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Law of Moses Versus the Law of the Spirit – Part 18

[Posted July 2009]

Updated March 23, 2034

Adam, along with all his descendants, was created so spiritually blind that he did not even realize that he was created naked and in need of clothing to cover his spiritual nakedness.

Gen 3:10  And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I [realized that I] was naked; and I hid myself.

2Co 5:3  If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked.

Heb 4:13  Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.

That clothing for Adam and Eve was provided by God in the form of a sacrifice. Christ shed the blood of animals to use their skins to cover the nakedness of Adam and Eve, signifying His own death when “the fulness of the time [came] to redeem them that were under the law.”

Gal 4:4  But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,
Gal 4:5  To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.

Christ’s blood is the only clothing for our sins, our nakedness, with which we are born. Nakedness, from the very beginning, signifies sin, and sin is defined as transgressing the law:

1Jn 3:4  Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.

Our nakedness is most pronounced in our own self-righteousness. It is when we think that by keeping the law that we are coving our nakedness that we are the most exposed before God and man:

Rev 3:17  Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:

This is the lesson of the book of Job.  Job thought of himself as a perfect man who feared God and eschewed evil:

Job 1:1  There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil.

There is no doubt that Job did indeed fear God, and there is no doubt that he did eschew evil. There was no doubt in his own mind that he was indeed a good man of great integrity. He certainly thought of himself as such which he vehemently expressed before his “miserable comforters”:

Job 27:5  God forbid that I should justify you: till I die I will not remove mine integrity from me.
Job 27:6  My righteousness I hold fast, and will not let it go: my heart shall not reproach me so long as I live.
Job 27:7  Let mine enemy be as the wicked, and he that riseth up against me as the unrighteous.
Job 27:8  For what is the hope of the hypocrite, though he hath gained, when God taketh away his soul?

There is one transgression which is so insidious that no man can see it of himself. We can all see it in others, but without the very mind of Christ, we cannot detect this most insidious transgression within ourselves. It is “the pride of life”, the last and most insidious of the three categories which encompass “all that is in the world”:

1Jn 2:16  For all that is in the world, the [1] lust of the flesh, and [2] the lust of the eyes, and [3] the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.

The law of Moses is a carnal commandment and is nothing more than “the Gentiles [which] are a law unto themselves”:

Rom 2:14  For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves:

Job was a self-righteous Pharisee before there were any self-righteous Pharisees. As is always the case with every man, Job could not see that he was ascribing the work of the Lord to himself. When we take the credit that is due to the Lord, we become guilty before God of the most insidious of all sins. It is the sin of iniquity, and ‘iniquity’ is defined as “trusting in [our] own righteousness”:

Eze 33:13  When I shall say to the righteous, that he shall surely live; if he trust to his own righteousness, and commit iniquity, all his righteousnesses shall not be remembered; but for his iniquity that he hath committed, he shall die for it.

If we agree with Paul that “we are no longer under the schoolmaster …after faith is come (Gal 3:22-25), and that we are “not under the law but under grace” (Rom 6:14-15), are we encouraging disobedience to God? Are we saying, “Let us sin that grace may abound” (Rom 6:1)? Does the doctrine that we are coming out from under the “schoolmaster” suggest that we can now sin because we are not under the law, but under grace? “God forbid.” Does coming of age and leaving home and leaving behind parental authority necessitate becoming a lawless criminal? No! Of course it does not! When Paul says, “We are no longer under the schoolmaster… after that faith is come”, he and we are pointing out that Adam’s earthy composition and naked condition from the hand of the creator necessitated “a schoolmaster… a carnal commandment [to govern us] until faith should come”.

Gal 3:22  But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.
Gal 3:23  But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed.
Gal 3:24  Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.
Gal 3:25  But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.

It is “the faith of Jesus Christ” which justifies us, not “the works of… a carnal commandment.”

Gal 2:16  Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.

Leaving our parents and becoming a contributing member of society, leaving the schoolmaster behind signifies “the faith of Jesus Christ” as we mature spiritually and grow into “the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus” (Rom 8:2).

No longer being under a schoolmaster simply signifies a work in progress:

1Co 15:45  And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.
1Co 15:46  Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.
1Co 15:47  The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven. [“Christ in you” (Col 1:27)]
1Co 15:48  As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.
1Co 15:49  And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.
1Co 15:50  Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.

