The Spirit-Filled Life: Founded Upon Grace: Book 2 by Eddie Snipes

Author:Eddie Snipes [Snipes, Eddie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Exchanged Life Publishing
Published: 2015-05-16T07:00:00+00:00

There are two things I want you to see in this passage. God made no distinction between the Jews who were under the law and the Gentiles who were outside of the Old Testament law. He purified their hearts by faith.

Faith in Christ is the ONLY requirement God has put on any believer. You are purified by faith. When you believe, God accounts you as righteous, which means He credits you with His own righteousness. The Bible says, “You are the righteousness of God in Christ.”[43] This is why Jesus can say, “You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.” You hear the word, which is the gospel of grace through Christ, and when you believe, you are cleansed by the power of the Holy Spirit.

There is no such thing as partial cleansing. It is not a partnership where if we do our part of keeping the law, God will reward us by doing His part. Our only role is faith. God reveals through faith, and calls us to believe in what He has revealed. When we believe, we are made clean. Once the Spirit cleanses us, that is the completed work of God. Period. What God has cleansed, no man can call unclean.

The second thing to note is the declaration that the yoke of the law was a burden that the Jews of that day couldn’t bear, nor could their fathers bear. No one disputed this truth. Even Jesus said this when He told the Jewish leaders, “None of you keeps the law.”[44] They wanted to condemn Jesus to death, but none of them disputed the truth that they were not keeping the law. They did their best, but according to the Bible, even one offense makes you guilty of the whole law.[45]

The main part of the dispute was the law’s demand that a person be circumcised. Though circumcision was the focus at that moment, the heart of the problem was going back to the law. To go back to a system which was designed to be a foreshadow of Christ, would now be a denial of Christ.

The apostles spoke of the unbearable yoke of the law. The yoke of the law was not circumcision, for this procedure was done shortly after birth. Once completed, it was in the past. The purpose of their opposition was that circumcision was the demand to put the Gentiles under the law. Then they would be under the yoke of burden, which is trying to keep the law. The same law that neither the apostles, nor their forefathers could bear. Why put the Christian under a system which was done away with in Christ?[46] Yet the Judaizers (Jewish Christians teaching the law), were trying to put on the Gentile Christians a legal system that was impossible to fulfill.

Christ redeemed us out of the law, but as Galatians says, “You who desire to be under the law have fallen from grace.” This is a critical truth. Look at Romans 6:14

For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.

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