God’s Law for the Christian
Minister: | Rev. Ronald Van Overloop |
Date: | 11/5/2017 AM |
Text: | Psalm 119; Lord's Day 34 |
Psalters: | 127, 325, 178, 40 |
Preparatory to the Lord's Supper |
- “The law is good, if a man use it lawfully” (I Timothy 1:8), i.e., we must use it according to God’s purpose.
- The law remains lawful, valid and good because it reveals God and reflects the righteous standard of His holiness.
- As Creator, God has the right to demand obedience of His creatures (cf. Rom. 2:14,15).
- As Savior, God gives the law to believers.
- What the law does NOT do and was never intended to justify us by our obeying it.
- The Judaizers spoke of the grace of justification but added the works of the law (as does Federal Vision) (cf. Rom. 10:3).
- The Christian is free in the sense that the law can never be a way of salvation to us.
- And those in Jesus are free from the curse of the law (because Jesus became that curse for us, Gal. 3:13,14).
- What the law is to do.
- Being free from the law to be saved does not mean that we are free from the law to love the Lord and our neighbor.
- Never are we free to do as we please.
- Love for God and our neighbor sets all kinds of boundaries on our freedoms.
- The law teaches us how to express our returning love to God.
- And the law is a good daily companion in two ways.
- The law has an effect and a fruit on the sanctified, believing heart.
- It continually helps us to see the horror of our own sin.
- Two, we grow in the knowledge of the preciousness of Jesus Christ.
- Three, we grow in the knowledge of God’s will, to which we want to comply as an expression of gratitude.
- Being free from the law to be saved does not mean that we are free from the law to love the Lord and our neighbor.