THE PROMISE IS SUPERIOR AND IMMUTABLE

      THE PROMISE IS SUPERIOR AND IMMUTABLE

While we grew up in children’s class in church and in Sunday schools, we were introduced to the Ten Commandments and were made to memorise them. The church would have an incomplete service if no mention was made of the Jewish laws and its stern requirements. We were constantly reminded of the law and its rigid demands and merciless justice.

We knew more about the wrath of God, how angry he could become if we broke his laws. The picture of God painted in our minds was that of a wicked God waiting to kill his children once they broke his laws. So we became so fearful and lived like slaves who dread their masters. We didn’t have a father child relationship with God and we esteemed him too high and mighty a God that he could ever have a father child relationship with us. This got us into thinking that meticulous adherence to strict Jewish laws is synonymous with being a Christian. We struggled to keep the laws even though we didn’t have a true relationship with God the father. Religion tried to substitute itself with true relationship with the father.

Sadly, many people grew up being introduced to religion and hence became so religious to the extent that they actually think that religiosity means spirituality. No wonder we have many adults in church who are not born again but have played religion for several years. They know more about the laws of Moses than they know about God. They grew up chasing laws instead of chasing God.

While so much is taught about the laws of Moses and how it should be literarily made to become an object of worship, almost nothing is said about the promise of God to Abraham to save the world through faith. It seems to me that our pastors know so much about the Jewish laws but know little or nothing about the promise God made to Abraham on how he will justify the world. It is for this gross ignorance that I write about the promise of God. I am writing to state clearly that before there ever was a ten commandment, there was a PROMISE. Before Moses ever climbed Mount Sinai, Abraham already received the promise from God.

The promise was based on faith and had nothing to do with works. The promise was about what God would do to save the world. It was never about what the world should do to save itself. The law requires us to do to be saved but God’s promise to Abraham was simply about what God would do to save mankind. The law demands from us but the promise was about God’s supply.

6 Just as Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness, [as conformity to God’s will and purpose—so it is with you also]. 7 So understand that it is the people who live by faith [with confidence in the power and goodness of God] who are [the true] sons of [a]Abraham. 8 The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, proclaimed the good news [of the Savior] to Abraham in advance [with this promise], saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” 9 So then those who are people of faith [whether Jew or Gentile] are blessed and favored by God [and declared free of the guilt of sin and its penalty, and placed in right standing with Him] along with Abraham, the believer{Galatians 3:6-9 AMP}

The promise of God is superior to the laws of Moses. Not only is it superior to the laws of Moses but it is also immutable. It is unchanging and therefore it is to last forever. The laws however were to last only until the seed should come to whom the promise was made. In other words, as soon as the promise was fulfilled by the arrival, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the law gave way and became obsolete. The promise took effect after its fulfilment. The end of the law was the beginning of the promise and the promise lasts for ever.

⁴ For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. {Romans 10:4}

The promise God gave to Abraham was that the whole world would be justified by faith through his seed that is Jesus Christ. All who will believe in him will have their sins forgiven and be counted as righteous. God never told Abraham that the promise will be fulfilled only if his descendants obey certain rules and regulations. The promise had nothing to do with the works of the law but had everything to do with faith.

¹³ For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.

¹⁴ For if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made of none effect: {Romans 4:13-14}

The church has preached for years that the way to inherit God’s promise is to obey the Jewish laws and that entry into heaven is dependent on how many laws we are able to obey as though those who will be heirs must be those who obey Jewish laws. This error has made the church worship the laws of Moses more than they worship God. Everyone thinks they are blessed because they obey Moses’ laws and will go to heaven because of those laws.

The nature of God’s promise was such that it was confirmed by an oath. God swore by himself that he would justify the nations through faith if they believe in the seed of Abraham. That he took an oath is an indication that he was serious about what he promised. He didn’t just take an oath to proof to Abraham the immutability of his counsel but that we who are the heirs of promise might trust him concerning the promise. The immutable nature of the Promise reveals that it will never change no matter what happens. That is to say no matter what we do, the promise to save us by our faith will still be fulfilled.

¹² Then, knowing what lies ahead for you, you won’t become bored with being a Christian nor become spiritually dull and indifferent, but you will be anxious to follow the example of those who receive all that God has promised them because of their strong faith and patience.

¹³ For instance, there was God’s promise to Abraham: God took an oath in his own name, since there was no one greater to swear by, ¹⁴ that he would bless Abraham again and again, and give him a son and make him the father of a great nation of people. ¹⁵ Then Abraham waited patiently until finally God gave him a son, Isaac, just as he had promised.

¹⁶ When a man takes an oath, he is calling upon someone greater than himself to force him to do what he has promised or to punish him if he later refuses to do it; the oath ends all argument about it. ¹⁷ God also bound himself with an oath, so that those he promised to help would be perfectly sure and never need to wonder whether he might change his plans.{Hebrews 6:12-17 TLB}

The greatest ignorance of the church in my opinion is to think that God will change his promise if we fall short of his laws. We erroneously believe that we will not be justified by faith if we broke any law. We are not sure of heaven as our destination because we think that the law is greater than the promise. Oh, if only we knew that the promise was immutable, we would not so much bother about the laws of Moses.

¹⁵ Dear brothers, even in everyday life a promise made by one man to another, if it is written down and signed, cannot be changed. He cannot decide afterward to do something else instead.

¹⁶ Now, God gave some promises to Abraham and his Child. And notice that it doesn’t say the promises were to his children, as it would if all his sons—all the Jews—were being spoken of, but to his Child—and that, of course, means Christ. ¹⁷ Here’s what I am trying to say: God’s promise to save through faith—and God wrote this promise down and signed it—could not be canceled or changed four hundred and thirty years later when God gave the Ten Commandments. {Galatians 3:15-17 TLB}

I want you to notice that once a promise is made by a person to another and signed, it cannot be changed no matter what happened. God therefor cannot change the promise to save by faith even after he gave the laws to angels to give to Moses and the Israelites What I am trying to say is that the law which was just an addendum, something temporary cannot break nor disannul the promise by faith made 430 years before in Christ. Obedience or disobedience to the laws doesn’t affect the promise. This is because the promise doesn’t depend on the law but on faith. Therefore the church should repent and begin teaching about the promise by faith instead of building a religion of rules and regulations.

God will never change his mind concerning his promise no matter what you or I do. We don’t have the capacity to make God cancel his promise. God and his promise are immutable hence we can’t make him change his masterplan. What I am saying is that your sins are not powerful enough to cause an immutable God become mutable nor make his unchanging promise become changeable. God would become a liar if he doesn’t keep his promise to save only by faith. It means God would not deserve to be trusted nor worshipped if he doesn’t keep to the oath he made to Abraham.

³³ But I will not stop loving David
    or fail to keep my promise to him.
³⁴ I will not break my covenant with him
    or take back even one promise I made him.

³⁵ “Once and for all I have promised by my holy name:
    I will never lie to David.

{Psalms 89:33-35 GNT}

God said the inheritance will be by faith in Christ Jesus and that is how it will remain. We can’t subtract from that nor add to it. We can preach about the laws of Moses as much as we want but that will not change God’s mind nor disannul the promise to save by faith. Anyone who keeps his faith will inherit the promise. Such a man who has faith in God’s promise is qualified to be an heir of God. He is entitled to the inheritance of salvation and everything that accompanies salvation.

¹⁴ For if what God promises is to be given to those who obey the Law, then faith means nothing and God's promise is worthless. ¹⁵ The Law brings down God's anger; but where there is no law, there is no disobeying of the law.

¹⁶ And so the promise was based on faith, in order that the promise should be guaranteed as God's free gift to all of Abraham's descendants—not just to those who obey the Law, but also to those who believe as Abraham did. For Abraham is the spiritual father of us all; {Romans 4:14-16 GNT}

The promise was God’s free gift to us. It is not the reward for keeping Jewish rules as the church has taught for years. God made it a free gift so that it can be available to everyone who believe. This is because God knows very well that humans can never keep his laws and so he didn’t make obedience to laws the criteria for salvation. If he did it means many would not be saved and God would have failed to fulfil his promise to Abraham.

