimately brought to absolute confusion and disgust with the whole thing.

That is the gospel truth.

God Bless

Sin is Lawlessness

Another post in the “Christ is the Fulfillment of the Law” series. 1 John 3:4 tells us that “sin is lawlessness”. Since Christ is the fulfillment of the law (Matthew 5:17-20) lawlessness is the same as Christlessness. It is refusing to believe that Christ has fulfilled the law. It is refusing to submit to the finished work of Christ. It is rejecting the savior.

This is completely in keeping with Christ’s words in John Chapter 3 that “whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s only son.” Think about that. The entirety of the law was kept in Christ. Fulfilled, sated, exhausted – however you want to put it – he did it. He accomplished it. He stands today beside the Father, still incarnate, as the law. Again, not as a new law - some gospel set of regulations to do - but as the law of God itself. He is the personal embodiment of the law in its fulfilled state.

So to keep the law, I must have a personal relationship with Christ. Period. There is no law-keeping apart from that relationship to the person of Christ. If I am living in Christ, I have kept the law and will live as a law-keeper because it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. That is good news! That is the gospel truth!

God Bless

Fulfilled

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1). These words take on new impact as I realize the significance of the fact that Christ is the fulfillment of the law and the prophets. The law is words. The prophets are words. Christ is the logos, the Word. This one Word, the logos, is the fulfillment of all of the word of law and prophets. Consider this passage from Psalm 119:

                Oh how I love your law!

                                It is my meditation all the day.

                Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies,

                                for it is ever with me.

                I have more understanding than all my teachers,

                                for your testimonies are my meditation.

                I understand more than the aged,

                                for I keep your precepts.

                I hold back my feet from every evil way,

                                in order to keep your word.

                I do not turn aside from your rules,

                                for you have taught me.

                How sweet are your words to my taste,

                                sweeter than honey to my mouth!

                Through your precepts I get understanding;

                                therefore I hate every false way.

                                       (Psalm 119:97-104 ESV)

Thinking of Christ as the fulfillment of all that David says renders the passage like this:

                Oh how I love the Christ!

                                He is my meditation all the day.

                Your son makes me wiser than my enemies,

                                For he is ever with me.

    I have more understanding than all my teachers,

                                for Christ is my meditation.

                I understand more than the aged,

                                for I keep with Christ.

                I hold back my feet from every evil way,

                                in order to abide in your son.

                I do not turn aside from your son,

                                for he has taught me.

                How sweet is Jesus  to my taste,

                                sweeter than honey to my mouth!

                Through him I get understanding;

                                therefore I hate every false way.

Law, precept, rule, testimony. Christ, in fulfilling the law has become the satisfaction of all of these. The law, which Paul called the ministry of death carved in letters of stone (2 Corinthians 3:7) has been fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ; the living word. The promises of the prophets have been fulfilled in this promised one. Unlike the cold, hard, demanding word of the law that kills, the logos makes alive. Unlike the prophetic words of promise, Christ is promise. The word is alive! As Paul says, “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart.” (Romans 10:8) We no longer know just the word of the Lord, but the Lord who is the Word.

What honor the law and the prophets have. Oh that Christ may fulfill me as well! That he may become the living word to me, a fire that consumes me! He has done what neither the law nor the prophets could do – he has become the living word. The word that saves. That is the gospel truth.

God Bless

Blessing and Cursing

Part of my reading was from Deuteronomy 28 this morning. The headings for the sections are “Blessings for Obedience” and “Curses for Disobedience”. Moses is instructing the nation of Israel in preparation for his death. Carefully keep the commandments of the LORD, he says, and you shall be blessed. They are instructed to keep every rule, command and statute so that the Lord may bless them in all that they do. And the blessings are great if they are faithful.

Next come the curses. This section reads prophetically since so much of what Moses promised for their disobedience came to pass. In fact, in the ESV, the blessings are two paragraphs and the curses eight! Do you think that perhaps God and Moses knew in advance which would be the more likely outcome? Every single one of the curses mentioned eventually comes to pass for Israel because they never found it within themselves to keep the commandments. They could do it for a while, but invariably they fell away and ignored the severe demands of the Law of God. And then the curses would come. The history of Israel is a history of cyclical obedience and disobedience, blessing and curses. Mountains high and valleys low, very much like the cyclical experience of many Christians today. It is easy to become discouraged and fall away when we begin to feel that life is still just the same old ups and downs that we always had; only as a Christian it’s worse because we understand that the ups and downs are a result of our obedience and disobedience.

Enter Christ. He told his disciples this: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” (Matthew 5:17 ESV) If we analyze what he is saying, we can mine some pretty deep truths from it. First of all, he did not come to abolish the law. The law stands to this day, along with the blessings and curses that result from obedience or disobedience. He did, however, come to fulfill the law; to perfectly keep every statue and precept. So in him half the battle is won. At the very least, Christ is the only one who could actually perfectly obey. In Christ, the requirements of the law are fulfilled.

That leaves one piece of the puzzle to be solved. Sure, Christ lived perfectly and obeyed the law perfectly, but how does that relate to me? I still alternately obey and disobey the commandments and can feel and see the blessings and curses that result in my life. Christ was righteous enough, but that doesn’t seem to have much to do with my situation. It is actually sad that so many Christians can believe this way, because agreeing that the law is correct and good and trying to keep it in our own strength is extremely tiresome and frustrating, not to mention impossible. It shouldn’t be so, but this is what so much of the church is teaching today: place faith in Christ to be saved to eternal life and then keep the commandments. This is not what the first church taught, as is clear when Paul tells the Roman church, “But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.“ (Romans 3:21-22 ESV) Read that again and think about it for a minute. Because of Christ, God’s righteousness is no longer to be manifested (revealed, shown) through the keeping of law. The righteousness of God is revealed in us when we place faith in the one who kept the law. Done deal. We can go on trying to keep the law all we want, but it means nothing to God because the law has already been kept by Jesus. God looks at us not to see if we are keeping the law, but if we are trusting in the law-keeper.

So in essence, when we place faith in Christ as being the righteousness of God, it is just as if we had always kept the law in God’s eyes. Every time we come across a passage in the scripture that promises blessings for obedience, we can say “Christ has obeyed, and I am in Christ, so these blessings must be mine”. When we come across a passage that threatens curses for breaking the law, we likewise can say “Christ has obeyed, and I am in Christ, therefore I will not be cursed.”

So then we can do whatever we feel like, right? Not if we are truly in Christ, because to be in Christ is to have the righteousness of God manifested in our lives, and that leads to Spirit empowered living. We are released from viewing everything that happens to us as a blessing or a curse based on our ability to obey because we live by faith in Christ’s obedience, and that causes us to approach God as one who loves us and wants to bless us (because of our faith in Christ’s obedience) and not as one who desires to punish us for disobedience. Suddenly there are fewer ups and downs because the ‘up’ of Christ is always credited to us. We begin to understand what Paul means when he says “...for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28 ESV) Life becomes less a series of blessing and cursing and we recognize that the situations in our life are working together for ultimate good (ultimate blessing) because we are trusting in the obedience of the one who ultimately obeyed.

Perhaps it would be good for you to read Deuteronomy 28 yourself, keeping these things in mind. As you read, recognize that in Christ the law has been fulfilled. If you are in him, the blessings are yours and the curses are not. That is the gospel truth.

God Bless

The Severity of God

I often wonder if those Christians who talk frequently about the severity of God’s law even understand that severity. The severe standard of righteousness that God’s holy law demands never wanes, never makes exceptions, never allows a slip. Period. One slip and it’s game over.  Jesus himself spoke these severe words about the law in the Sermon on the Mount: “For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:18-20 ESV)  It might be helpful to look at one commandment and evaluate it to the end of its severity so that we might have proper respect for the law. I will choose number seven: You shall not commit adultery.

Now, at face value I am not condemned by this law because I have never been physically unfaithful to my wife with another woman. In a Pharisaic sense I have kept the commandment. According to a first century Judaic interpretation (and in many cases a 21^st century Christian interpretation) I have succeeded in satisfying the law. My righteousness is equal to that of the Pharisees. That was pretty easy. But how do I exceed their righteousness?

If I keep reading in Matthew 5, I can clearly hear the son of God declare: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matthew 5:27-28 ESV) So when Jesus says that we must ‘do’ and ‘teach’ the commandments, he is not talking about outward compliance alone.

Oops. I cannot escape the fact that I have done that many times, and I still am given to it on occasion. I feel kind of bad about that, but God will let that slide, right? You have just admitted that your righteousness has not exceeded that of the Pharisees. According to Jesus you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.  This is the beginning of the true severity of law. God does not grade on a curve, so any tiny infraction results in a complete fail. The equation is this:

If Your Righteousness <= Pharisee Righteousness then NO ETERNAL LIFE.

