Basic HTML Version
Freedom Through Christ, May 19
Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us
free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
Galatians 5:1
.
In the beginning God placed man under law as an indispensable con-
dition of his very existence. He was a subject of the divine government,
and there can be no government without law....
God is omnipotent, omniscient, immutable. He always pursues a
straightforward course. His law is truth—immutable, eternal truth. His
precepts are consistent with His attributes. But Satan makes them appear
in a false light. By perverting them, he seeks to give human beings an
unfavorable impression of the Lawgiver. Throughout his rebellion he has
sought to represent God as an unjust, tyrannical being....
As a result of Adam’s disobedience every human being is a transgres-
sor of the law, sold under sin. Unless he repents and is converted, he is
under bondage to the law, serving Satan, falling into the deceptions of
the enemy, and bearing witness against the precepts of Jehovah. But by
perfect obedience to the requirements of the law, man is justified. Only
through faith in Christ is such obedience possible. Men may comprehend
the spirituality of the law, they may realize its power as a detector of sin,
but they are helpless to withstand Satan’s power and deceptions, unless
they accept the atonement provided for them in the remedial sacrifice of
Christ, who is our Atonement—our At-one-ment—with God.
Those who believe on Christ and obey His commandments are not
under bondage to God’s law; for to those who believe and obey, His law
is not a law of bondage, but of liberty. Everyone who believes on Christ,
everyone who relies on the keeping power of a risen Saviour that has
suffered the penalty pronounced upon the transgressor, everyone who
resists temptation and in the midst of evil copies the pattern given in the
Christ life, will through faith in the atoning sacrifice of Christ become a
partaker of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the
world through lust. Everyone who by faith obeys God’s commandments
will reach the condition of sinlessness in which Adam lived before his
transgression.
[147]
150