“The Time of Reformation”

Heb 9:10  Which stood only in meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances, imposed [G1945: epikeimai, laid upon, pressed upon] on them [only] until the time of reformation.

The Greek verb G1945, epikeimai, which is translated “imposed” in the KJV, is in the present tense because we are all “under the law” in every generation until “the faith of Jesus” come to each of us. That is why Paul tells us:

1Co 9:19  For though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more.
1Co 9:20  And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law;
1Co 9:21  To them that are without law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ,) that I might gain them that are without law.

Paul says he is “not without law to God, but under the law to Christ.” Being “under the law to Christ” is what made it possible to minister “to them that are without law.” Paul was certainly not under the law of Moses or he would have encouraged circumcision, and he would have kept “all things written in the book of the law.” So what law was he “under…to Christ?” He was under the “new commandment” (Joh 13:34); he was under “the law of Christ” (Gal 6:2).

None of this was immediately understood by any of the 120 Jewish disciples on the day of Pentecost when the gift of the holy spirit was first given to mankind. Not one single person who was there when the gift of the holy spirit was poured out on those 120 people had so much as a hint that Christ intended to give His spirit to the Gentiles. The gift of the holy spirit does not bequeath instant spiritual maturity. What the gift of the holy spirit does do is to give us the ability to begin to “grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ”.

The apostle Paul was the only Jewish apostle who was called into the ministry outside the physical nation of Israel. His calling began just outside the city of Damascus, in Syria.

Here is what Christ told ‘Saul of Tarsus’, who would later become ‘Paul the apostle’, when He first struck him down on the road to Damascus:

Act 9:9  And he [Saul of Tarsus, Paul] was three days without sight, and neither did eat nor drink.
Act 9:10  And there was a certain disciple at Damascus, named Ananias; and to him said the Lord in a vision, Ananias. And he said, Behold, I am here, Lord.
Act 9:11  And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the street which is called Straight, and enquire in the house of Judas for one called Saul, of Tarsus: for, behold, he prayeth,
Act 9:12  And hath seen in a vision a man named Ananias coming in, and putting his hand on him, that he might receive his sight.
Act 9:13  Then Ananias answered, Lord, I have heard by many of this man, how much evil he hath done to thy saints at Jerusalem:
Act 9:14  And here he hath authority from the chief priests to bind all that call on thy name.
Act 9:15  But the Lord said unto him, Go thy way: for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel:

Christ told Ananias that He would send Saul, who later was renamed Paul, to the Gentiles, but that was not where Saul of Tarsus went to begin with.

Act 9:17  And Ananias went his way, and entered into the house; and putting his hands on him said, Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus, that appeared unto thee in the way as thou camest, hath sent me, that thou mightest receive thy sight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost.
Act 9:18  And immediately there fell from his eyes as it had been scales: and he received sight forthwith, and arose, and was baptized.

Saul began his ministry immediately, but he went to the Jews first:

Act 9:19  And when he had received meat, he was strengthened. Then was Saul certain days with the [Jewish] disciples which were at Damascus.
Act 9:20  And straightway he preached Christ in the synagogues, that he is the Son of God.

Saul spent three years preaching to Jewish Christians in Damascus. Then he returned to Jerusalem for “fifteen days” before leaving for his hometown of Tarsus in Cilicia:

Gal 1:18  Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and abode with him fifteen days.
Gal 1:19  But other of the apostles saw I none, save James the Lord’s brother.
Gal 1:20  Now the things which I write unto you, behold, before God, I lie not.
Gal 1:21  Afterwards I came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia;

About the time Paul left Jerusalem for Tarsus, the holy spirit gave the apostle Peter the distinction of being the first person to take the gospel to the Gentiles. This was well over three years after the day of Pentecost, and not one apostle had taken the gospel to a single Gentile. Demonstrating how attached the apostles and the entire early church were to being physically descended from Abraham, Peter was forced to defend the fact that he had   preached the gospel to the Gentiles in Caesarea:

Act 11:1  And the apostles and brethren that were in Judaea heard that the Gentiles had also received the word of God.
Act 11:2  And when Peter was come up to Jerusalem, they that were of the circumcision contended with him,
Act 11:3  Saying, Thou wentest in to men uncircumcised, and didst eat with them.

“They that were of the circumcision” included the apostles themselves. Peter’s experience while in the home of Simon the tanner left no room to doubt that his actions were a work of the holy spirit telling Conelius in Caesarea to send for a man named Peter 30 miles south of Caesarea in Joppa. Then, just as the three messengers from Cornelius arrived in Joppa the holy spirit, three times Peter was told that he was to call no man common or unclean.