So I will do this; when I see a woman walking down the opposite side of the street, I will avert my eyes. It will be hard, but I must do it as a means of satisfying God’s holy requirement and letting others know that I am serious about my righteousness. And yet I have not exceeded the righteousness of the Pharisee still because my forcing myself to turn away is an indication that the lustful intent still remains. Again I am responding to inward unrighteousness by trying to modify my outward behavior, which is exactly on par with the righteousness of the Pharisee. Apparently God demands more of me than I can possibly do. No matter which direction I turn, it seems that unless I disregard God’s demand altogether I am crushed by the severity of the law.

And when I get to Matthew 5:48, it becomes clear what the law demands. “YOU THEREFORE MUST BE PERFECT, AS YOUR HEAVENLY FATHER IS PERFECT.” Not merely outward perfection, not merely mastering my behavior, but also mastering my thoughts, my desires, my lust and my own sinful heart; being exactly as perfect as God is perfect. How can that be when there is no one who is perfect besides God himself?

And in that question lies the answer to your problem, brother Pharisee. There is none good but God alone. Because of His goodness He must punish those who fail to keep His law in thought, word and deed. As in one evil thought, one misplaced word, one wicked deed. He certainly knows your personal righteousness will never exceed that of the Pharisees according to that standard. If a person could be perfect by his keeping of the law, they would certainly have been so. But no one can be perfected by law-keeping because the demands of the law are so severe that they can never be met so long as we attempt it in our self -aggrandizing and sin-soaked righteousness.

This is why Christ came; to fulfill the demands of the law on our behalf. He alone can be perfect as the Father is perfect because He is one with the Father. He is God in flesh. He died to satisfy the demands of the law that he lived under not to pay for his own sin (for he was sinless) but to pay for ours. “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21 ESV) If our righteousness is to exceed the perfected outward righteousness of the Pharisee, cleansing even our minds and hearts, then Christ must become our righteousness. And by faith, he does.

And you may have thought to yourself, “That was a wonderful evangelic presentation! Bravo!” But I am addressing this to you Christian. Do you think that because you prayed a prayer and were baptized that you’ve been given a pass on the law? That trying your best is good enough in God’s eyes? That you are to now take matters into your own hands and ‘be all that you can be’ as a Christian? If so, watch out. God gives no passes. If you are not, this very moment, standing in Christ’s righteousness alone then your righteousness is not exceeding the righteousness of the Pharisee or Scribe. If you are averting your eyes or avoiding situations because you have a sense that your righteousness is merely skin-deep and you are given to sin, you are in great danger. Your righteousness – the exact same righteousness as the Pharisee and Scribe had – is standing in the way of the perfect righteousness that God demands. Repent from thinking that you can do what only Christ has done and believe afresh the gospel truth.

God Bless

The Smoke Screen

What if sin is not the greatest enemy of humanity? What if sin is merely a distraction sent by Satan as a smoke screen? A screen that covers the underlying causes of the world’s ills? A decoy that draws us away from what truly separates us from God and keeps us from focusing on a deeper, more nefarious magic (to use C.S. Lewis’ Narnian analogy)? What if we are spending all of our energy and resources fighting at the expected invasion point while we are flanked by a far superior force that we never see coming? We have been.

Sin is a rather shallow magic. It is the top crust of human depravity; the symptom of a deeper disease. It is ‘bearing fruit for death’ (Romans 7:5). Sin has no power to hold its victims and can do nothing to them in and of itself because it is not the root of evil, but the fruit. It is not the source of depravity, but the byproduct.

The root of all sin is law; the legalistic system that Adam so graciously introduced to the world. “If you want something, you’ve got to do something about it.” There is no such thing as a free lunch in this old Adamic world. You want wisdom? You don’t need to ask for it, just eat this fruit. You want to be like God? That’s simple – just do this. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Give and take is the name of this world’s game. What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. (James 4:1-2 ESV) Give and take, give and take. Self-righteousness, earning our own way – call it what you will, it is this world’s default setting. If I do something for you and you do nothing for me, I am angry because you are not playing by the rules.

To the law of sin (the law of Adam) was added the law of God, which increased the trespass with the intent of making people aware of the sickness of give and take. But people mistook this law as being like the law of Adam, and assumed that obedience was something they could give God that would get God’s favor. And so the law of God, turned inside out by man, became nothing more than a mechanism that aroused the sinful passion that seeks and fights after its own interest.

