I have been unresponsive to your teachings because I am processing, as it were. You have been hammering away at legalism and I know I teach the same things, but I feel a certain check.This recent forward(and I know to whom you refer) is a good touch stone for a limited blip of a response........What I am suggesting is that we, and I do mean "we", because I previously stated that I teach the same things, "we" must consider the whole enchilada. The fear of the Lord did not disappear under the new covenant. It is mentioned many times in the New Teastament, and it means what it says! By that I mean the word for fear does not translate into some warm fuzzy, reader friendly thing.And there are many examples.It was not an evil spirit that snuffed out Annanias and Sapphira! John (the disciple Jesus loved, the one who was most intimate) fell at His feet as though dead when he saw him as He is.......Couple that with the carnal life styles of so much of the church and I personally see room for error to continue to run rampant.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My Response:
I think we need to be careful because we may now use Fear, as the Law has been used in the past, as a Standard of relating to God.... I will call it, "The Law of Fear." It is my contention, that we only relate/connect with God by the In-Christed "Life," Becoming Who We Already Are.
Rom 7:4-11 "Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death. But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter. What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? May it never be! On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the Law; for I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, "YOU SHALL NOT COVET." But sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind; for apart from the Law sin is dead. I was once alive apart from the Law; but when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died; and this commandment, which was to result in life, proved to result in death for me; for sin, taking an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me."
Rom 5:20 The Law came in so that the transgression would increase; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more
Rom 3:20 because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin.
2Co 3:6 who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
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It is interesting how we Christians continue to hold up a Standard/Measuring stick(Law)other than the Standard/Law of Jesus Christ. For we have bought into this mentality, that apart from a governing standard, rule, work,(fear) etc.....we will quickly fall away into carnality. I am here to announce to each of you, that if you do Raise up a Standard, other than the Standard/Law of Christ, you will surely fail. Let me try to explain!
Below, I am going to list some of the things that the "Law" was purposed by God to accomplish.
[Hear me, I am not condoning poor behavior, I am emphatically stating, it will never get better by trying....(Do's and don'ts).]
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Purpose of the Law
1. Sinful passions aroused by the Law
2. Come to know sin through the Law.
3. Increases sin, (But sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind), The Law came in so that the transgression would increase.
4. The Law ultimately brings Death. (But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound (the Law).... for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
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My friend Dan Stone put it this way, "Do you realize that Law and Grace can never flow together. You can never marry the two. Paul challenged the Galatians saying, You have to make a choice, Galatians. Are you going to live under law, or under grace? Paul wasn't saying that if they stepped back into the law, they wouldn't be saved anymore. But he was telling them, "If you go back to the law, you're giving up the way of grace. Now, let me tell you something about the way of the law, Galatians: you have to keep it all."
They couldn't just pick out the law they wanted to keep. That's what I used to do. I'd pick out those parts of Mosaic Law, Sermon on the Mount law, Baptist law, my personal law, and whatever other law I thought I could keep at least some of the time. I didn't see that law and grace are mortal enemies. I didn't see that you can't live under both.
It made sense to me to be religious. It made sense to be an external Christian, trying to keep an external set of rules. I couldn't do anything else, because I had always been an external person. So were you. We all grew up as external people, defining ourselves in relation to other persons, things, and events that told us who we were. That's why as new Christians we were so prone to asking external questions: "What should I do?"
There's no life in the law. The only thing the law tells you is what you ought to do, but can't do. It will never relinquish its demand that you ought to do it, because it's a divine ought-to; God gave it to Moses. We'll keep ourselves under that divine ought-to, and the condemnation and death ministers (2 Corinthians 3), until we learn to live from the Person who dwells within us. Because there's nothing in our flesh that wants to say, "I can't do it. I can't keep the law through my own effort." Everything in our flesh says, "I want to try to do it, and with God's help maybe I can do it."
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Do you realize that every time you begin to place yourself back under a Standard/Law, the entire "law" process begins again. Sin is aroused, made Known, Increased, Embellished, and Ultimately brings Death. Now, if you are a believer, you have embraced a mere illusion perpetrated by the devil, and this is not God's reality because you are dead to sin, and alive to Jesus Christ. Whenever you begin to seemingly fall away or live carnally, you have placed yourself back under the law with a view toward the dead..... the law does what it was designed to do. But, God has said that you are no longer under the Law but under Grace, Rom 6:14. And sin cannot be imputed to your account, when there is no law, Rom 5:13.
Stop living in the devil's fantasy land and begin embracing the Reality of Jesus Christ." ....it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me." "Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. Rom 8: 1-2.
Consider this, If you ever feel condemned by yourself or another, I am here to declare it is not from the Lord but from the devil.
It is my prayer that the church will begin to embrace the Reality of who God says we are versus the illusion the devil wants each of us to succumb to. The only way to live the Victorious/Supernatural "Life" is by another, Jesus Christ.
It’s really a matter of becoming who we ALREADY ARE in Spirit, in Christ... bringing that finished work to manifestation in our individual and corporate Life. Let us press on to the ‘mark’ of manifesting the Life of Christ in the world, “because as He IS, so are WE in this world.” (1 John 4:17)
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I would like to end this message with some words from my friend, Paul Rupe.
"When looking at the word "Fear" which in the Greek is "Phobos" which means "Fear, dread, terror" its important to remember that it also has the meaning of "Reverence."
As I've grown in grace I find myself keeping the finished work of Christ in the forefront of my thinking when it comes to verses that don’t really seem to line up with the message of God’s grace.
When comparing scripture with scripture it's easy to see that God is love 1John 4: 8, that there is no fear in love because perfect love casts out all fear (1John 4:18.)
So Acts 9:31 can't mean a kind of fear that shrinks back in terror from the Lord being afraid of what He might do to us if we mess up. If it does then not only are these verses in direct conflict with Paul's message of our righteousness in Christ, but also they are in conflict with the verse that you had mentioned.
What is the fear of the Lord? I believe that in order to correctly divide God's Word on the subject we only find one option in reference to these verses that speak of fearing the Lord.
I believe that the option is understanding that when it says "fear" then the writer was talking about "Reverence" for God and a "Dread" of doing something that would make Him sad because we love Him so much(because He first loved us.)
Again, the "fear" these writers mention is not...
A fear of God's retribution because there is no condemnation for those in Christ (Romans 8:1.)
Running around trembling at the thought of God - The children of Israel trembled when they thought about God but God has delivered us from that servile kind of fear (Romans 8:15.)
Trying to gain God's acceptance by doing good deeds and abstaining from the evil ones - because God's acceptance is by grace, not of works lest any man should boast (Ephesians 2:8-9.)
So again, my take on it is that the fear of God is a reverence for God and a dread of doing anything that would cause Him grief because we know He loves us."
"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, but the love of the Lord is the finished end."
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