Benefits of the Son of God no. 24
No Longer under the Law
Rev. Brian Kocourek
22) The Twenty fourth benefit or promise of God to us concerning
His Son is that we are no longer under the Law, and therefore no longer able to
be punished by death. To understand this let’s begin by taking our text from John 19: 7 The Jews answered him, We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he
made himself the Son of God.
Now, the Jews here in this scene were
admitting they were under the law and the law they were speaking of demanded
death for blasphemy. They accused Jesus Christ the Son of God of Blaspheming
God because he claimed to be the Son of God. They could not understand the
relationship between the Father and the Son, and in fact did not even know that
God had a Son. And when Jesus said my Father and I are One, they did not know
what he meant even though he explained to them that the Father was dwelling in
Him. The Jew believing that God is Spirit then could not understand How He
could have a Son that was flesh and bone. To them this notion of Sonship was
blasphemy because they did not understand the Scriptures that promised to them
that Messiah would be the Son of God.
Now, in order to
understand that we are no longer under this law that is punishable by death, we
must first understand what this law is in order to know what we are no longer
under.
Now, the Law of Moses is found in the first
5 books of the Bible. Moses had to deliver the people from bondage as God had
Promised He Himself would do. Yet when God came to Moses He said, “I have come
down to deliver My people, now you Moses go and do it, and I will be with you”.
So we had a promise of the presence of God to deliver
the people, and a prophet to guide them along the way. You see, God promised to
do nothing unless he reveal it first through His
servants the Prophets. So Moses took the people out
with a mighty hand. Not his hand, but with the hand of God performing all kinds
of supernatural acts in order to bring pharaoh’s heart
to the place where it could no longer resist the mighty hand of God, and he caved into Moses demands.
When Pharaoh’s heart became hardened by the
trials and then the lifting of the hardships, and then trials again and then
the trials were lifted, and it was because God was actually
hardening the heart of pharaoh and his people as you would harden steel.
To harden steel you try it in fire, it softens under
the fire, and then when you cool it suddenly with cold water, it becomes harder
than before. Then you heat it again by fire, and then cool it suddenly in
water, and you repeat this process over and over again
until that steel becomes so hard that it actually looses
any malleableness and becomes brittle. Then it will be easy to break.
That is the way God hardens the hearts of
the people. Years ago I preached a message called the
hardening process. This was number 82 in the Melchisedec series. In it I said, “How
does this hardening take place? Brother Branham taught us that the first time
we go through the red light it is the worst, and we feel guilt knowing we have
broken the law. Then with each time we do it, the stigma becomes less and less
until we become so calloused that it no longer means anything to us. We no
longer feel guilt or shame. Then as we repeat the offenses against God it
causes a hardening to take place in our soul as well. And the habitual doing of
those things that we know are not right causes us to become more and more
callus to the still small voice of the Spirit of God in our soul. St. John told us, He that is born
of God does not habitually sin, for God's seed remaineth
in him.
Notice how God hardened the heart of Pharaoh and the
Egyptians. He did it by bringing on a hardship, and then they would cry out for
deliverance and then God would lift that judgment, and they would quickly
forget that temporary judgment because people do not wish to hold onto thoughts
that are not pleasant. And with the repeating of the process
they got a little bit harder each time a new plague came and went. God repeated
the process over again. They would get soft, and then when the heat was taken off they would cool back down and become even a little more
harder in their soul than before. God would repeat this process over and over again, until the people were tempered just the
way they were ordained to be, and then the final judgment would take place.
Just like the refiner’s fire. The refiner forges the
molten metal in the fire, to soften it until it becomes malleable and moldable,
Then he beats it into the shape he ordains it to be
and then quickly cools it, then He heats it up again and cools it and heats it
and cools it until it become very strong and hardened. We see this spoken of
throughout the Scriptures.
I SAMUEL 6:6 Wherefore then do ye harden your hearts,
as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts? when he had wrought
wonderfully among them, did they not let the people go, and they departed?
PSALMS 95:7 ¶ To day if ye
will hear his voice 8 Harden not your heart, as in the provocation, and as in
the day of temptation in the wilderness: 9 When your fathers tempted me, proved
me, and saw my work. 10 Forty years long was I grieved with this generation,
and said, It is a people that do err in their heart,
and they have not known my ways: 11 Unto whom I sware
in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest.
And even in Jesus day, we read in MARK
Do you think
having the message so available to the people is a good thing? I tell you that
although it is a wonderful thing, it can become your undoing as well. For it
has become so common to the people, that they no longer reverence the Voice of
God to us in this day. Never let this message become common to you, or you are
on your way out of it. Look, Jesus said, “How be it in vain do they teach for
doctrine the commandments of men. If they worship in vain
they are doing it with no thought about it. And in vain means it is considered
worthless.
Speaking of the Queen
of the south 60-1127E P:69 Brother Branham said, Jesus said she'll rise in the judgment and
condemn that generation (That's right.) and condemn this generation; for how
much more will she condemn this one than to that one, because look at the much
more light that we've got since that day: death, burial, resurrection, the Holy
Ghost Itself right with us? See what I mean? It's too common. That's what the
Holy Spirit is to the Pentecostal people; It's too common. An old man one time
that lived in the interior, was on his road down to the seashore. And he'd
write books, and he'd often wrote of the sea how beautiful it was. One day on
his road down, he went down to the seashore, and he met an old salt coming from
the sea. And he said, "Where goest thou, my good
man?” He said, "Oh, I'm going to the sea. I've never seen it in my
life." And he said, "I want to see its big briny white waves as they
dash. I want to smell the salt air. I want to hear the cry of the sea gull.”
And the old salt stood there and looked, chewed on his pipe stem a little bit,
said, "I was born on it. I been on it for fifty years. I don't see nothing
so thrilling about it," and went on. That's it. He was so use to it, it wasn't thrilling to him anymore.
