Friday July 5, 2024
Romans 3:31
Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means!
On the contrary, we uphold the law.
Is not the command of the law, “Thou shalt, thou shalt not,” out of order in connection with the believer’s new attitude of heart and willing spirit?
Are not duty and love irreconcilable opposites? Does not duty pass out when love enters in? And does not love go out when our relationship with God has become one based upon duty?
And if the law is written in our hearts, as the Scriptures say, is then any other commandment necessary?
Let us consider this briefly.
The new birth places a sinner in the right relationship to the requirements of God’s law.
Old persons feel that the requirements of God are a burden, that they are strange and inimical to them.
New persons, oh the other hand, love the law of God and, therefore, also their conscience, which in such a remarkable way brings the will of God into their very souls. Believers look upon their conscience as a friend helping them, with vigilance and without guile, both to know and to do the will of God.
It is this to which James refers when he speaks of the law of liberty, speaking of it as perfect.
Here he unites liberty and law. They seem to be mutually exclusive. But life unites them. For love is this very union of liberty and law. God is bound to the law of love to such a degree that He cannot act contrary to it. But He has bound Himself voluntarily.
The miracle of the new birth is that it frees us from the compulsion of the law and writes the law into our hearts, enabling us to feel that we are the free children of God when we do the will of God.
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD 