Compiled on September 1984 from the writings of David Brandt Berg
(Continued from part 1)
Jesus' Law is much stricter, much more difficult to keep--in fact, impossible! If the old Law was impossible, Jesus' Law is even more impossible! That's why He says, "Without Me, ye can do nothing!" (John 15:5) But He also says that we "can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth us." (Philippians 4:13)--For "His grace is sufficient for us, His strength is made perfect in our weakness!" (2 Corinthians 12:9)
You can't possibly keep His Law of Love unless you're saved and you have Jesus in your heart, the Spirit of God's Love within you, to give you the power and the strength to love others more than you love yourself, to "love your enemies, to bless them that curse you, to do good to them that hate you, and to pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you." (Matthew 5:44)
We have to receive Jesus first, then His Spirit in us will cause us to do the humanly impossible: love God and man, thus fulfilling "all the Law and the Prophets"!--Praise God! We have a truly graceful salvation and a graceful life of love for the Lord!--Full of grace! It has nothing to do with our own sinlessness or any kind of perfection or self-works or law-keeping of our own. We all make mistakes, we all sin, and any righteousness we have is only the grace of God! It's only His Love and His mercy and His grace!
So as the Apostle Paul said, for the loving, liberated followers of Jesus, "All things are lawful to us, but not all things are expedient!" (1 Corinthians 6:12) We have been freed from the bondage of the old Law and the condemnation of sin by the liberating Law of Love in Christ Jesus, and if what we're doing is in love and not hurting any innocent party, then it is perfectly legal according to God's Law of Love.
Of course most churches and churchy Christians today would say, "Well, 'All things may be lawful' under Christ's Law of Love--except, ahem, anything to do with sex!"--Because the churches have declared almost everything that has anything to do with your body or sex or self or pleasure as illegitimate, illegal, immoral and irreligious!
But "all things" being lawful for his loving, believing, law-of-love-following children includes sexual freedoms also!--As long as what we're doing is done in the unselfish, sacrificial Love of God! According to the Scriptures, there is no longer any law against sex that is done in love, God's Love, and hurts no one: It is not sin, neither adultery, nor fornication!
After all, what was the idea and purpose of the old Mosaic Law against adultery?--Even behind the old Laws there was the Love of God and His desire to keep people from hurting each other and damaging each other either physically or otherwise, even their feelings. So if we're keeping God's Law of Love then we'll try not to hurt anybody, we'll do our best to try to live in love, to help people without hurting them.
This is the difference between lust and love: Lust is merely gratifying your own greedy selfish appetite, like eating a meal. You may need it, but if you're stealing it from someone else and taking the food out of their mouth to stuff your own, this is selfish lust, not love! But if you are taking the food out of your own mouth and giving your own meal to satisfy and feed another who is hungry and starving and needs it desperately and might not survive without it, this is real love.
It's all really judged by your motives, by your heart. God now only judges us according to whether we have love, or selfishness and lack of love. If you know you're acting in love, then you can go ahead by faith according to God's Word and you don't need anything else. If it is in love it is lawful as far as God is concerned.
However the Scripture also warns us that "Whatsoever is not of faith is sin!" (Romans 14:23)--"If you think something is a sin or you believe it is unlawful, then to you it is sin and unlawful!--An awful lot has to do with your own spiritual and mental attitude. It's all in how you approach things and whether you do things by faith in love, "faith which worketh by love", as the Scripture says. (Galatians 5:6)
"Hast thou faith? Have it to thyself before God. Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth." (Romans 14:22) It'll make you happier if you're not doing things about which you feel condemned or guilty or have a guilt complex, things that you're not sure are right. In fact, if you're afraid maybe it's wrong, then it is wrong for you!
But a lot of people don't have faith for certain things because they don't want to have faith for them. People who are weak in faith are usually weak in the Word, because "faith cometh by hearing the Word of God!" (Romans 10:17) The only reason the Word and reading the Word doesn't give some people faith for things is because they have rejected the Word and refused to receive it, and therefore refuse to believe or obey it!
But if you want to believe and receive the truth and revelations and freedom that grace gives, read back over the Scriptures presented in this little lesson and ask the Lord, "Open Thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy Law!" (Psalm 119:18)--His Word will give you faith!
However when reading through the New Testament, you'll find that even Paul and some of the Apostles still had a few old legalistic hangovers, some of their old Judaism and Jewish "old wine"* that they just couldn't quite dump! (Luke 5:37-39)
* "Old wine" A term often used in the Family International referring to Jesus' illustration in Luke 5:37-39 meaning old and accepted teachings and doctrine. Consequently "New wine" refers to the Lord's fresh new counsel through His contemporary prophets and teachers.
