REVELATION OF TRUTH: LAW AND GRACE

I want people to have the opportunity to know that the grace can never be balanced. Grace is not a topic but a person (Jesus). You cannot balance truth. You cannot balance Jesus. We need Him in all His fullness for us to be transformed into his image from glory to glory and not through discipline and behavior modification.

See Galatians 2:15-16 (the Message)
“We know very well that we are not set right with God by rule-keeping but only through personal faith in Jesus Christ. How do we know? We tried it—and we had the best system of rules the world has ever seen! Convinced that no human being can please God by self-improvement, we believed in Jesus as the Messiah so that we might be set right before God by trusting in the Messiah, not by trying to be good.”

Paul continues in verses 19-20:
“What actually took place is this: I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn’t work. So I quit being a “law man” so that I could be God’s man. Christ’s life showed me how, and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with him. Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not “mine,” but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I am not going to go back on that.”

The highlights by Paul:
1) We are not set right with God by rule-keeping but only through personal faith in Jesus Christ;
2) No human being can please God by self-improvement;
3) We might be set right before God by trusting in the Messiah, not by trying to be good;
4) I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn’t work;
5) I quit being a “law man” so that I could be God’s man.(By the way, that is what Jesus meant by “deny yourself, take up the cross and follow me);
6) I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me;
7) The life you see me living is not “mine,” but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I am not going to go back on that.”
8) Last but not least verse 21: “Is it not clear to you that to go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free in my relationship with God? I refuse to do that, to repudiate God’s grace. If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily.”

Let me repeat: If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily!

The question here is that is what Paul saying “false-grace doctrine”? My answer: If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily!

Hence it is vital for us when we read accounts of Jesus’ parable about how difficult it is to be saved, he is actually addressing people in regards of trying to be righteous by keeping the 10 commandments and ordinances. Making it to clear to them that after they have even done all, they still fall short entering the kingdom.

Matthew 7:13-14 “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”

The question here is that who are “the many who enter through it”? Jesus was speaking to Jews. What does every Jew has in common? Obedience to the Law of Moses. Thus that is why Paul says “We know very well that we are not set right with God by rule-keeping but only through personal faith in Jesus Christ. How do we know? We tried it—and we had the best system of rules the world has ever seen!”
Trying to be righteous by the Law is the wide gate! Jesus is the Narrow way.

The story continues. Now let us see what Paul now says about salvation through faith on what Jesus earned for you. “But trusting God to shape the right living in us is a different story—no precarious climb up to heaven to recruit the Messiah, no dangerous descent into hell to rescue the Messiah. So what exactly was Moses saying?”

Paul is saying “no need to climb up to heaven, no need to go to hell”. In other words, “IT IS NOT HARD!” rather:
“The word that saves is right here,
as near as the tongue in your mouth,
as close as the heart in your chest.

It’s the word of faith that welcomes God to go to work and set things right for us. This is the core of our preaching. Say the welcoming word to God—“Jesus is my Master”—embracing, body and soul, God’s work of doing in us what he did in raising Jesus from the dead. That’s it. You’re not “doing” anything; you’re simply calling out to God, trusting him to do it for you. That’s salvation.” That is how to live the Christian life.