When the law is good:

　

　

Proverbs 30:5:
5) “Every word of God is pure: He is a shield unto them put their trust in Him.
6) “Add thou not unto His words, lest He reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.”

Joshua 1:8: Of the book of the law which Moses wrote:
8) “This (Moses') 'book of the law' shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.”
(Ref: Deuteronomy 28:1-14)

Have we, the Church that Jesus built, been derelict in our duties, in that we have not continued to teach the whole word of truth, which is the Christian Bible, both the Old Testament and the New Testament?
(Ref: II Timothy 3:16-17; II Peter 1:20-21: verified by Paul the apostle in all his writings, where he continuously used Old Testament references for today's truths and God's principles, as I also do!)

Example: Are we familiar with the ‘times and seasons’, the special days, weeks, months and years, which were designated in the Old Testament, and assigned to be special in the days before Jesus?
(Luke 24:44; John 5:39-40)

Do we know, for instance, that the ‘day of Pentecost’ was celebrated in a particularly specific way by Israel, so that it was a ‘shadow’, or a ‘type’ of the day on which the Church of Jesus Christ was to be birthed, and the first of many millions of believers were baptized with the Holy Ghost, thereby receiving power to initiate and maintain scriptural operation and administration of the Church of true believers, knowing the truth, and being guided into all truth by the only One Who was assigned to guide us into the hidden wisdom and knowledge of God, by the word of truth, that One being the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of truth?

Did not Paul (formerly, ‘Saul’ of Tarsus, the deadly enemy who persecuted the Jews who were saved, and 'members in particular' of the Church of Jesus Christ, and was called to be the twelfth apostle by Jesus Christ, when he was on the road to Damascus, with letters of authority from the Jewish council at Jerusalem, to take captive Jews who had believed in Jesus, and return them to Jerusalem, or Rome, where they were stoned or slaughtered, for their departure from the law of Moses (seemingly, to Saul, and the Jewish council), to the faith of Jesus Christ by Abraham), time after time, and most frequently, use Old Testament scriptures, and propheciestypes, shadows and symbols from the law of Moses, and the prophets, and the psalms, to establish truths in the New Testament epistles which he wrote to the Church?

And, to be fair to you, if you wonder where I'm coming from, follow Paul's writings, and Old Testament priciples, which were established in God's relationship with the Jews, which I will in
great detail elaborate on in all of these writings of truth in Christ, by the Spirit of truth.
(See Isaiah 28:9-10)


Some denominations of the Church refuse to use the Old Testament, and some even deny that the New Testament is the word of God.

In Jesus’ days, and in the days of the apostles, and for many years thereafter, the only scriptures that were available to believers in Jesus were those of the Old Testament.

The New Testament was originated by the apostles, in direct keeping of the commandment of Jesus Christ to them, as well as to other disciples of Jesus who were, from time to time, with Jesus and the apostles, for Jesus had many followers. Here is that commandment:

Matthew 28:18-20:

18) “And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, ‘All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth (the whole universe).
19) “Go ye therefore, and teach (the gospel to) all nations, baptizing them (that believe the gospel of Jesus Christ unto salvation) in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost (and that is the ‘Godhead’):
20) “Teaching them to observe (do, keep, and teach, just as you, the apostles do, keep, and teach) all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I AM with you always, even unto the end of the world (, which end, of those difficult times, may last for a few to several years after the removal of the Church from the earth, when Jesus comes to take us all away, to be with Him, wherever He shall be, for ever.).’ Amen.”

Therefore, the apostles preached, and taught, and wrote epistles and other accounts, as Jesus had commanded them; and that is now what we call the ‘New Testament’ (in Christ’s blood).

So there was indeed a transition from just the keeping of the law by the ‘letter’ of the written law, and the performance in the letter of the law by the ‘works’ of the law, which was not mixed with faith, to believing Christ, the Son of God for salvation by faith of Abraham unto 'good works', which are performed through faith, which worketh by love, which is accepted by God for righteousness.

Therefore, we now read the difference between the ‘works’ of the law, and the ‘good works’ of the spirit of the law through ‘faith, which worketh by love’, which, alone, is acceptable to God.

And by those ‘good works’, in which we are commanded in love to walk, we do not just ‘keep‘ the law of Moses, by ‘works‘ in the flesh of the doing of the letter, but we ‘establish the law’:

Romans 3:23-31: Extracting verses 30-31, not excluding the previous verses, which set the foundation for these two verses:
30) “Seeing it is one God, which shall justify the circumcision by faith, and uncircumcision through faith.
31) “Do we then make void the law (of Moses) through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law (by our performance of faith in love, accomplishing those works, that they might be ‘good works’, which are acceptable to God for righteousness).”

Knowing now the truth regarding the law of works, and the law of faith, we should no longer fear doing the works of the law by faith, which converts them to ‘good works’, labors of love to God, and to our neighbour.

Isaiah 41:10:
10) “Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the Right Hand of my righteousness (Jesus, God‘s Son).”

II Timothy 3:16-17: Of the word of truth, the word of God Jehovah:

16) “All scripture (Old Testament, New Testament) is (specifically and precisely) given by (concise, firm and unchangeable) inspiration of God (Jehovah), and is (spiritually and logically) profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
17) “That the man of God may be perfect (in the eyes of God), thoroughly furnished unto all ‘good works’.”