Checking sin is merely the removal of the symptom. It does not strike at the underlying disease. Were one to spend his entire life mortifying his sin so that no outward evidence of sin remained (as did the Pharisees) he would still be a white-washed tomb filled with dead men’s bones. He would still belong to this worldly kingdom and be governed by its rules and judgments. He would still be imprisoned, though he looks ever so clean. And he would still be in violation of the commandments because he would be incapable of truly loving, without condition or expectation of reciprocation, his God or his neighbor. Whoever continues under the system of law does not yet know love, which is entirely give. He only knows give and take.

So Christ did not come simply to set us free from sin, though he does. But he does it not by treatment of the symptom, but by curing the disease. He sets us free from the old system of this world. He sets us free from the give and take. He gives and takes nothing in return. By keeping the law of God perfectly in loving his God and his neighbor perfectly he breaks the law of this world. And he invites us to break it with him. He invites us to undergo death to the system of this world that always demands something in return and be raised to a new kingdom, a new system, where nothing is expected in return. Where we are free to love, not required to love. Where we can love unconditionally as God does.
Can you see why it is so advantageous to the enemy to keep us focused on sin? It keeps us focused on sprucing up our old Adam, with the hope that that is what will please God. It keeps us from discovering the ‘deep magic’, the clash between law and gospel. The difference between give and take and becoming a ‘living sacrifice’ to be used up joyfully and freely in service to God and others. Jesus did not conquer our sin by conquering our sin but by setting us free from the ‘deep magic’ so that we no longer continue to bear its fruit. To all who will believe, God makes a promise that all sin is forgiven because we have followed him in death, and law has no jurisdiction over the dead, and “apart from the law, sin lies dead.” (Romans 7:8 ESV)

God Bless.

I Have Bad News, and I Have Good News

When I wrote my book “The Gospel Truth”, I was very much growing in a new understanding of God’s grace in my own life. In fact, writing the book was part of that growth. I have since said that I will probably never write another book because I have found that I cannot find it in myself to build walls around my understanding of doctrine (which is a good thing). The knowledge of God is an ever expanding thing, and to put down in public writing that which God has taught you at some point in the path of spiritual maturity creates a harsh temptation to stick by your guns, even as God would lead you farther along.

There are themes within the book that I think are very solid. The idea that faith comes by hearing the preached word is rock solid. The idea that preaching does not necessarily demand a proper motive rings true, since the power is in the words of the preacher (the gospel or good news) and not the preacher himself. But the Wesleyan influence of overemphasis of the law in evangelism is something that God is leading me away from. I quoted John Wesley in the book - "Preach 90 percent Law and 10 percent grace.” As God has shown me more and more the magnificence of grace I have begun to doubt the truth of that instruction.

This is not to say that the law is not important. Paul makes it clear that only by the law do we know what sin is, how bad it is, and that we need a savior. The problem is that people are already familiar with law. We are bombarded inside and out with thousands of messages of law every single day; I need to lose weight, I would look good in a BMW, I need to handle my finances better, my children are failing, just say no, just do it, stop, yield, my hair looks awful today, thou shalt not commit adultery. Paul says it best in Galations 3:23 – “Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed.” In other words, law is old hat. Law is this world’s default scheme. It is the four prison walls we have been familiar with all of our lives. We have always felt its pressure and longed for a way out, screaming, "Stop the world, I want to get off!"

So there is nothing truly otherworldly about law, even God’s law. The life experience of the unbeliever is 100% law and 0% grace. So if we are not very careful in handling the law in preaching we can just ratchet it up to 190% law and force people to close their ears off to the 10% grace we plan to preach. To someone who already understands that life is nothing but a long string of messages highlighting their incompetence, more law is simply adding insult to injury.

What is truly otherworldly is the message of grace – the gospel. Law is to be found everywhere in this world, but unconditional love - unmerited favor - do not exist in nature. They are sometimes fabricated in fiction and Hollywood, but are found nowhere in creation. The gospel is good news precisely because it is the only message that does not demand anything from us other than belief. It is the very antithesis of every other message we hear every day. Two years ago I would have said that unless people are terrified by the preaching of law to turn to Christ, they would not turn to Christ at all. Today I can recognize that the whole world lives every moment in abject terror of law, waiting for someone to preach freedom to them. If the preaching of Christ's rescue of sinners from the law is cheap grace in the eyes of the church, so be it. It is the only message that does not belong to this old world, so I'll preach it.