And after telling the same story in his sermon Handwriting on the
wall 58-0618 P:32 he
said, “Pentecostal
church, and you all, the rest of you, that's what's the matter with you
tonight. You seen so many things of God till it
become too common to you. You take it too lightly, too lightly. “
Jehovah
Jireh 2 60-0802 P:62 .People,
I'm telling you, you're Pentecostal people are seeing so much, and have through
your life since you've become children of God, seen so much of the goodness,
and mercy, and glory of God till it's become too common to you and... It's too
common. Until that makes you lose faith. Oh, you just think there's many people
maybe that... You go over the Africa, down into Asia, down into Australia, some
of them people's never seen it. And let some of them African natives, they see
that happen, the glory of God fall like that, my, they
believe it, take that old idol and break in the ground, and embrace Jesus
Christ, 'cause they've never seen it before.
Christ
outside the door 58-0330E P:38 And that's what's the matter
with the Pentecostal church. It's seen the baptism of the Holy Ghost strike it's people. It's seen them change from streetwalkers to
godly, saintly women. It's seen men come out of... drunkards, alcoholics, and
make preachers and gentlemen. And it's seen the great powers of God, moving and working in signs and wonders, until it's become
so common, till the Pentecostal church will hardly walk across the street to
see the glory of God. It's too common. But just remember, there's coming a time
when you'll go from the east to the west, from the north to the south, trying
to find it, and you won't find it. The Bible said so. He's so good to us.
And so we see in
the first Exodus that Moses came down from the mountain with just ten simple
commandments. These ten commandments were not laws, but rather commandments for
principles used in maintaining a relationship. God was showing us how to hold
onto and maintain a relationship with Him. And those same ten commandments are
not just to be used for holding onto and maintaining a relationship with God.
If we practiced those ten commandments or
principles in every relationship we have those
relationships would flourish and never quiver.
The first commandment of relationship is,
“Thou shalt have no other” and when men or women look to others to replace what
they have with each other, that is when the relationship begins to dissolve.
The second is that we should never take that
relationship in Vain.
The third is that He said we should have a day of rest
where we do nothing but nourish that relationship with the one
we have the relationship with.
The fourth is that we honor one another
The fifth is that we never kill the others influence.
And on and on w can go until you realize
that God’s commandments were never given to us as laws, but as a means of Grace
to build and maintain our relationship with Him.
Yet where did the law of Moses come into
the picture? It was after that when he came down with these commandments or
principles for having a relationship with God and the people turned them down.
They turned down the Grace of God and accepted Moses law. Then it was no longer
ten simple principles of Faith to live by, but became many, many rules and
regulations to measure up to.
Everything we do in life is guided by
principles. Brother Branham said in the sermon …
Total deliverance 59-0712 P:9 And
that's the same way it is with the church. When
the church is away from its principles, it can never serve the saints well.
We've got to stay together, got to be unified. We got to be one heart and one
accord. Or we'll never serve God or the people unless we're one heart and one
accord, to stand by the principles of the Bible and the things that God has
said that's right. We must always stand by them.
Hebrews Chapter 7 part 1 57-0915E P:42 And real true battles are not
made with selfish motives. Wars are not fought for money. Wars are fought for
motives, for principles. Men fight war for principles. And when Abraham went
out to get Lot, he didn't go out because he knowed he could whip the kings and
take all their possession; he went out for the principle of saving his brother.
And any minister that's sent out under the inspiration of the King of heaven,
will not go for money; neither will he go to make big churches; neither will he
go to inspire denominations. He'll only
go for one principle, and that is, to bring back his fallen brother. Whether
he gets a dime in the offering or whether he doesn't, it won't make a bit of
difference to him. As I say, "Real wars are fought and waged for
principles and not for money." And men and women who join church and come
into church to be popular, because the Joneses belong there, or they change
their church from a little church to a big church, you're doing it for a
selfish motive and the right principle's not behind it. You should be willing
to stand at the battle front.
Now, in the book of Deuteronomy we find that the very
name Deuteronomy means two laws. And Brother Branham said, in the sermon, God's chosen place worship 65-0220 P:14 Now, we took this
text out of Deuteronomy. It's a Greek word, which has a compound meaning, or it
means "two laws." The Greek word "Deuteronomy" means
"two different laws." And that's just what God has: two different
laws. And one of them is a law of death, and the other one is a law of Life.
God has two laws. To follow Him, and serve Him, and worship Him is Life; to
reject it is death. There's two laws in God. Now, one
of those laws was made--recognized to the world at Mount Sinai. God gave the
law to Moses and Israel. Not that the law can help them, but the law only
pointed out to them that they were sinners. Until that time
they didn't know what sin was, till they had a law. There cannot be a law
without a penalty. A law's not a law without penalty. So therefore, the
transgression of the law is sin, and the wages of sin
is death. So therefore, until God made them a law, there was no transgression
reckoned to them. If there's no law here that says you can't run over twenty
miles an hour, then you can run over twenty miles an hour. But when there's a
law says you can't do it, then there's a
law and a penalty behind it.
And you must never forget
that where there is law there also is penalties associated with the breaking of
those laws. Now, that is what law is all about… And you must understand what law is. A law is a
standard. It is …
Law ( lô) n. 1. A rule of conduct or a procedure
that is established by either an agreement or authority. (and
an agreement is a covenant) 2. a. Law is the body of rules and
principles governing the affairs of a community and enforced by some authority
or legal system: 3. A set of rules or principles dealing with a specific
area 4. Something, such as an order or a dictum, having absolute or
unquestioned authority: 5. The body of principles or precepts held to
express the divine will, especially as revealed in the Bible: Mosaic Law. b.
The first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures. 1
So
we see that law is a standard, and when we think of a standard, in terms of
law, we also think in terms of punishment for breaking that standard. Thus law has a punishment. Amongst the Jews, they had
stoning as punishment. Among the Moslems, they like to cut off things, they cut
off the hand that steels, or the tongue that blasphemes, or the life that does
not agree with them and there laws.
Now, you cannot have
laws with double standards. We do not make stop signs that are good for only
certain vehicles and not for others. Laws are made to be carried out by all,
and yet we seem to find so much double standards today. In Politics, we seem to
allow our man to do things that we would not allow the opponents man to do. In
churches the inner circle seems to be able to do things that those in the outer
ranks could never get away with. And yet we all claim to serve a God that is no
respecter of persons. How can that be?