Act 11:2  And when Peter was come up to Jerusalem, they that were of the circumcision contended with him,
Act 11:3  Saying, Thou wentest in to men uncircumcised, and didst eat with them.
Act 11:4  But Peter rehearsed the matter from the beginning, and expounded it by order unto them, saying,
Act 11:5  I was in the city of Joppa praying: and in a trance I saw a vision, A certain vessel descend, as it had been a great sheet, let down from heaven by four corners; and it came even to me:
Act 11:6  Upon the which when I had fastened mine eyes, I considered, and saw fourfooted beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowls of the air.
Act 11:7  And I heard a voice saying unto me, Arise, Peter; slay and eat.
Act 11:8  But I said, Not so, Lord: for nothing common or unclean hath at any time entered into my mouth.
Act 11:9  But the voice answered me again from heaven, What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common.
Act 11:10  And this was done three times: and all were drawn up again into heaven.
Act 11:11  And, behold, immediately there were three men already come unto the house where I was, sent from Caesarea unto me.
Act 11:12  And the Spirit bade me go with them, nothing doubting. Moreover these six brethren accompanied me, and we entered into the man’s house:
Act 11:13  And he shewed us how he had seen an angel in his house, which stood and said unto him, Send men to Joppa, and call for Simon, whose surname is Peter;
Act 11:14  Who shall tell thee words, whereby thou and all thy house shall be saved.
Act 11:15  And as I began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell on them, as on us at the beginning.
Act 11:16  Then remembered I the word of the Lord, how that he said, John indeed baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost.
Act 11:17  Forasmuch then as God gave them the like gift as he did unto us, who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ; what was I, that I could withstand God?

This was three or four years after the holy spirit was first given on the day of Pentecost.

Immediately after Peter had defended his actions in the house of the Gentile Roman centurion these are the very next words we read:

Act 11:19  Now they which were scattered abroad upon the persecution that arose about Stephen travelled as far as Phenice, and Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the word to none but unto the Jews only.

Leaving the schoolmaster was not an easy thing for the early Jewish Christians to do. This is what the apostle Peter tells us about how difficult it was for the early Jewish Christians, and the Gentile proselytes, to understand the principle of coming out from under “the schoolmaster” of the law of Moses:

2Pe 3:15  And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you;
2Pe 3:16  As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.
2Pe 3:17  Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own stedfastness.
2Pe 3:18  But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen.

Even after Paul’s first missionary journey with Barnabas, the law of Moses still had such a hold on the early Christians that there was almost a split in the church over the question of whether physical circumcision was required for the salvation of the Gentile converts. The question was resolved by seeking a multitude of counselors from all “the apostles and elders” at Jerusalem:

Act 15:5  But there rose up certain of the sect of the Pharisees which believed, saying, That it was needful to circumcise them, and to command them [Gentile converts] to keep the law of Moses.
Act 15:6  And the apostles and elders came together for to consider of this matter.

The holy spirit told the apostles Peter, Paul, and Barnabas, that it was not yet time for the Jews to come out from under the law of Moses:

Act 15:21  For Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every sabbath day.

It was the holy spirit setting the schedule for spiritual growth of the church, and the holy spirit declared that the Jewish church was not yet ready to come out from under the schoolmaster, the law of Moses:

Act 15:23  And they wrote letters by them after this manner; The apostles and elders and brethren send greeting unto the brethren which are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia:

Act 15:28  For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things;
Act 15:29  That ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication: from which if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well. Fare ye well.

Many years later we find the Jewish Christians at Jerusalem still under the schoolmaster, the law of Moses. It is in Acts 21 that James erases any doubt that the Jewish Christians were still under the law of Moses, even to the extent of still offering blood animal sacrifices as if the death of our Lord were not sufficient to atone for our sins. Paul had been living by the decrees of the apostles and elders to the extent that he had circumcised Timothy and had been keeping the sabbath and holy days. Nevertheless, he was falsely accused of teaching the Jews among the Gentiles to forsake the law of Moses:

Act 21:17  And when we were come to Jerusalem, the brethren received us gladly.
Act 21:18  And the day following Paul went in with us unto James; and all the elders were present.
Act 21:19  And when he had saluted them, he declared particularly what things God had wrought among the Gentiles by his ministry.
Act 21:20  And when they heard it, they glorified the Lord, and said unto him, Thou seest, brother, how many thousands of Jews there are which believe; and they are all zealous of the law [“the schoolmaster”]:
Act 21:21  And they are [falsely] informed of thee, that thou teachest all the Jews which are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, saying that they ought not to circumcise their children, neither to walk after the customs.

