Blog In Audio:
Greetings,
Blessings to you all in this final month of the year. We had a great time yesterday at Alife Church. Jesus was in the house and there was a prophetic Spirit that testified of His presence. I am fully embracing what God is doing and is about to do in our new year. I have a great expectancy. Let me continue again today on the topic of God’s mercy and grace.
The apostle Paul was a former Pharisee of Pharisees, but God’s grace transformed him to become a light unto the Gentile world. He found the testimony of both God’s mercy and grace. God’s mercy freed him from the bondage of the law, and he found the liberty of being joined to God in the Spirit. Paul’s desire was that his own countrymen, the Jewish people, would also embrace the freedom of being joined to God by the power of His grace. For this reason, he challenged those who had been bound to the law to embrace the grace of God found in Christ.
In Roman’s chapter 7 Paul writes concerning marriage, death, and remarriage. He was not really addressing marriage. He was presenting a truth concerning law and grace. One was a covenant of bondage but the other was a live-giving covenant of grace. He was presenting that you cannot be married to grace while you are married to law. In Christ, the law has died and thus in Christ we can all be joined to the life-giving covenant of grace.
Romans 7:1 Or do you not know, brethren (for I speak to those who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives? 2 For the woman who has a husband is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives. But if the husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband. 3 So then if, while her husband lives, she marries another man, she will be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from that law, so that she is no adulteress, though she has married another man. 4 Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another—to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God. 5 For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death. 6 But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.
The first Adam (our old man) was bound to the law through an administration of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In the administration of the knowledge of good and evil, all men are bound to some form of law. The conscience of mankind is only the conviction of our own spirits that cries out for freedom from the judgment of law. The laws of men, and the law of God, hold humanity into a bondage of information and a judgment of death. Jesus fulfilled the requirements of the law for us, and He died upon our family tree of the knowledge of good and evil to allow each of us to be submerged (baptized) into His death. Our death in Him freed us from the bondage of a relationship with the law that only leads to death. In this, the law died in our lives, and we can now be joined to God in Christ by God’s grace. God grace brings the newness of the Spirit into our lives. God’s grace is the life-giving power of God that transforms our lives from within.
Romans 7:7 What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, “You shall not covet.” 8 But sin, taking opportunity by the commandment, produced in me all manner of evil desire. For apart from the law sin was dead. 9 I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. 10 And the commandment, which was to bring life, I found to bring death. 11 For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it killed me. 12 Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good.
What purpose was the law? The law exposed sin and the weakness of our hearts. The law is holy and good but without God’s presence within us we are only judged by it. The law informs us of our failures, but God’s grace transforms our lives to be changed. Grace is God’s unmerited favor of His living and active presence in our lives that brings about real change in our character, nature, and way in life. Let’s all be married to Christ by His manifest presence abiding in our lives. This is grace!
Blessings,
Ted J. Hanson
Donations can be made at the link on the home site of:
Checks can be made payable to House of Bread Ministry and sent to:
House of Bread Ministry, 3210 Meridian St., Bellingham, WA 98225
To avoid us paying a transaction fee from your donation, you can also set up a payment or an automatic payment from your bank to House of Bread Ministry. Just set it up as a ‘bill pay’ through your online bank account and your bank will mail a check to House of Bread Ministry. We will record your payment as a donation to House of Bread Ministry (E.I.N. 91-2009037) and we will send you a contribution receipt at the close of the year.
Our Ministry Information Is:
House of Bread Ministry
3210 Meridian St.
Bellingham, WA 98225-1728