Ephesians 2:8-10:
8) “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God (to every one who believes in Jesus, the only begotten Son of the only true and living God Jehovah).
9) “Not of works, lest any man should boast.
10) “For we are HIS workmanship (we are under His construction), created (re-created, born again, a new man) in Christ Jesus unto ‘good works’ (which are performed in ‘faith, which worketh by love’), which God hath before (the foundation of the world) ordained that we should walk in (the performance of) them.”

Romans 9:30-32:
30) “What shall we say then? ‘That the Gentiles (every nation that is not Israel), which followed not after righteousness (by the law, which they did not have: Ephesians 2:11), have (now, even as Paul writes,) attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is by faith (of Abraham, by Jesus Christ, the Seed of Abraham to whom the promise of righteousness by faith was given).
31) “But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness (by their ‘works‘ of the ‘letter‘ of the law), hath not attained to the law of righteousness.
32) “Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the (letter and by their) ‘works’ (, the ‘natural, physical performance by the flesh) of the law. For they stumbled at that stumbling stone.”

John 4:23-24: Jesus speaking to the Samarian woman at the well:
23) “But the hour cometh, and now is (as Jesus preached the ‘kingdom of heaven’), when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship Him.
24) “God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.”

Isaiah 28:8-13:
9) “Whom shall He teach knowledge? and whom shall He make to understand wisdom? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts. (See Hebrews 5:12-14 below)
10) “For precept must be (coordinated) upon precept, precept upon (properly contextual) precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little (contextual truth), and there a little (more essential and perfectly complementary truth, to fill up to the truth of a principle of God within His word):
11) “For with stammering lips and another tongue (evidence of one who has received Spirit of truth, by the baptism with the Holy Ghost) will He speak to this people. (Joel 2:28-29, Acts 2:4, 38-39: 10:43-48)
12) “To whom (Israel, the Jews, the ‘Circumcision’) He said, ‘This is the rest (Sabbath) wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing (being made ‘free indeed’, in the spirit, and in truth: John 1:33; John 6:32, 36): yet they (Israel would not hear.
13) “But the word of the Lord was unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little; that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared and taken (because of that stumblingblock, or stumbling stone, which is receiving true righteousness which is not obtained through works, but by faith of Abraham by Jesus Christ, God the Son, Who came in a body of pure and sinless flesh).”
(Hebrews 10:5; Hebrews 1:1-3; Galatians 4:4-5; Matthew 1:18)

From above, and in addition to Isaiah 28:9:
Hebrews 5:12-14:
12) “For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of god; and are become such as have need of milk (of the basic root principles of the word of truth), and not of strong meat (mature truth, knowledge and wisdom in the word of truth).
13) “For every one that useth milk is unskillful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe.
(I Peter 2:2: ‘As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby.’)
14) “But strong meat belonged to them that are of full age (mature in the things of God, in word and in spirit), even those who (are weaned from the milk, and) by reason of use have their (spiritual) senses exercised to discern both good and evil.”

Did not Jesus keep the law? Yes, He did. But He preached the kingdom of heaven, which message began by John the Baptist, Jesus’ first cousin, who was six months older than Jesus, approximately, born to Elizabeth and Zachariah, a priest of Abia.

(John the Baptist was prophesied in Isaiah 40:3.)

Why did the law work for Jesus as He kept it, and not for the Jews of Israel, the ‘circumcision’, of the covenant of Abraham? Look at the scripture above: Romans 9:30-32.

Galatians 3:23-26:
23) “But before faith came, we (Jews) were kept under the law, shut up unto (held back from) the faith which should afterwards be revealed.
24) “Wherefore the law was our ‘schoolmaster’ (teacher, instructor) to bring us to Christ (by the ‘shadow’, the law: Hebrews 10:1-4), that we might be justified (by God) by faith (of Abraham, believing in Christ, the Son of God).
25) “But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster (the law, for Christ is come, and we were brought to Him, therefore, because of faith, the ‘schoolmaster’ is no longer required, except in performance through ‘faith, which worketh by love.’: Galatians 5:6b; Ephesians 2:8-10)
26) "For ye are all the children of God (only) by faith in Christ Jesus."

John 1:10-13: Of Christ, in the world which He had made:
10) “He (Jesus) was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not.
11) “He came unto His own (Israel, the Jews, the ‘circumcision’), and His own received Him not.
12) “But as many as received Him (believed on Him), to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believed on His name:
13) “Which were born (again), not of blood (of man), nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”

As time will permit, I will edit and enhance this blog to a fuller and more detailed measure. This is a brief discourse in this matter, and is by no means as complete as it could be, but I felt the necessity of putting it in the eyes of every interested person for current and, at least partial, study guide in the topic of Law and Faith.

The ‘fuller version’, I may call ‘Part Two’ of possibly many. However I shall not neglect other topics of as real importance as this one, with which topic many have wrestled with in their hearts and in their minds; and new denominations have been formed due to the lack of knowledge in this particular topic. This is but a basic study guide regarding the above topic(s).

God bless all ‘whosoevers’. God loves you: love Him back!
dunomos@aol.com