Christ or the Law

A good writer or speaker will always write or speak according to a simple outline. First, he will tell you what he is going to tell you. Then he will tell you. Then, finally, he will tell you what he told you. Our God is the best writer of all. Therefore, His writing of the Bible is according to this formula. In Genesis one and two He tells us what He is going to tell us. Between Genesis Three and Revelation twenty He tells us, and in Revelation twenty one and twenty two He tells us what He told us. In these chapters, God is giving us the key to understand the bible.If you can see God's intention in these four chapters, you will be able to open the door of understanding in the rest of the Bible.

The first two chapters of Genesis portray the foundational principles of the Bible. In chapter one, God reveals His way which is His diving life. In Chapter two you have a man before two trees. It also reveals the need that Christ has for a counter-part and the way God bought His bride into being. The implications that are revealed through this picture are far reaching. If we can see why God began His revelation with this simple picture, we will be able to unlock many passages in the Bible and to be enabled to live the Christian life according to the New Testament revelation.

In the center of the garden were the trees of life and the knowledge of good and evil. The picture of the tree of life must be a type of Christ as life for us to receive. The New Testament reveals that Christ is life. (John 14:6, Col. 3:4) Jesus says in John 6 that if we "eat" Him we will have eternal life. It is clear from Gen. 2 that God wanted Adam and Eve to eat the tree of life and live forever. No wonder that we all hate to die. We were created to live forever but lost that long life through the original couple's fall.

On the other hand, there is the tree of knowledge of good and evil which we must avoid or die. It is also true in the New Testament that we are warned again and again against the attempt to keep the law, which is to live by right or wrong. (see Galatians and Romans 7-8) So, the tree of knowledge must refer to the law.

Have you ever heard that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is a picture of the law? Please think about it. What does the law do? It teaches us the difference between good and evil according the God’s standard. For example, according to the first commandment, it teaches us and commands us to love God and to have nothing to do with idols. To love God is good. To worship an idol is evil. The fifth commandment commands us to honor our father and our mother. To honor them is good and to dishonor them is evil. Every other point of the law is the same. By it you know what is good and what is evil. Then you attempt to do what is right and avoid what is wrong by your own effort. So the tree of knowledge of good and evil a picture of the law, which we must obey to be righteous before God.

The law of God teaches that if you live by the law, everything you do will be good and on the other hand the law demands that you must not do anything unrighteous or evil. Only this kind of living will please God under His law. However, if you keep the law you will have to do it by your own strength. God will not help you do it. This means that you will be your own little god, living by your own effort to work out good and abstain from the evil. Because you now know what is good and what is evil you don't need God to lead you. You have become independent from God.

We are all under a deep deception. Our heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, who can know it. (Jer.17:9) The heart deceives us causing us to think that we can perfect ourselves by self-effort. Every human being except the Lord Jesus Christ is under this dilusion. Paul, the apostle, was the same. In Romans chapter 7 he poured out his hearts despair in his attempt to live a righteous life before God. But despite all he effort he failed. We are all the same. Not one can be righteous up to the standart of God's righteousness. In ourselves we are a hopeless case. When we attempt to live by the law of God or by any self-made law, we will be automatically brought under the dominion of sin. The indwelling sin is stronger than the good nature with which we were born and we will be captured by sin and death.

The tree of life is a picture of Christ as our life. The tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil are opposed to each other in the garden of Eden. Since this is the case, it is obvious that Christ our life is verses law-keeping. Not only Genesis two reveals this but the rest of the Bible unveils that if a man or a nation attempts to please God by keeping the law the result will be failure resulting in sin and death.

This is the history of the nation of Israel and the history of the church. The minute any form of law keeping enters into a man’s thinking, he will enter the way of failure in living the Christian life. Let’s think about it. Was there ever, even one, among the best of kings of Israel, who did not fail? David? No he fell into adultery and murder. Solomon? No, he was seduced by too many women and their idols. How about Josiah? He was excellent yet in the end he died by fighting a battle that was not of God. How about Moses? Also no. Even he was prohibited from entering into the good land due to his failure. Why did all of them fail? They were attempting to keep God's law and by doing this were brought into sin and death.

Eventually, there were only four who overcame. Joshua, Caleb, Joseph and Daniel. I believe that these men learned the secret and did not live by the tree of knowledge. It was their hearts desire for God Himself and their determination to stay with Him that saved them.

Joshua was a man who only cared for God and His purpose. He even lived in the Tent of Meeting in the presence of God while all of the children of Israel had fallen away. Caleb had the testimony of the Word that he had another spirit to only follow God. Joseph was a man of vision and even wore a many colored robe which implied that his expression was Christ. And Daniel also was so given to the Lord Himself that he refused to defile himself with the world's food and kept himself with God by prayer three times a day even when that practice would get him murdered. These four lived lives without recorded sin because they did not honor the law above their Lord. They all lived in the presence of God and were one with His purpose.

When Jesus came, who were the main ones who opposed Him at every opportunity? Was it not religion? Study the book of Matthew carefully and you will see that time after time it was religion that attempted to frustrate Him from carrying our His ministry. It was not only the Pharisees, the priests and the scribes who opposed Him but His own disciples who were of such a legal mind that they could not see who He was and what His goal and purpose were.

A; perfect example of this is Peter. Several times he resisted the Lord's word due to his religious mind. But he was not alone. All the disciples had been brought up in the Jewish religion, as we have in the Christian religion, and couldn't grasp what He was doing and saying. Are we not the same? The word clearly tells us that our old man has been crucified and that we have the life of Christ in us so that we can boldly believe and say that, "for me to live is Christ." The Word says that sin has been taken away by our Lord Jesus on the cross and that we were regenerated two thousand years ago so that sin is over for us. Yet how many of us live in that reality. Are we not religious many times attempting to improve ourselves and striving to avoid sin? Is not that law keeping?