Act 21:22  What is it therefore? the multitude must needs come together: for they will hear that thou art come.

James and the apostles and elders at Jerusalem had already conceived a plan to attempt to prove that Paul himself was keeping the law of Moses:

Act 21:23  Do therefore this that we say to thee: We have four men which have a vow on them;
Act 21:24  Them take, and purify thyself with them, and be at charges with them, that they may shave their heads: and all may know that those things, whereof they were informed concerning thee, are nothing; but that thou thyself also walkest orderly, and keepest the law.
Act 21:25  As touching the Gentiles which believe, we have written and concluded that they observe no such thing, save only that they keep themselves from things offered to idols, and from blood, and from strangled, and from fornication.

Paul spent another two years as a prisoner in Caesarea under the charge of the governors Felix and Festus before being sent to Rome. It was only after Paul was a prisoner at Rome that the Lord finally opened the eyes and ears of the rest of the apostles to accept the “some things hard to be understood …” which were even then considered to be scripture:

2Pe  3:16  As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.

Not one Christian in a thousand realizes that all the apostles were living under the law of Moses until Paul was sent to Rome as a prisoner, where the Lord finally gave him this revelation in his epistle to the church at Ephesus:

Eph 2:11  Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands;
Eph 2:12  That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world:
Eph 2:13  But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.
Eph 2:14  For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us;
Eph 2:15  Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace;
Eph 2:16  And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby:
Eph 2:17  And came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh.
Eph 2:18  For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.
Eph 2:19  Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God;
Eph 2:20  And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone;
Eph 2:21  In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord:
Eph 2:22  In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.

Even though most people do not realize it, this whole story of the early church struggling to come out from under the law of Moses, signifies each of us today as we struggle to come out from under the doctrines of Babylon with all its widely accepted traditions. This whole story signifies the necessity of a period of transition in the life of every man called “the time of reformation” (Heb 9:10). Christ made it clear to us that there were “many things” even his closest associates could not “bear…now” – could not at first receive:

Joh 16:12  I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.

“I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now” (Joh 16:12). This is a principle that applies to each believer individually. “Peter…and the other Jews dissembled (and) Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation” (Gal 2:11-13) simply because in their own “time of reformation”, that time of transition from the old to the new covenant, they were still “not able to bear” some of the truths of the new covenant even at this late date. When Paul said: “I must by all means keep this feast that cometh in Jerusalem” (Act 18:21), he said that because he had agreed with the apostles in Acts 15, that the holy spirit had decided that the Jewish Christians were not yet able to receive the Truth of the words of our Lord. Jesus had said that the time would come when ‘Neither in Samaria, nor in Jerusalem, would men worship God.’  Peter, Paul and Barnabas were submitting to the consensus of the counsel of the elders in Acts 15. The Jerusalem conference was held many years after the death and resurrection of Christ, and it would be many more years before the truths of Ephesians 2:11-22 would be made known by the holy spirit. At the time of the Jerusalem conference, the Jewish Christians, including most of the apostles, were still unable to accept or “bear” the Truth Christ Himself had declared to the Samaritan woman at the well of Jacob:

Joh 4:21  Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.
Joh 4:22  Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews.
Joh 4:23  But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.
Joh 4:24  God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

There is now no difference between a Jew and a Gentile before God. The Jewish tradition of esteeming one day above another, of “observing days, months, times and years” enumerated in Leviticus 23 and 25 and in Numbers 28 and 29 was one of the hardest things for the early Christian church to relinquish. Immediately after chastising the Galatians for observing days, months times and years, Paul says “tell me you that desire to be under the law…” (Gal 4:21). Obviously, the days, months, times and years were the Sabbaths, holy days, new moons, land rest and jubilee years cited by Moses in the scriptures in Leviticus and Numbers given above. There are no days, months, times, or years to be observed under the new “law of faith” (Rom 3:27).

Modern day Christians have this very same struggle as they are being dragged by the Lord out from under the law in which they have been brought up as their “schoolmaster… the law of the Gentiles” which is the same as the law of Moses:

Rom 2:14  For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves:
Rom 2:15  Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;)