The fall of mankind is traced back to the fateful day when Eve, accompanied by Adam, ate the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in defiance of God’s command. The serpent cleverly seduced them into partaking of that which God said would kill them by combining a lie with a half-truth. The lie was that there would be no negative consequences from disobeying God’s command. They would not die. The half-truth was that they would become like God by knowing good and evil. They indeed gained that forbidden knowledge, but they did not become like God.
Only God, the Righteous One and Source of All Life, can know good and evil without dying.
This raises an interesting question. What killed them, their disobedience or partaking of that forbidden knowledge? Or are those two things one and the same? Whatever the case, possessing such knowledge was deadly and still is.
Today many still try to be like God by drinking from the poisonous well of legalism.
Legalism is based on our having the knowledge of what is good and right as opposed to what is evil and wrong. The Law of God with its ten commandments give us such knowledge. Any time we try to live by such a code of conduct, it ends up destroying us because we are unable to do it.
The law of God always kills its would be practitioners.
We learn from the law God’s standards of righteousness and that we are sinners who desperately need a Savior.
Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. Romans 3:20 (NKJV)
The law effectively imprisons those who try to practice it until we are released by placing our faith in the finished work of Christ.
But the Scripture has confined all under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. 23 But before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed. 24 Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. 25 But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor. Galatians 3:22–25 (NKJV)
Once we find forgiveness and justification in Christ, we are no longer under that which condemns and kills us. We are released to live by a “new and living way,” (Hebrews 10:20) in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another—to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God. 5 For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death. 6 But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter. Romans 7:4–6 (NKJV)
Experiential righteousness comes from being in relationship with Christ, not in keeping the Law. The Law condemns us, but Christ inspires and empowers us. Through Christ, the Holy Spirit writes God’s law upon our hearts causing us to will and do that which pleases God and reveals his love to the world.
The first step in gaining experiential freedom from the killing power of the Law is to believe in Jesus and his finished work.
Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. Romans 8:1–2 (NASB95)
Once we confess him as our Lord, we begin a discipleship journey during which the Holy Spirit works inside us to transform us into the image of Christ as we learn to hear his voice and obey his promptings.
The second step is to believe what Paul and Jesus taught: we are no longer condemned, even when we sin.
Condemnation, strangely enough, is what empowers sin in our lives.
The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 15:56–57 (NKJV)
When we sin, it is altogether appropriate for us to regret it and repent, but it produces death inside us and actually makes sin stronger in our lives if we sink into the mire of feeling condemned. Jesus happily informed us that those of us who believe him will never be condemned, but have passed from death to life.
Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life. John 5:24 (NKJV)
He is the one to whom has been given the authority and responsibility to judge; so, if he tells us that we will not come under judgment, we are assured that it is true.
The trouble is that we have been preconditioned by the Law and our own nature to want to be good in our own right, rather than simply accepting that such is impossible. Our right standing with God, from start to finish, is based on our being given Christ’s right standing. We are “in” him and benefit from all that he earned by living in complete obedience to his Father.
We have absolutely no righteousness of our own. It all comes from Christ.
But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. 8 Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; Philippians 3:7–9 (NKJV)
Every single time we try to go back to some form of legalistic striving to somehow measure up in God’s eyes, it is as if we take another bite from the forbidden tree.
Legalism is a deadly transgression. Paul wrote that by trying to live that way we estrange ourselves from the grace of God.
Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage. 2 Indeed I, Paul, say to you that if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing. 3 And I testify again to every man who becomes circumcised that he is a debtor to keep the whole law. 4 You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace. 5 For we through the Spirit eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. 6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love. Galatians 5:1–6 (NKJV)
Therefore, let us firmly resist every legalistic encroachment upon the gospel of grace and resist the inner impulse to measure ourselves by some standard of righteousness. We are not supposed to look at ourselves at all, but must keep our lives on the prize, our Lord Jesus, the only Righteous One.
Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, 14 I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:13–14 (NKJV)