Perhaps it is the importance of the good news to the believer that is convincing me of this. The law still barks bad news sound bites at me thousands of times a day, but I am learning to ignore them in favor of listening for the good news. As I consider the savage attacks of the law on old Adam, I am reminded of what life was like before good news, and I feel a sorrow for those around me who live life without it. I am getting to the point that I no longer want to be just another voice in the bad news choir. I want to run into the street and yell at the top of my lungs “You can be free from the law! Let me tell you the good news!”

God Bless

Good Dog, Bad Dog

Ever hear the story about the old native chief who claims to have two dogs fighting inside, a good dog and a bad dog? When asked which one wins he answers, "The one that I feed." This is a great illustration, and I have heard several use it to describe the inner struggle of the Christian. The problem is that often the dogs are not correctly identified. Usually they are made to represent virtue and sin. Feed virtue and it wins. Feed sin and it wins. By mislabeling the dogs, we have led many to inadvertently feed dogs which aren’t even in the fight. If we label the dogs correctly, the parable comes into line with the truth of scripture and is tremendously helpful in understanding our struggle and its resolution.

First of all, human virtue is fiction according to the Bible. The Bible tells us, contrary to the highest human desire for virtue, that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23 ESV) “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9 ESV) “We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment…” (Isaiah 64:6 ESV) They say the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem, but the first step to admitting you have a problem is identifying the problem you have. Our problem is not a deficiency of virtue, but a complete lack of it. In other words, we can’t feed the virtuous dog because it flat doesn’t exist. When we think that virtue exists in us by nature, we can easily believe that salvation is God ‘teaching an old dog new tricks’. As if He were ‘treat training’ the good dog in us to become better. For that to be true there would have to be a good dog somewhere in us to start with, which the Bible flatly denies. That’s one dog out of the fight.

In the way this illustration is typically applied, the bad dog is sin. If we choose to feed this dog, the reasoning goes, it will grow and grow until it destroys all the other dogs in the fight. The funny thing is we don’t want to feed this dog; we know better. We know deep down that if we strengthen this dog he will destroy us eventually, and yet he just keeps getting fatter and stronger all the time. The harder we try not to feed him, the more he finds to eat. Paul describes the struggle with the sin dog: “For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.” (Romans 7:18-19 ESV) I must be crazy! Somehow I keep feeding that dog!

Paul finally realizes something remarkable; there is another dog in the fight – the law dog – sin dog’s big brother. What is happening is that as Paul feeds the law dog, and the sin dog grows stronger. He comes to understand that sin is aroused by law and that feeding law is strengthening sin. “So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members [my body] another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members [my body].” (Romans 7:21-23 ESV) Law is constantly barking that he wants to be fed, and his barking always gets the sin dog worked up. You will notice if you watch that sin seldom gets aroused until you allow law to start barking at you.  So despite appearances, law dog is the real bad dog in this fight. He is the instigator.

Having properly identified the bad dog in the fight as law, we must now know who the good dog is. The good dog is promise. He sometimes goes by the name gospel. His proper name is Christ. Promise dog is a very good dog. He never barks at us. We can forget to feed him for years and he will never make a whimper. He is always happy to see us because he loves us, no matter how much we neglect him. He is constantly wagging his tail to tell us that he loves our presence – that he has forgotten any and all wrong we have done him. He is a graceful dog.

How does all of this get worked out in real Christian life? First of all, we have to realize that law is not really a bad dog. He is doing what he is trained to do. He is a watch dog and when he sees us doing something suspicious, he begins barking at us because that is his purpose. He has always barked at us when we sin as a means of warning us that what we are doing is not right. But what he can’t understand is that as Christians, we are no longer afraid of him because we are dead to him. “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.” (Romans 7:6 ESV) He still sees our old Adam (the flesh) as a very lively and active threat which is to be barked at. Being in Christ, to us he is nothing more than a silly old toothless dog whose barking is nothing but a nuisance. But since he and sin are always making such a fuss, we are tempted to feed and scold them and pet them to make them be quiet. All the while promise waits quietly for us to return to him.

As Paul said in Romans 10:17, faith comes through hearing. If what we hear is the vicious barking of law, we will place faith in the law and his promises to build our virtue - which he has no power to do - or we will live in fear of him despite the fact that he has no teeth. We need to learn to ignore law, knowing that his bark is worse than his bite. Actually Paul says “Faith comes through hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” If you want to see promise win, you have to feed Him. You have to seek out promise every day and learn to hear the still small swish of His wagging tail over the din of law and sin. That is the word of Christ. That is the gospel truth.

God Bless