Hence to sustain the immutable nature of the promise, God made it free. That means even sin cannot stop the promise. God had to introduce something called GRACE. Yes this grace is the reason why God doesn’t punish us as we deserve when we fall short of his laws. Not only did God introduce grace, but he also made grace more powerful than our sins. He causes grace to always increase much more than our sins so that the promise of salvation can be fulfilled. Therefore whenever our sins increase, grace doesn’t stand shoulder to shoulder with it, but grace outgrows, overwhelms our sins. It weakens the power of sin. Grace makes sin handicapped and renders it weak and useless. Thanks to God’s grace, we can still get the promise of salvation even if we fall short of the laws. Put laws, sins and grace side by side. Grace always wins hands down.

 ^20-21 All that passing laws against sin did was produce more lawbreakers. But sin didn’t, and doesn’t, have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. When it’s sin versus grace, grace wins hands down. All sin can do is threaten us with death, and that’s the end of it. Grace, because God is putting everything together again through the Messiah, invites us into life—a life that goes on and on and on, world without end. {Romans 5:20-21 MSG}

THE CHURCH AND THE LAW

        ^{THE CHURCH AND THE LAW}

²³ But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed.

²⁴ Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

²⁵ But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.

²⁶ For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.{Galatians 3:23-26}

The law, its essence and its duration must be fully understood by the church. What is the Christ's idea about his church and the law? Is it his desire to subject his church to rules and regulations and for how long?

It is true that the law was given to man by God through the hand of Moses and it must be noted that the law was pure and holy but a misunderstanding of its essence and to whom it was given will keep the church far from Christ

 To fully comprehend the essence of the law lets look at Romans 3

¹⁹ Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.

The law was given to make the world guilty before God. I don’t think there is any groom who will derive pleasure in making his beloved bride guilty. The church is the bride of Christ. To make her feel guilty will be to make himself feel guilty too because they both are one body now. I therefore will like to think that the law was not for the church but for those who are under the law {the Jews, the sinners, the world}.

⁶ But these teachers have missed this whole idea and spend their time arguing and talking foolishness. ⁷ They want to become famous as teachers of the laws of Moses when they haven’t the slightest idea what those laws really show us. ⁸ Those laws are good when used as God intended. ⁹ But they were not made for us, whom God has saved; they are for sinners who hate God, have rebellious hearts, curse and swear, attack their fathers and mothers, and murder. {1Timothy 1:6-9 TLB}

The laws are not for people who are saved but for sinners. The laws are not for the saints. Justified people do not need those laws. The church has been justified by faith.

 To further see the essence of the law we must consider Galatians 3

¹⁹ Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator.

The law was added because of transgressions but it was only to last till a certain time”Till the seed should come”. Jesus Christ is that seed who came and died for us so that we can now be justified by faith. The law ended when Christ showed up and died on the cross.

⁴ For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. {Romans 10:4}

 Again it says this in Romans 7

¹² Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.¹³ Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.

The law was added to make sin appear sin and that sin might become exceedingly sinful. It doesn’t seem to me that any groom would want to expose and magnify the sins of his beloved bride.Christ came to take away the sin of the whole world not to increase sin. He didn't come to increase sinners but to save his people from their sins. I would rather visualise the groom cleansing and covering up the weaknesses of his beloved bride and not exposing her shame. Again I submit that the law was therefore not for the church.

Again the law was brought to give life but instead it brought death. I wonder if any man would subject his bride to that which kills. That would be wickedness of the highest degree.

9   For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.¹⁰ And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death.¹¹ For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me.{Romans 7:9-11}

The law can never give life. It slays whoever is subject to it and kills that which once had life. The law came to revive sin and kill man. I would rather my bride alive than dead and therefore will never subject her to laws. For if there was a law that could give life righteousness would have been by that law but there was no such law.

²¹ Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid: for if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law.

²² But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe. {Galatians 3:21-22}

It is clear from the above verses that the law could not deliver its purpose. Why should anyone hold on to that which is ineffective! The church must not hold on to laws for the law is weak and cannot make her righteous. Now hear what Paul had to say about the weakness of the law:

³ 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, condemned sin in the flesh:⁴ That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.{Romans 8:3-4}

Now sin has been condemned in the flesh. Christ came to our rescue because before we became his bride we could never keep the laws. We broke them over and again no matter how hard we tried. We continually committed sin because of our flesh which was a tool through which we were held captive by the law. No wonder we were filthy and unrighteous. In fact we were married to the law and enslaved by it. The more we tried to be righteous by obeying the laws the more unrighteous we became.