And so we see that the people have a tendency to turn towards law
because Grace seems to them so foreign and so dependent upon the forgiveness of
another, and that takes it out of the persons control all together. In Isaiah
28 we see at the end time the people will resort back to law because they can not take the rest that God brings with Him.
Isaiah 28:9 “Who is it he is trying to teach? To whom is he explaining his message?
To children weaned from their milk, to those just
taken from the breast? 10 For with them it is: Do and do, do and do, rule on
rule, rule on rule; a little here, a little there." 11 Very well then,
with foreign lips and strange tongues (that’s the Kentucky mountain
language) God will speak to this people, 12 to whom he said,
"This is the resting place, let the weary rest"; and, "This is
the place of repose"-- but they would not listen. 13 So then, the word of
the LORD to them will become: Do and do, do and do,
rule on rule, rule on rule; a little here, a little there-- so that they will
go and fall backward, be injured and snared and captured. Notice we are told that because they will not rest in
the Word, the Word becomes unto them rules and regulations taught by the
precepts of man, and they will go into works programs instead of believing the
teaching which is the doctrine of the one God sends. And because they do not
walk in the spirit, they will walk in the flesh, and their works programs will
only lead them to manifest the works of the flesh.
The Moslems have their laws, and the Jews have theirs,
and the Catholics have their mortal sins, and their venial sins, and the
Pentecostals have theirs and even in this Message one Pastor I know teaches
that he has a list of 65 things that the Bride must do in order to make the
Rapture, as though you could work yourself into something that Only God has the
authority to put you in or put you out. But law is attractive to most people
because it is something they can do for themselves, and then they do not have
to be dependent upon another to enter into Heaven. You
know, we always hear that old Americanism, “Why depend on another when you can
do it for yourself and make sure the job gets done”. And so
the dependency upon Christ has gone form their
mindset, and has been replaced with another mindset that is works oriented. Do
and Do, Do and Do, Rule on Rule, Rule on rule, a little here and a little there
until they turn backwards, and are taken and snared in their laws.
The fact is that the Law is
just a school master showing you that you are a sinner. For without the law,
you would not know, nor be aware that you are indeed a sinner. So then the law makes you aware of your sinful condition,
but can not make you aware of relationship. So law does not lead to relationship, and neither can it
help relationship for it does not speak of relationship at all.
God's chosen place worship 65-0220 P:15 Now,
the law of death was the commandments given on Mount Sinai which told man that
he was a sinner, and to transgress God's law he died. But there's no salvation in the law. It was only a policeman that could put you in jail; it had nothing to
bring you out with. But then He gave another law. That was at Mount
Calvary, where sin was reckoned in Jesus Christ. And there the penalty was
paid, and not without law, but by grace you are saved by the grace of God
through predestination of God's foreknowledge of your being. Now, we see these
two laws, Deuteronomy, speaking of two laws. There was
two laws; one was the law of death and the other one, the law of Life.
Now, there may be two laws,
the “law of sin punishable by death” and the law of Life which has no
punishment. And we know that law is a standard which has boundaries, and
punishment. But the law of sin gives punishment while the law of life has no
punishment, for “there
is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.” And that means
there is not only no punishment but there is no judgment either. “Colossians 3: 3 For ye are dead, and your life is
hid with Christ in God.
Why against organized religion 62-1111E
P:125 Now, look. God's
got to judge the world by something. You
cannot have judgment unless you have first a law. There's got to be
something, you got to break something in order to be judged. See? And then there cannot be
judgment, correctly, without penalty. Now, see, you can't have a law in town
that says "five-dollar fine for running a red light," and the next, law
says, "no, he can go free." See, you can't do that. So there can't be two laws in existence at one time. And
there's one law, one God, one Book, one Christ. That's all. One faith, one
hope. That's all. That's the Bible: Christ. Notice now in this, if there is to
be something added to This, it's got to be added by men. It can't be no more
than... In other words, the two laws
cannot co-exist together. You can not claim to have
the law of Life and yet be under the law of death. They do not coexist together.
If you are under the law then you are not set free by
Grace.
Birth pains 65-0124 P:20 So
notice in a seed's birth, the old seed must die before
the new one can be born. So therefore, death is hard any time. So it's painful; it's distressful. Birth is the same;
because you're bringing life into the world, and it's painful. Jesus said that
His Word was a Seed that a sower went forth to sow.
(Now, we're all acquainted with that, and I want to teach this like a Sunday
school lesson 'cause it's
Sunday.) Notice, then this Word, being a Seed... But remember the seed is only
bringing forth a new life when it dies. And that's the reason it was so hard
for those Pharisees to understand our Lord Jesus Christ;
because they were under the law. And the
law was the Word of God in seed form. But when the Word was made flesh and
become not law, but grace... Now, grace
and law cannot exist at the same time, 'cause grace
is so far above law, law's not even in the picture. And therefore, it's so
hard for the Pharisees to die to their law so that grace could be born. But it
must go. The two laws cannot exist at the same time. There cannot be a law says
that you can run this semaphore, and the other one says you can run it: one
says you can; one says you can't. They... It has to be
one law at a time. Maybe one time you could've went through it; caution, go
through it. But this time it's red: Stop. See? And so there cannot be two laws
exist at the same time.
Now, since the law had to do
with God’s Word, there were also two covenants or promises between God and Man.
Those that choose law have one covenant and those that Choose life have another
promise from God. In the Book of Deuteronomy chapter 28 we see the Two
covenants at work and the only difference between the two is your attitude
towards the Voice of God. You receive it and you are blessed in all your life
with abundance of life, and you reject it and you live
a life under a curse.
God's only provided place of worship
65-1128M P:38 I want you to notice again; there was also
two covenants give. One covenant was given to Adam, which was on conditions
like law: "If you will not touch this, then you will live; but if you
touch this, you will die." That was a law. Then there was another law
given to Abraham, which was by grace, unconditionally: "I have saved you
and your seed," after him. Amen. That is a type of Calvary, not the type
of Adam covenant; it's a Abrahamic covenant.
