Christ, the end of the law

Every time I read the Epistles of Paul, I see that he boldly proclaimed the truth of what God achieved through the birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. In many other letters, Paul spent a good deal of time reconciling those people who could not trust Jesus because their hope was based on the law. It is important to note that the law that God gave Israel was temporary. It was only planned as temporary and should remain effective until Christ came.

For Israel, the law was a teacher who taught them about sin and justice and the need for a savior. It led them until the promised Messiah came, through whom God would bless all nations. But the law could give Israel neither justice nor salvation. It could only tell them that they were guilty, that they needed a Savior.

For the Christian church, the law teaches us, just as the entire Old Testament, who God is. It also teaches us how God created a people from which the Redeemer would come forth to take away their sins - not just of God's people Israel, but the sins of the whole world.

The law was never intended as a substitute for a relationship with God, but rather as a means to lead Israel to their Savior. In Galatians 3,19 Paul wrote: “Then what is the point of the law? It was added for the sake of sins, until the descendant was there to whom the promise was made. "

In other words, God had a beginning and an end for the law, and the end was the death and resurrection of the Messiah and Savior Jesus Christ.
Paul continued in verses 21-26: "What? Is the law then against God's promises? That was far away! For only if there was a law that could give life to, would justice really come out of the law. But Scripture has included everything under sin, that the promise of faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. But before faith came, we were kept under the law and closed to the faith, which was then to be revealed. So the law was our disciplinarian on Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after the faith has come, we are no longer under the disciplinarian. For you are all children of Christ Jesus by faith. "

Before God opened his eyes to this understanding, Paul had not seen where the law was heading - toward a loving, merciful, and forgiving God who would redeem us from the sins the law revealed. Instead, he saw the law as an end in itself, and ended up with a cumbersome, empty and destructive religion.

"And so it was found that the commandment brought me death that was given to life," he wrote in Romans 7,10and in verse 24 he asked, “I wretched man! Who will deliver me from this dead body? ”The answer he found is that salvation comes only through God's grace and can only be experienced through faith in Jesus Christ.

In all of this, we see that the path to righteousness does not come through the law, which can not take our guilt away. The only path to righteousness is through faith in Jesus, in which all our sins are forgiven, and in which we are reconciled to our faithful God, who will love us unconditionally and will never let us go.

by Joseph Tkach


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