Living by a Higher Law

MEMORY SELECTION: “Think not that I come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.” —Matthew 5:17

SELECTED SCRIPTURE: Matthew 5:38-48

THE first advent of Jesus marked the beginning of a change in dispensations. The old dispensation was the Jewish Age. Its beginning was with the Jewish nation when God, through Moses, inaugurated the Law Covenant at Mount Sinai.

The terms of the Law Covenant were designed by God to be a measure of a perfect man’s ability to keep. In fact, the promise was that if any man could keep them, he would prove his worthiness of everlasting life. Leviticus 18:5 reads, “Ye shall therefore keep my statutes, and my judgments: which if a man do, he shall live in them: I am the Lord.”

But since all men had inherited adamic weaknesses, none could keep God’s perfect law; for even though he kept it all but one point, he would be guilty of all. (James 2:10) The Apostle Paul in Romans 7:10,11 states, “And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me.” In the context of the chapter the apostle elaborates, stating that regardless of how hard he tried he was not able to live above the weaknesses of his flesh. In verses 24, 25 he concludes, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the Law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.”

The Apostle Paul continues in Romans 8:1-4, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, … For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin [for a sin offering, Diaglott], condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”

So while it is not necessary for the Christian to keep the letter of the law, he must keep the spirit of it. That is, the Christian must so love the concept of God’s law that if it were possible for him to keep it he would do so gladly, even eagerly. This being so, God can and does look at the heart and counts the heart desire or intention as if it were accomplished in the letter, “that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”

This of course was a new concept to the Jews, and so in the 5th chapter of Matthew, Jesus gives several examples to illustrate what he means by keeping the Spirit of the law. In the first place, this does not mean that there is any less responsibility for righteousness, for he states in Matthew 5:20, “For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.”

In verses 21,22 of Matthew 5 we read, “Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: but I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment.”

In verses 43-46 the Lord summarizes the philosophy of the higher law of the Spirit, “Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?”

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