So, although we see them
both as a covenant, yet the one covenant is between two people and the other
has nothing to do with two people, for it is a passive covenant and not an
active one. It simply states this is what I am going to do for you period. Not,
“if you scratch my back
I will scratch yours,” But I will scratch yours whether you do mine or not”.
Unconditional, which means there are no conditions attached to it, and
therefore it is sovereignly given.
God's provided place of worship 65-0425
P:12 He also has two covenants. He had a
covenant with Adam, the first man on earth. And that covenant was on conditions, "If you do so-and-so, I'll do
so-and-so." Adam would had something to do in
order to keep this covenant alive before God. He had to walk in God's ways,
keeping all of His Word, not breaking one Word. But
then He made another covenant; that was with Abraham. This covenant was not on conditions, but was unconditionally. God gave the covenant
to Abraham, no strings tied to it at all: unconditional, not, "I will,"
"I have. I've already done it.” And
that's the law that Christians must live by. Is not what we do ourself, but what He has done for us. Christ has already
been sacrificed, not He will be; He has been. It's a
finished product. He lived, died, rose again, ascended into heaven, has come
back in the form of the Holy Ghost. So it's a finished
work with God. Christ, knowing no sin, became my sin; that I might stand in His
place, He took my place. I was in Him at Calvary when He died. There I must die
with Him to live. Because the law of sin and death is in the body, you have to die to be reconciled to Him.
Jehovah Jireh part 1 62-0705 P:22 Now,
there had been two covenants. One of them was the Adam covenant. God made a
covenant with the man, "If you
will, I will." And he broke it. Then God made a covenant with Noah;
that was the Noah covenant, and it was broke. Now, He's
making the Abrahamic covenant. And the Abrahamic covenant, according to Genesis
the 12th chapter, it was given unconditionally; therefore, it's eternal,
because it's unconditional. Not "if
you will, I will." He said, "I have. I've already done it." Not
"I will do it"; "I have done it." Oh, that bases faith.
See, not... God's determined to save man. He make a
covenant, "If you will, I will," he'd break it. Another one,
"You will, I will," he broke it. Man can't keep his covenant, so God saves man by His grace, under a
covenant that's unconditional, unconditional covenant. Oh, my. Never ending, that was all of it; three, perfect. Adam,
Noah, and Abraham. Now, that's the reason we are Abraham's children, that
covenant cannot never end, because it is unconditionally. It isn't because you
do something; it's because God did something. Not because you chose God; God
chose you.
Now a Cov·e·nant
is:
1. A binding agreement;
2. In Law is A formal sealed
agreement or contract.
3 In the
Bible, God's promise to the human race.
Martin Luther said concerning the law, Therefore you must not understand the word law
here in human fashion, is a regulation about what sort of works must be done or
must not be done. That's the way it is with human laws: you satisfy the demands
of the law with works, whether your heart is in it or not. God judges what is in the depths of the heart. Therefore
his law also makes demands on the depths of the heart and doesn't let the heart
rest content in works; rather it punishes as hypocrisy and lies all works done
apart from the depths of the heart. All human beings are called liars
(Psalm 116), since none of them keeps or can keep
God's law from the depths of the heart. Everyone finds inside himself an
aversion to good and a craving for evil. Where there is no free desire for
good, there the heart has not set itself on God's law. There also sin is surely
to be found and the deserved wrath of God, whether a lot of good works and an
honorable life appear outwardly or not.
Therefore, “No one is a doer of the law by works. On the
contrary, he says to them, "You teach that one should not commit adultery,
and you commit adultery. You judge another in a certain matter and condemn
yourselves in that same matter, because you do the very same thing that you
judged in another." It is as if he were saying, "Outwardly you live
quite properly in the works of the law and judge those who do not live the same
way; you know how to teach everybody. You see the speck in another's eye but do
not notice the beam in your own."
Now, this is where liberalism has gone to
seed. No one can tell me that liberalism is not a religion. The liberal is the
one who will tell you “judge not lest ye be judged”
and so instead of holding to God’s standard, he has no standard at all lest he
be judged by that standard. For in liberalism is the seed of discrepancy gone
amuck. The liberal feels guilt because of his good
fortune while others do not have, so they seek to appease themselves of their
guilt by giving social handouts to those who are lacking, and yet it is not
their own money they are so willing to give to others, but yours and mine. They
tax you and me so they can give to others to appease the sense of guilt. And so
too they hold to no standard because a standard, any standard they might be
found guilty of and to the liberal, guilt of conscience is the most grueling
form of punishment. So to appease their guilt they do
away with all standards that they might have to give an account for one day,
and they elect or select judges that reflect their lack of standards except of
course those standards that would put down any standard that is reflective of
God’s standards.
And so Luther says, Outwardly you keep the law with
works out of fear of punishment or love of gain. Likewise
you do everything without free desire and love of the law; you act out of aversion and force. You'd rather act otherwise if
the law didn't exist. It follows, then, that you, in the depths of your heart, are
an enemy of the law. What do you mean, therefore, by teaching another not to
steal, when you, in the depths of your heart, are a thief and would be one
outwardly too, if you dared. (Of course, outward work
doesn't last long with such hypocrites.) So then, you teach others but not
yourself; you don't even know what you are teaching. You've never understood
the law rightly. Furthermore, the law increases sin. That is because a person
becomes more and more an enemy of the law the more it demands of him what he
can't possibly do.
Paul tells us in Romans 7
"The law is spiritual." And so what does that mean? If the law were physical, then it could be
satisfied by works, but since it is spiritual, no one can satisfy it unless
everything he does springs from the
depths of the heart. But no one can give such a heart except the Spirit of
God, who makes the person be like the law, so that he actually conceives a
heartfelt longing for the law and henceforward does everything, not through fear or coercion, but from a
free heart.( Just like William Branham said, I am free
to do whatsoever I want to do. The main thing is that all I want to do is to
please the Lord.)
Such a law is spiritual since it can
only be loved and fulfilled by such a heart and such a spirit. If the
Spirit (Gods own Spirit) is not in the heart, then there remain sin, aversion and enmity against the law, which in itself is
good, just and holy. This we find
in 1 Corinthians chapter 2, that tells us no man can understand the things of
God except the Spirit of God be in him.