Of course Jesus, in His life and ministry, was very free and he broke the Mosaic and Jewish traditions time and time again. But you can see by some of Paul's writings--because of his love for the Jews, (Romans 9:3 ; 10:1) which led to his final compromise with them (Acts 21), and a few other things--that he wrote a lot of things trying to keep the people out of trouble.--To solve a lot of marriage and sexual problems, etc., he wrote his advice on what to do and how to do it, which bound them with a lot of Pauline Laws, most of which were not very free!
And even when you read some of the things that Jesus said, you need to remember to whom he was talking--the Jews--and what Law they were under then--the Mosaic Law--and that He was trying to preach that which they understood and trying to convict them with their own Scriptures, their own Law.
Remember also that he was still preaching and living under the Age of law before the Age of Grace had actually been fully ushered IN by His Own death on the cross for our Salvation. The Scripture says that Jesus "blotted out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us (the Law), which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His cross." (Colossians 2:14) It was on the Cross, at the very end of His ministry on Earth, that He proclaimed, "It is finished!" (John 19:30)
As we explained in the beginning of this lesson, each age or generation of the Church has taken another step or some new step toward freedom from the harsh restrictions of the Law to the total freedom of love through the grace of God, from material symbolisms and mechanised ceremonialism to spiritual realities and total spiritual liberty.--"The spirits of just men made free!" (Hebrews 12:23)
And although the Church has been going by Paul's rules and their own traditions for ages, God has finally broken through in the Spirit to us with His last-day message! We are God's last Church, the last step in God's progress toward total freedom for His Church and the last chance to prove that the ultimate Church can be trusted with total freedom in this last generation!
We are in a new day, a new time, and God has given us His Word for this day and this time! And just like the Early Church and the dawning of the Christian era was a total change and totally outdated, outmoded and overthrew the legalism and bondage of the Mosaic era, so we today are having to cast away all of the old legalistic traditions, conventions and holier-than-thou self-righteousness of the church system today. It's like a whole new dispensation of grace!
We have had special direct revelations from the Lord which have shown us that some of these activities which most Christians would call sin or sinful are covered under grace and the Love of God! Therefore we have totally broken with the churches' traditions and preconceived ideas about God and misconceptions of morality. We have turned completely around and are going in a different direction, no longer their way but God's way, and we are free to enjoy to the full the beauties and wonders of His Creation with all of its pleasures, which He Himself created for our enjoyment!
Through Jesus and His salvation and the freedom of His Spirit, by the grace of God, we have regained the liberty and the freedom of the Garden of Eden!--And that's the only way anyone can really get back to such freedom--the original freedom, sinlessness, perfection, liberty and openness of the Garden--by first getting back to perfect fellowship and a relationship with God and belief in His Word, faith in Him and in His Creation.
The only way you can possibly regain the freedom and the liberty that Adam and Eve had in the Garden, the total freedom from guilt and bondage to the Law, is to find God and to be led of His Spirit and to know the Truth of His Word!--That all those old Mosaic Laws and prohibitive laws and strict regulations are all gone and totally superseded by the Love of Christ, the Law of Love!--That as long as it's in love, it's legal!
Do you have such freedom? If you are strong enough in Spirit and in faith and filled with His Love, the Lord can trust you with enough liberty to live life to the full!--And to even use such liberty as a useful tool to help and win others with His Love!
Are you so ruled by His love that He can liberate you from the Rules?--Or do you have to be kept under the law of works because you cannot be trusted with the liberty of His grace? The answer is up to you! It all boils down to whether you're going to believe in Moses or in Jesus!--Whether you're going to insist that we keep the dead Laws of Moses and the Prophets of yesterday or the living Love-Law of Jesus and His Apostles of today!
Have you accepted God's love in Jesus Christ as your own personal Saviour? Do you have God's Spirit of Jesus in your heart? Do you love Him and others as much as you do yourself? Do you do unto others as you would have them do unto you? If so, you are free from the old dead Mosaic Laws! Now all you must do is keep Jesus' Law of Love! But it is greater and stricter than even the old Mosaic Law, because now everything you do must be done in His Love!--You must have more mercy and love than the Law! (Matthew 9:13)
But if you do not have Jesus and His love in your heart, you are still under the old Mosaic Law, guilty of all its infractions and judged by the same! If you have rejected Jesus' Love, you are guilty of breaking all the old Mosaic Laws and will be judged accordingly! They are not passed away for you!
So why not accept Jesus and His Law of Love and live free?--Otherwise you are bound and dead and damned by the Law of Moses! Choose ye this day whom ye will serve!--The Law?--Or Jesus! As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord Jesus Christ and His living Law of Love!--How about you?
Return to Part 1