I started reading ‘Surprised by Grace’ byTullian Tchividjian recently & had only read a couple of pages when I realised that my understanding of Law & Gospel hadn’t always been as it is now and it has really only been changing I guess over the last 6months. I’ve found that I understand it now. Perhaps not in its entirety or true depth, but it does actually make sense. Plus I don’t think I really understood the gospel until I really understood the Law.
I remember reading & hearing those words in Romans 7, Paul talking about the Law and it always confused me, and I didn’t ask qtns about it because it was like I should already know, after all I was brought up in the church. I don’t remember anyone having explained what the Law was – it was always stated the law this & the law that – the Law was a set of rules that needed to be followed & the Pharisees did that well, but we shouldn’t be like them. I didn’t get that the Law was good. I did get that the Law was to show sin (well I believed it, perhaps not “got” it), but didn’t understand how. Paul was just totally confusing. I also used to think I had the gospel confused – perhaps the gospel was something else other than Jesus dying for our sin etc. I always thought I was missing something. There was the “gospel” and the “good news” and so much “churchese” or theological talk – I thought people were talking about different things, but it was all actually the same thing!
Now I read it and can’t see how I didn’t see it before, yet I am still close enough to remember how confusing it all was– WE NEED TO TEACH THIS CLEARLY TO OUR KIDS & the ‘young people’ in the church. Heck, EVERYONE!
How did we get the message that the gospel is only for the unsaved and not for those who are saved?! Is it our own blindness & self-righteousness that has got in the way? I don’t believe it is just me who has been trapped in this lie.
We need the Law AND we need the GOSPEL. We need to know the commands of God and that he demands perfection. The Law shows us that we cannot meet these demands. However, the Gospel shows us that those demands have been met in Jesus Christ. We need to hear the Gosepl every day of our lives.
John Bond, Senior Pastor of Lifestreams Christian Church, stated recently in his series on The Passionate Disciple, "I think the whole purpose of this journey and the wrestling with these commands and this teaching is to bring us on our faces before Christ, for Him to show us what that looks like. Because the picture is, and I don’t want you to forget this, He’s the goal. The goal is not even the lost or the poor, the goal is Christ. We want Christ, and He is the centre that drives us. And that’s the whole beauty of this thing because when he’s the centre, then anything that even begins to seem like sacrifice is no longer sacrifice, because the One who died on a cross and rose from the grave and ascended on high and has given eternal life freely to us, He’s the goal."
The goal is Christ! It is Christ who saves us from the demands of the law. It is Christ who enables us to do his work. With Christ all things are possible.
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