The good news is that now we have been rescued by Christ. We are now righteous and have divorced the law to marry Christ our groom. Being the bride of Christ{the church} now imputes into us the righteousness that we never had because in Christ the law is fulfilled by us without practically obeying the law.

 Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth?

² For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband.

³ So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man.

⁴ Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.

⁵ For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.

⁶ But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter. {Romans 7}

Sadly, many Christians are still married to the law. They love the laws of Moses more than they love Jesus. They are more conscious of the law than they are of Jesus and His free gift of righteousness to us. Our union with our groom makes us dead to the law. The law was fulfilled when we died with our groom for verily the groom came not to abolish the law but to fulfil it. The law’s requirement was that the soul that sinneth shall die and when Christ bore the sin of the whole world his church inclusive, he fulfilled the law by dying with his church. When he resurrected, we were justified and declared righteous never to pay for sins again. No one serves jail again for the same crime whose penalties has been paid for. Any thing called sin has been paid for by the death of Christ

.

²⁵ Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification. {Romans 4}

¹⁸ When you are guided by the Holy Spirit, you need no longer force yourself to obey Jewish laws. {Galatians 5:18 TLB}

Dear bride, dear church, dear rose, dear beloveth of the groom, the apple of His eyes, this one thing I plead with you to understand; It is never your groom’s desire that you return to the law that you once divorced to be married to Him. Return not to the prison from which you were delivered.

2     And now that you have found God (or I should say, now that God has found you), how can it be that you want to go back again and become slaves once more to another poor, weak, useless religion of trying to get to heaven by obeying God’s laws? ¹⁰ You are trying to find favor with God by what you do or don’t do on certain days or months or seasons or years. ¹¹ I fear for you. I am afraid that all my hard work for you was worth nothing. {Galatians 4:9-11 TLB}

Wake up church! How can it be that you want to go back to slavery, to that poor, weak and useless religion of rule keeping? How can it be?

Who told the church that she can get to heaven by obeying Jewish laws? Who told her that she can have spiritual life and blessings by obeying those laws? Who deceived us into thinking that we will be better Christians by strict adherence to Jewish laws? Have we gone completely crazy?

 ³ Then have you gone completely crazy? For if trying to obey the Jewish laws never gave you spiritual life in the first place, why do you think that trying to obey them now will make you stronger Christians?{Galatians 3:3 TLB}

The laws were never meant for us gentiles but for the Jews. Even the Jews who had the laws, no longer practise the law. They have discarded the law. Surprisingly the gentiles who didn’t have any business whatsoever with the laws of Moses have suddenly and foolishly become custodians of the law. The church has become more religious than the Pharisees, bearing a yoke that was never meant for us.

¹⁴ When I saw what was happening and that they weren’t being honest about what they really believed and weren’t following the truth of the Gospel, I said to Peter in front of all the others, “Though you are a Jew by birth, you have long since discarded the Jewish laws; so why, all of a sudden, are you trying to make these Gentiles obey them? {Galatians 2:14 TLB}

God please help your church to return to the truth of the gospel. Stir up faith in us again to trust in Christ alone and acknowledge His finished work on the cross. Listen church! Remain married to your groom by faith. Yes! You must remain married to your groom. Don't cut yourself off from Christ by seeking righteousness by obeying Jewish laws.

⁴ For if you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping

 the law, you have been cut off from Christ! You have fallen away 

from God’s grace. {Galatians 5:4 NLT}

The law was only a school master to lead people to Christ so that they can be justified by faith. The law has no power to justify anyone,only Christ does justify us by our faith.Now that the church has been justified by faith we are no longer under the law.

²³ But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed.

²⁴ Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

²⁵ But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.

²⁶ For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.{Galatians 3:23-26}

     NOTES FROM THE ARTICLE 

(1)                The law was never meant for the church.

(2)                The law can never give life. It slays its subjects and kills that which once had life.

(3)                The law exposes sin but no groom would like to expose his bride’s sins

(4)                 The law was only a school master for an appointed time ”until the seed comes”

(5)                Now Christ has come and we are no longer under the law

(6)                The requirement of the law has been fulfilled in Christ, hence the penalty for sin has already been paid.

(7)                The law can never make man righteous. The law is weak through the flesh.

(8)                What the law could not do, Christ did for us. Now the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us.

(9)                We have divorced the law and are now married to Christ never to be separated again.