The Law vs. Grace

The preamble

There seems to exist between the ground swell of Messianic believers a feeling! These new believers, who for the most part, keep the precepts and statutes of Torah as a way of life much better than the church at large have great trouble reconciling their new faith with the life style what they view as the catholic church universal. As "unsaved" Jews, they lived in more perfect obedience to the Law than what they see most believers to live. What is the meaning of this? Are they as individuals to become Goya in lifestyle in order to Accept this New Life. Common sense would say NO! Answer must be for the church to become more "Righteous in the daily life!"

Response to Romans 2:12-16

The law and grace,

the before and after.

The law and grace, the before and after. Two very different paradigm. The before always carries a load of guilt and shame, different for each but really similar for each; person to person. Each day, a day of judgment and by implication of failure, as the law was sent only to provide a target for living and by it's existence a d-facto contra part to the "agreement" between God and his people by which He provided the Blessings of Obedience. The if then conditional provided that all who "opted-in" would obtain the Blessing and those who did not did not qualify for the "if-then conditional." Deut 28:1-2 notes that all who "observed to do the law" would obtain the blessing. In a careful reading one is not required perfect obedience , but only perfect "listening with the intent of obeying." The significance of this is simply that it was not about the body obeying the Law, but about the heart condition and the process of observing to do. Provision was made for imperfect and incomplete obedience in the annual Day of Covering or Yom Kippur. This whole dynamic set up a day to day; even a minute to minute series of acts of self judgment.

Grace

The contrast of Grace sets up a similar series of periodic self judgments in the dynamic of the "if-then conditional;" the difference is that with the Grace we have a added feature that all incomplete performance was "forgiven-released," some two thousand years ago. This leaves a different atmosphere. The new one is one of success as opposed to failure. This new atmosphere provides great Freedom to live in a dimension of success that when observed by those under the old provision (The Law) might become jealous, desiring such freedom to live and walk in the law with out the weight of guilt, and the stumbling block this guilt becomes.

What to Do?

Trouble is: how many rally walk in this freedom. How many even consider that the precepts of the Law have not changed only the judgment for non-performance?

Conclusion

Just for today, I volunteer to walk in the Right way, to keep as much of the Torah as I can. Where I miss it, I now plead the merits obtained by the Blood Yeshua shed in the process of enduring the Cross and all that it Cost!