You must get used to the idea that it is one thing to
do the works of the law and quite another to fulfill it. The works of the law
are every thing that a
person does or can do of his own free will and by his own powers to obey the law.
But because in doing such works the heart abhors the law and yet is forced to
obey it, the works are a total loss and are completely useless. That is what
St. Paul means in chapter 3 when he says, "No human being is justified
before God through the works of the law." From this you can see that the
schoolmasters [i.e., the scholastic theologians] and sophists are seducers when
they teach that you can prepare yourself for grace by means of works. How can
anybody prepare himself for good by means of works if he does no good work
except with aversion and constraint in his heart? How can such a work please God, if it proceeds from an averse and unwilling heart?
But to fulfill the law means to do its work eagerly,
lovingly and freely, without the constraint of the law; it means to live well and in a manner pleasing to God, as though there were no law
or punishment. It is the Holy Spirit, however, who puts such eagerness of
unconstrained love into the heart, as Paul says in chapter 5. But the Spirit is
given only in, with, and through faith in Jesus Christ, as Paul says in his
introduction. So, too, faith comes only through the word of God, the Gospel,
that preaches Christ: how he is both Son of God and man, how he died and rose
for our sake. Paul says all this in chapters 3, 4 and 10.
That is why faith alone makes someone just and
fulfills the law; faith it is that brings the Holy Spirit through the merits of
Christ. The Spirit, in turn, renders the heart glad and free, as the law
demands. Then good works proceed from faith itself. That is what Paul means in
chapter 3 when, after he has thrown out the works of the law, he sounds as
though the wants to abolish the law by faith. No, he says, we uphold the law
through faith, i.e. we fulfill it through faith.
Sin in the Scriptures means not
only external works of the body but also all those movements within us which
bestir themselves and move us to do the external works, namely, the depth of
the heart with all its powers. Therefore the word do should refer to a person's
completely falling into sin. No external work of sin happens, after all, unless
a person commit himself to it completely, body and soul. In particular, the
Scriptures see into the heart, to the root and main source of all sin: unbelief
in the depth of the heart. Thus, even as faith alone makes just and brings the
Spirit and the desire to do good external works, so it is only unbelief which
sins and exalts the flesh and brings desire to do evil external works. That's
what happened to Adam and Eve in Paradise (cf. Genesis 3).
That is why only unbelief is called sin by Christ, as
he says in John, chapter 16, "The Spirit will punish the world because of
sin, because it does not believe in me." Furthermore, before good or bad
works happen, which are the good or bad fruits of the heart, there has to be present in the heart either faith or unbelief, the
root, sap and chief power of all sin. That is why, in the Scriptures, unbelief
is called the head of the serpent and of the ancient dragon which the offspring
of the woman, i.e. Christ, must crush, as was promised
to Adam (cf. Genesis 3). Grace
and gift differ in that grace actually denotes God's kindness or favor which he has toward
us and by which he is disposed to pour Christ and the Spirit with his gifts into
us, as becomes clear from chapter 5, where Paul says, "Grace and gift are
in Christ, etc." The gifts and the Spirit increase daily in us, yet they
are not complete, since evil desires and sins remain in us which war against
the Spirit, as Paul says in chapter 7, and in Galatians’, chapter 5. And
Genesis, chapter 3, proclaims the enmity between the offspring of the woman and
that of the serpent. But grace does do this much: that we are accounted
completely just before God. God's grace is not divided into bits and pieces, as
are the gifts, but grace takes us up completely into God's favor for the sake
of Christ, our intercessor and mediator, so that the gifts may begin their work
in us.
In this way, then, you should understand chapter 7,
where St. Paul portrays himself as still a sinner, while in chapter 8 he says
that, because of the incomplete gifts and because of the Spirit, there is
nothing damnable in those who are in Christ. Because our flesh has not been
killed, we are still sinners, but because we believe in Christ and have the
beginnings of the Spirit, God so shows us his favor and mercy, that he neither
notices nor judges such sins. Rather he deals with us according to our belief
in Christ until sin is killed.
Faith is not that human illusion and dream that some
people think it is. When they hear and talk a lot about faith and yet see that
no moral improvement and no good works result from it, they fall into error and
say, "Faith is not enough. You must do works if you want to be virtuous
and get to heaven." The result is that, when they hear the Gospel, they
stumble and make for themselves with their own powers a concept in their hearts
which says, "I believe." This concept they hold to be true faith. But
since it is a human fabrication and thought and not an experience of the heart,
it accomplishes nothing, and there follows no improvement.
Faith is a work of God in us, which changes us and
brings us to birth anew from God (cf. John 1). It kills the old Adam, makes us
completely different people in heart, mind, senses, and all our powers, and
brings the Holy Spirit with it. What a living, creative, active powerful thing
is faith! It is impossible that faith ever stop doing good. Faith doesn't ask
whether good works are to be done, but, before it is asked, it has done them.
It is always active. Whoever doesn't do such works is without faith; he gropes
and searches about him for faith and good works but doesn't know what faith or
good works are. Even so, he chatters on with a great many words about faith and
good works.
Faith is a living, unshakeable
confidence in God's grace; it is so certain, that someone would die a thousand
times for it. This kind of trust in and knowledge of God's grace makes a person
joyful, confident, and happy with regard to God and
all creatures. This is what the Holy Spirit does by faith. Through faith, a
person will do good to everyone without coercion, willingly and happily; he
will serve everyone, suffer everything for the love and praise of God, who has
shown him such grace. It is as impossible to separate works from faith as
burning and shining from fire. Therefore be on guard
against your own false ideas and against the chatterers who think they are
clever enough to make judgments about faith and good works but who are in
reality the biggest fools. Ask God to work faith in you; otherwise
you will remain eternally without faith, no matter what you try to do or
fabricate.
