Simply put, God is love (1 Jn. 4:8). The Law is God’s love letter to His most prized creation–mankind. In His Law the Lord reveals to man how to spend eternity with man’s loving Creator. Sin is the transgression of God’s Law. Wrath is God’s response to the sinner’s negative attitude, words and actions relative to His Law. God does not change, nor is He a respecter of persons. It is man who determines whether one receives blessings or curses from God now and in the future. It is God’s Word (Law/Light/Gospel/Truth) which man must choose to obey and be blessed, or disobey and be cursed. As I have so often pointed out: EVERYTHING COMES BACK TO THE WORD OF GOD.

God’s Law, like everything else, has a source. God’s Law is formed by His character, His very nature. Look at the universe with its trillions of stars, planets, etc. God has named every star and calls each by its name (Ps. 147:4). He knows the hairs of our heads (Lk. 12:7) and knows each sparrow (Lk. 12:6). He knows each one of us and has given us His Law to guide us to Him by being like Him. GOD’S LAW RECORDS HIS THOUGHTS AND DEEDS WHICH WE MUST EMULATE IN ORDER TO WALK WITH HIM AND LIVE ETERNALLY IN HIS PRESENCE. As the Apostle Peter tells us, “Be holy AS your Father in heaven is holy” and “Be holy BECAUSE your Father in heaven is holy” (1 Pet. 1:15,16; 2:5,9). “Like Father–like child” is God’s mantra. There is no other way into His kingdom.

Since God is love, His Law can be summarized in one word: love. Jesus said that the Law goes in two directions which true Godly love takes the one who has it: love toward God and love toward one’s neighbor (Mat. 22:36-40). The Law is divided into ten points (Commandments), the first four of which relate to man’s love for God and the final six to his love for his fellow man (Exo. 20/ Deut. 5).

God’s Law was designed to reveal to man God’s perfect way of life. Any deviation from that way causes problems. Every type of human suffering and misery is the direct result of man’s refusal to obey God’s Law. Read Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28 where God’s “cause and effect rule” is explained perfectly. Simply put: obey His Law and be blessed; disobey His Law and be cursed. God does not change, neither do His rules to live by. We must fit into His commanded framework of life in order to reap the rewards promised. Note also that He is both the Blesser and the Curser. His Son is both the Lamb and the Lion. They are not what we have been told in Sunday School. They are not the sugar daddies Satan’s salvation whores behind the pulpits, on t.v. and radio, in the park and on the street corner make them out to be. Their “God’s love is unconditional” mantra is a Satanic lie. An old church hymn states that no matter how many time we sin, “He’ll always say, ‘I forgive.'” That is the church god, not the Biblical God. Read about God’s conditional love. Key word–Conditional.

Love is the fulfilling of the Law (Rom. 13:8,10). Jesus fulfilled God’s Law perfectly, thereby setting us a perfect example to follow–to “walk as He walked” (1 Jn. 2:6) and to “… overcome (temptation) as I (He) overcame” (Rev. 3:21). We fulfill God’s edict to love Him and prove it by obeying His Law (Jn. 15:10; 10:15,23/ Mat. 19:17). Man’s natural, carnal love that is part of his nature is not sufficient to fulfill God’s love commandments. We must have “the love of God shed abroad in our hearts (minds) by the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 5:5). The Holy Spirit abiding within us and acting through us is God’s Law in action. Therefore, if we fulfill God’s royal Law, we do well. But if not, we commit sin (Jam. 2:9). James tells us that if we keep the whole Law and yet transgress one part of it, we have broken the entire Law, making us “workers of iniquity” which Jesus said He would reject on the Day of Judgment (Mat. 7:23). Recall Jesus telling the rich man that, because he lacked ONE THING, that he could not receive salvation. That one thing involved the man’s lust for things. Notice that Jesus was referring to the Ten Commandments which the salvation seeker must obey (Mk. 10:17-22). That sounds like a condition (caveat) to me.

Jesus Christ was the ultimate example of obedience to the Law. Those who have attended church over the years have been told that Jesus came to earth to abolish God’s Law, that the Law was an Old Testament set of rules designed only for ancient Israel, and that it was “nailed to the cross” at the time of His death. Yet He plainly stated: “Do not think that I came to abolish the Law and the writings of the prophets. I did not come to destroy the Law, but to fulfill it” (Mat. 5:17). He came to earth to “magnify the Law and make it honorable” (among men) (Isa. 42:21). When we view the Ten Commandments in a magnified (“fine print”) way we learn to grasp both the spiritual and the material aspects of it. For example, God’s command not to commit adultery or fornication is magnified by Christ’s statement that if we look at another person with lust, we have already sinned in our hearts (Mat. 5:27,28). The Law is the basis for all Scripture. It defines the Lord’s way of life as exemplified by Jesus Christ. These examples show that sin against God’s spiritual Law begins in the mind and must be stopped there and cast out from there. Sin takes place in the heart (mind) when we fail to deal with it. We must, through the power of the Holy Spirit, stop it there and kick it out. We must not allow it to develop into sin (Jam. 1:14,15). We must repent not only of a specific sin, but of sin in general. We must allow God to cleanse us of all sin and to fill us with His Holy Spirit, thereby gaining the power to resist Satan’s future temptations to sin–to cut sin off at the root.

To repent of sin means to TURN FROM SIN–TO STOP SINNING. To continue to sin following conversion means that one’s conversion was not real. Maturity takes time, but it must be achieved. Otherwise, we continue to be spiritual babies. Note the Apostle Paul’s words to some of the Hebrew converts whom He had brought to the Lord as recorded in Hebrews 5:11-6:9. God’s grace, through Christ’s suffering and death, removed the death penalty for our PAST sins. As John states plainly, he and the other apostles taught the people God’s way so that they “SIN NOT.” But IF someone happened to sin, that sin could be forgiven (1 Jn. 2:1-6). Read First John 3:1-10. Read those passages slowly and carefully while remembering that they were written to the church, about the church. Note in 2:3 that we must KEEP GOD’S COMMANDMENTS, WHICH MEANS TO STOP SINNING (1 JN. 3:4). Contrary to universal church opinion, we cannot break His commandments (sin) and walk with Him. Those who say they walk with God and continue to sin are “liars and God’s Truth is not in them.” God knows the heart. Sinners saved by grace have no intention of following Christ’s command to “SIN NO MORE” (Jn. 5:14; 8:11). To the contrary, they brag that they can sin and get away with it. Neither their repentance nor their conversion are real. Man can be fooled, as was the case with the five foolish virgins who maintained a good standing in the church (Mat. 25). But GOD KNOWS THE HEART/MIND. Notice that the Lord said to them when they tried to enter the marriage feast: “I do not know you.” He had known them at one time–WHEN THEY OBEYED HIM. Their sins had separated them from Him (Isa. 59:2) so that He no longer knew them intimately.

We will close with a passage found in Second Chronicles where the Lord defines true repentance and conversion. Here He told the people of Israel that He would FORGIVE THEIR SINS ONLY IF THEY TURNED FROM THEIR SINS–STOP SINNING. ONLY THEN WOULD HE HEAR THEIR PRAYERS AND ANSWER THEM (7:14,15). Only a tiny percentage of church prayers are answered. This passage explains why. L.J.

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