Now justice
is just such a faith. It is called God's justice or that justice
which is valid in God's sight, because it is God who gives it and reckons it as
justice for the sake of Christ our Mediator. It influences a person to give to
everyone what he owes him. Through faith
a person becomes sinless and eager for God's commands. Thus
he gives God the honor due him and pays him what he owes him. He serves people willingly with the means
available to him. In this way he pays everyone his due. Neither nature nor
free will nor our own powers can bring about such a justice, for even as no one
can give himself faith, so too he cannot remove unbelief. How can he then take
away even the smallest sin? Therefore everything which
takes place outside faith or in unbelief is lie, hypocrisy and sin (Romans 14),
no matter how smoothly it may seem to go.
You must not understand flesh here as denoting only
unchastity or spirit as denoting only the inner heart. Here St. Paul calls
flesh (as does Christ in John 3) everything born of flesh, i.e.
the whole human being with body and soul, reason and senses, since everything
in him tends toward the flesh. That is why you should know enough to call that
person "fleshly" who, without grace, fabricates, teaches
and chatters about high spiritual matters. You can learn the same thing from
Galatians, chapter 5, where St. Paul calls heresy and hatred works of the
flesh. And in Romans, chapter 8, he says that, through the flesh, the law is
weakened. He says this, not of unchastity, but of all sins, most of all of
unbelief, which is the most spiritual of vices.
On the other hand, you should know enough to call that
person "spiritual" who is occupied with the most outward of works as
was Christ, when he washed the feet of the disciples, and Peter, when he
steered his boat and fished. So then, a person is "flesh" who, inwardly
and outwardly, lives only to do those things which are of use to the flesh and
to temporal existence. A person is "spirit" who, inwardly and
outwardly, lives only to do those things which are of use to the spirit and to
the life to come.
Unless you understand these words in this way, you
will never understand either this letter of St. Paul or any book of the
Scriptures. Be on guard, therefore against any teacher who uses these words
differently, no matter who he be, whether Jerome, Augustine, Ambrose, Origin or anyone else as great as or greater than they. Now
let us turn to the letter itself.
The first duty of a preacher of the Gospel is, through
his revealing of the law and of sin, to rebuke and to turn into sin everything
in life that does not have the Spirit and faith in Christ as its base. [Here
and elsewhere in Luther's preface, as indeed in Romans itself, it is not clear
whether "spirit" has the meaning "Holy Spirit" or
"spiritual person," as Luther has previously defined it.] Thereby he
will lead people to a recognition of their miserable condition, and thus they
will become humble and yearn for help. This is what St Paul does. He begins in
chapter 1 by rebuking the gross sins and unbelief which are in plain view, as
were (and still are) the sins of the pagans, who live without God's grace. He
says that, through the Gospel, God is revealing his wrath from heaven upon all
mankind because of the godless and unjust lives they live. For, although they
know and recognize day by day that there is a God, yet human nature
in itself, without grace, is so evil that it neither thanks nor honors
God. This nature blinds itself and continually falls into wickedness, even
going so far as to commit idolatry and other horrible sins and vices. It is
unashamed of itself and leaves such things unpunished in others.
In chapter 2, St. Paul extends his rebuke to those who
appear outwardly pious or who sin secretly. Such were the Jews, and such are
all hypocrites still, who live virtuous lives but without eagerness and love;
in their heart they are enemies of God's law and like to judge other people.
That's the way with hypocrites: they think that they are pure but are actually full of greed, hate, pride and all sorts of filth
(cf. Matthew 23). These are they who despise God's goodness and, by their
hardness of heart, heap wrath upon themselves. Thus
Paul explains the law rightly when he lets no one remain without sin but
proclaims the wrath of God to all who want to live virtuously by nature or by
free will. He makes them out to be no better than public sinners; he says they
are hard of heart and unrepentant.
In chapter 3, Paul lumps both secret and public
sinners together: the one, he says, is like the other; all are sinners in the
sight of God. Besides, the Jews had God's word, even though many did not
believe in it. But still God's truth and faith in him are not thereby rendered
useless. St. Paul introduces, as an aside, the saying from Psalm 51, that God
remains true to his words. Then he returns to his topic and proves from
Scripture that they are all sinners and that no one becomes just through the
works of the law but that God gave the law only so
that sin might be perceived.
Next St. Paul teaches the right way to be virtuous and
to be saved; he says that they are all sinners, unable to glory in God. They
must, however, be justified through faith in Christ, who has merited this for
us by his blood and has become for us a mercy seat [cf. Exodus 25:17, Leviticus
16:14ff, and John 2:2] in the presence of God, who forgives us all our previous
sins. In so doing, God proves that it is his justice alone, which he gives
through faith, that helps us, the justice which was at the appointed time
revealed through the Gospel and, previous to that, was
witnessed to by the Law and the Prophets. Therefore
the law is set up by faith, but the works of the law, along with the glory
taken in them, are knocked down by faith. [As with the term "spirit,"
the word "law" seems to have for Luther, and for St. Paul, two
meanings. Sometimes it means "regulation about what must be done or not
done," as in the third paragraph of this preface; sometimes it means
"the Torah," as in the previous sentence. And sometimes it seems to
have both meanings, as in what follows.]
In chapters 1 to 3, St. Paul has revealed sin for what
it is and has taught the way of faith which leads to justice. Now in chapter 4
he deals with some objections and criticisms. He takes up first the one that people
raise who, on hearing that faith make just without works, say, "What?
Shouldn't we do any good works?" Here St. Paul holds up Abraham as an
example. He says, "What did Abraham accomplish with his good works? Were
they all good for nothing and useless?" He concludes that Abraham was made
righteous apart from all his works by faith alone. Even before the
"work" of his circumcision, Scripture praises him as being just on
account of faith alone (cf. Genesis 15). Now if the work of his circumcision
did nothing to make him just, a work that God had commanded him to do and hence
a work of obedience, then surely no other good work can do anything to make a
person just. Even as Abraham's circumcision was an outward sign with which he
proved his justice based on faith, so too all good works are only outward signs
which flow from faith and are the fruits of faith; they prove that the person
is already inwardly just in the sight of God.
St. Paul verifies his teaching on faith in chapter 3
with a powerful example from Scripture. He calls as witness David, who says in
Psalm 32 that a person becomes just without works but doesn't remain without
works once he has become just. Then Paul extends this example and applies it
against all other works of the law. He concludes that the Jews cannot be
Abraham's heirs just because of their blood relationship to him and still less
because of the works of the law. Rather, they have to
inherit Abraham’s faith if they want to be his real heirs, since it was prior
to the Law of Moses and the law of circumcision that Abraham became just
through faith and was called a father of all believers. St. Paul adds that the
law brings about more wrath than grace, because no one obeys it with love and
eagerness. More disgrace than grace come from the works of the law. Therefore faith alone can obtain the grace promised to
Abraham. Examples like these are written for our sake, that we also should have
faith.
In chapter 5, St. Paul comes to the fruits and works
of faith, namely: joy, peace, love for God and for all people; in addition:
assurance, steadfastness, confidence, courage, and hope in sorrow and
suffering. All of these follow where faith is genuine,
because of the overflowing good will that God has shown in Christ: he had him
die for us before we could ask him for it, yes, even while we were still his
enemies. Thus we have established that faith, without
any good works, makes just. It does not follow from that, however, that we
should not do good works; rather it means that morally upright works do not
remain lacking. About such works the "works-holy" people know
nothing; they invent for themselves their own works in which are neither peace
nor joy nor assurance nor love nor hope nor steadfastness nor any kind of
genuine Christian works or faith.
Next St. Paul makes a digression, a pleasant little
side-trip, and relates where both sin and justice, death and life come from. He
opposes these two: Adam and Christ. What he wants to say is that Christ, a
second Adam, had to come in order to make us heirs of
his justice through a new spiritual birth in faith, just as the old Adam made
us heirs of sin through the old fleshy birth.
St. Paul proves, by this reasoning, that a person
cannot help himself by his works to get from sin to justice any more than he
can prevent his own physical birth. St. Paul also proves that the divine law,
which should have been well-suited, if anything was, for helping people to
obtain justice, not only was no help at all when it did come, but it even
increased sin. Evil human nature, consequently, becomes more hostile to it; the
more the law forbids it to indulge its own desires, the more it wants to. Thus the law makes Christ all the more necessary and demands
more grace to help human nature.
In chapter 6, St. Paul takes up the special work of
faith, the struggle which the spirit wages against the flesh to kill off those
sins and desires that remain after a person has been made just. He teaches us
that faith doesn't so free us from sin that we can be idle, lazy
and self-assured, as though there were no more sin in us. Sin is there, but,
because of faith that struggles against it, God does not reckon sin as
deserving damnation. Therefore we have in our own
selves a lifetime of work cut out for us; we have to tame our body, kill its
lusts, force its members to obey the spirit and not the lusts. We must do this
so that we may conform to the death and resurrection of Christ and complete our
Baptism, which signifies a death to sin and a new life of grace. Our aim is to
be completely clean from sin and then to rise bodily with Christ and live
forever.
St. Paul says that we can accomplish all this because
we are in grace and not in the law. He explains that to be "outside the
law" is not the same as having no law and being able to do what you
please. No, being "under the law" means living without grace,
surrounded by the works of the law. Then surely sin reigns by means of the law,
since no one is naturally well-disposed toward the law. That very condition,
however, is the greatest sin. But grace makes the law lovable to us, so there
is then no sin any more, and the law is no longer
against us but one with us.
This is true freedom from sin and from the law; St.
Paul writes about this for the rest of the chapter. He says it is a freedom
only to do good with eagerness and to live a good life without the coercion of
the law. This freedom is, therefore, a spiritual freedom which does not suspend
the law but which supplies what the law demands,
namely eagerness and love. These silence the law so that it has no further
cause to drive people on and make demands of them. It's as though you owed
something to a moneylender and couldn't pay him. You could be rid of him in one
of two ways: either he would take nothing from you and would tear up his
account book, or a pious man would pay for you and give you what you needed to
satisfy your debt. That's exactly how Christ freed us from the law. Therefore our freedom is not a wild, fleshy freedom that has
no obligation to do anything. On the contrary, it is a freedom that does a
great deal, indeed everything, yet is free of the law's demands and debts.
In chapter 7, St. Paul confirms the foregoing by an
analogy drawn from married life. When a man dies, the wife is free; the one is
free and clear of the other. It is not the case that the woman may not or
should not marry another man; rather she is now for the first time free to
marry someone else. She could not do this before she was free of her first
husband. In the same way, our conscience is bound to the law so long as our
condition is that of the sinful old man. But when the old man is killed by the
spirit, then the conscience is free, and conscience and law are quit of each
other. Not that conscience should now do nothing; rather, it should now for the
first time truly cling to its second husband, Christ, and bring forth the fruit
of life.
Next St. Paul sketches further the nature of sin and
the law. It is the law that makes sin really active
and powerful, because the old man gets more and more hostile to the law since
he can't pay the debt demanded by the law. Sin is his very nature; of himself
he can't do otherwise. And so the law is his death and
torture. Now the law is not itself evil; it is our evil nature that cannot
tolerate that the good law should demand good from it. It's like the case of a
sick person, who cannot tolerate that you demand that he run and jump around
and do other things that a healthy person does.
St. Paul concludes here that, if we understand the law
properly and comprehend it in the best possible way, then we will see that its
sole function is to remind us of our sins, to kill us by our sins, and to make
us deserving of eternal wrath. Conscience learns and
experiences all this in detail when it comes face to face with the law. It
follows, then, that we must have something else, over and above the law, which
can make a person virtuous and cause him to be saved. Those, however, who do
not understand the law rightly are blind; they go their way boldly and think
they are satisfying the law with works. They don't know how much the law
demands, namely, a free, willing, eager heart. That is the reason that they
don't see Moses rightly before their eyes. [In both Jewish and Christian
teaching, Moses was commonly held to be the author of the Pentateuch, the first
five books of the bible. Cf. the involved imagery of Moses' face and the veil
over it in 2 Corinthians 3:7-18.] For them he is covered and concealed by the
veil.
Then St. Paul shows how spirit and flesh struggle with
each other in one person. He gives himself as an example, so that we may learn
how to kill sin in ourselves. He gives both spirit and flesh the name
"law," so that, just as it is in the nature of
divine law to drive a person on and make demands of him, so too the flesh
drives and demands and rages against the spirit and wants to have its own way. Likewise the spirit drives and demands against the flesh and
wants to have its own way. This feud lasts in us for as long as we live, in one
person more, in another less, depending on whether spirit or flesh is stronger.
Yet the whole human being is both: spirit and flesh. The human being fights
with himself until he becomes completely spiritual.
In chapter 8, St. Paul comforts fighters such as these
and tells them that this flesh will not bring them condemnation. He goes on to
show what the nature of flesh and spirit are. Spirit, he says, comes from
Christ, who has given us his Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit makes us spiritual
and restrains the flesh. The Holy Spirit assures us that we are God's children
no matter how furiously sin may rage within us, so long as we follow the Spirit
and struggle against sin in order to kill it. Because
nothing is so effective in deadening the flesh as the cross and suffering, Paul
comforts us in our suffering. He says that the Spirit, [cf. previous note about
the meaning of "spirit."] love and all creatures will stand by us;
the Spirit in us groans and all creatures long with us that we be freed from
the flesh and from sin. Thus we see that these three
chapters, 6, 7 and 8, all deal with the one work of faith, which is to kill the
old Adam and to constrain the flesh.
In chapters 9, 10 and 11, St. Paul teaches us about
the eternal providence of God. It is the original source which determines who
would believe and who wouldn't, who can be set free from sin and who cannot.
Such matters have been taken out of our hands and are put into God's hands so
that we might become virtuous. It is absolutely necessary
that it be so, for we are so weak and unsure of ourselves that, if it depended
on us, no human being would be saved. The devil would overpower all of us. But
God is steadfast; his providence will not fail, and no one can prevent its
realization. Therefore we have hope against sin.
But here we must shut the mouths of those sacrilegious
and arrogant spirits who, mere beginners that they are, bring their reason to
bear on this matter and commence, from their exalted position, to probe the
abyss of divine providence and uselessly trouble themselves about whether they
are predestined or not. These people must surely plunge to their ruin, since they will either despair or abandon themselves
to a life of chance.
You, however, follow the reasoning of this letter in
the order in which it is presented. Fix your attention first
of all on Christ and the Gospel, so that you may recognize your sin and
his grace. Then struggle against sin, as chapters 1-8 have taught you to.
Finally, when you have come, in chapter 8, under the shadow of the cross and
suffering, they will teach you, in chapters 9-11, about providence and what a
comfort it is. [The context here and in St. Paul's letter makes it clear that
this is the cross and passion, not only of Christ, but of each Christian.]
Apart from suffering, the cross and the pangs of death, you cannot come to
grips with providence without harm to yourself and secret anger against God.
The old Adam must be quite dead before you can endure this matter and drink
this strong wine. Therefore make sure you don't drink
wine while you are still a babe at the breast. There is a proper measure, time and age for understanding every doctrine.
In chapter 12, St. Paul teaches the true liturgy and
makes all Christians priests, so that they may offer, not money or cattle, as
priests do in the Law, but their own bodies, by putting their desires to death.
Next he describes the outward conduct of Christians
whose lives are governed by the Spirit; he tells how they teach, preach, rule,
serve, give, suffer, love, live and act toward friend, foe and everyone. These
are the works that a Christian does, for, as I have said, faith is not idle.
In chapter 13, St. Paul teaches that one should honor
and obey the secular authorities. He includes this, not because it makes people
virtuous in the sight of God, but because it does insure
that the virtuous have outward peace and protection and that the wicked cannot
do evil without fear and in undisturbed peace. Therefore
it is the duty of virtuous people to honor secular authority, even though they
do not, strictly speaking, need it. Finally, St. Paul sums up everything in
love and gathers it all into the example of Christ: what he has done for us, we
must also do and follow after him.
In chapter 14, St. Paul teaches that one should
carefully guide those with weak conscience and spare them. One shouldn't use
Christian freedom to harm but rather to help the weak. Where that isn't done,
there follow dissention and despising of the Gospel, on which everything else
depends. It is better to give way a little to the weak in faith until they
become stronger than to have the teaching of the Gospel perish completely. This
work is a particularly necessary work of love especially now when people, by
eating meat and by other freedoms, are brashly, boldly
and unnecessarily shaking weak consciences which have not yet come to know the
truth.
In chapter 15, St. Paul cites Christ as an example to
show that we must also have patience with the weak, even those who fail by
sinning publicly or by their disgusting morals. We must not cast them aside but
must bear with them until they become better. That is the way Christ treated us
and still treats us every day; he puts up with our vices, our wicked morals and
all our imperfection, and he helps us ceaselessly. Finally
Paul prays for the Christians at Rome; he praises them and commends them to
God. He points out his own office and the message that he preaches. He makes an
unobtrusive plea for a contribution for the poor in Jerusalem. Unalloyed love
is the basis of all he says and does.
The last chapter consists of greetings. But Paul also
includes a salutary warning against human doctrines which are preached
alongside the Gospel and which do a great deal of
harm. It's as though he had clearly seen that out of Rome and through the Romans
would come the deceitful, harmful Canons and Decretals along with the entire
brood and swarm of human laws and commands that is now drowning the whole world
and has blotted out this letter and the whole of the Scriptures, along with the
Spirit and faith. Nothing remains but the idol Belly, and St. Paul depicts
those people here as its servants. God deliver us from them. Amen.
We find in this letter, then, the richest possible
teaching about what a Christian should know: the meaning of law, Gospel, sin,
punishment, grace, faith, justice, Christ, God, good works, love, hope and the
cross. We learn how we are to act toward everyone, toward the virtuous and
sinful, toward the strong and the weak, friend and foe, and toward ourselves.
Paul bases everything firmly on Scripture and proves his points with examples
from his own experience and from the Prophets, so that nothing more could be
desired. Therefore it seems that St. Paul, in writing
this letter, wanted to compose a summary of the whole of Christian and
evangelical teaching which would also be an introduction to the whole Old
Testament. Without doubt, whoever takes this letter to heart possesses the
light and power of the Old Testament. Therefore each
and every Christian should make this letter the habitual and constant object of
his study. God grant us his grace to do so. Amen.