What is the first commandment? You may be surprised. “You may freely eat from the tree of life.” Eating from the tree of life would allow mankind to know God’s love continuously, resulting in divine enablement to love themselves and others as God loves.
God also said, “Do not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil,” which is sin. Because we have heard and may believe that knowledge is power, we logically ask, “Why not?” God is not withholding knowledge. God was their source of knowledge, called wisdom. Wisdom is divine empowerment for success. Eating from the tree of knowledge is relying on soulish power instead of God’s spiritual empowerment and insight. Self-reliance (sin) embezzles joy, peace, hope, and contentment from our souls. Sin then cleverly implies that the lack of well-being is because something is wrong with you.
I remember the first lie I told when I was a little girl. I wanted to go to the neighbors to play. It was late, so I assumed my parents would say “no” as they were talking at the table. I devised a plan to stand nearby and wait for them to say the word “yes” in their conversation. Later, if I got caught, I would tell them they said “yes,” as if I had asked permission to go play. It didn’t work out. The gnawing anxiety ruined what fun I thought I would enjoy, not to mention the pain of seeing my dad’s disappointment.
Sin, even little sins, is costly to our souls and relationships.
Sin torments the soul with anxiety, fear, anger, shame, guilt, doubt, confusion, self-loathing, morbid self-consciousness, etc. God loved us too much not to warn us not against sin. Our well-being is at stake.
There are many reasons that God later added the law to the Abrahamic covenant. I believe one of those reasons is genuine love. Love protects. Love teaches. Love warns. Love directs to green pastures. Mankind, even the Jewish people, were lost in self-centeredness and preoccupied with building up personal kingdoms and identities instead of loving and building up each other. Therefore, God told them what love didn’t and did do. Why? Because man was created to receive and radiate God’s love, and when we don’t love, it always has a depleting and compounding toll on our souls and relationships.
God didn’t add commandments for you to prove your love to Him. The commandments prove God’s love for you. He knew we could not keep His commandments. We didn’t know. The point of the commandments was to show us that we needed His life, love, and divine enablement—the tree of life. Unlike our earthly parents, when we break a commandment, it doesn’t hurt God. Sin always harms us and affects our emotional health and relationships. God gave every command for our welfare.
The law was and is always about God’s love for us—for you. Jesus summed up the law by saying, “Love God and your neighbor and yourself.” Jesus often challenged the Pharisees, but not because they didn’t keep the law. Ironically, the Pharisees loved the law and kept it outwardly without keeping it inwardly. They missed that the law was about loving others selflessly, which requires divine life. (See Matthew 12 for Jesus’s response to the Pharisees that He desires compassion, not sacrifice.)
Since everyone was born dead in sin and unable to love God, ourselves, or others selflessly, there was only one solution. The old man had to be crucified with Christ so that we could be raised up and indwelt with the life of Christ to will and work love in and through us.
“For what the law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”
Romans 8:3-4
According to Romans 8:3-5, it might sound like Paul was discounting the law. May it never be! Instead, he explains how the law of love is fulfilled in us. Paul pointed out that the law had a flaw. Us. The weakness of the law was our inability to keep it. The law was sent to show us how we need God working in us. Since we could not keep the law in the power of our fleshly strength, God sent Christ “so that the requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us.” Did you hear that? “IN” us—not by us. As we submit to Christ, Christ works “IN” us divine obedience enabling us to love even the most unlovely people and forgive the unforgivable.
That may sound passive and like a cop-out if you stop reading too soon. Romans 8:4 says that Christ will fulfill the law “IN” us who “do not walk according to the flesh (self-reliance) but according to the Spirit.” For many people, walking according to the good-looking religious activity of striving, contending, proving, managing, and trying harder is easy. It is even easier to live sinfully and say, “Who cares.” Either way, the soul is deprived of divine fruit. Jesus tells us that His commandments are not burdensome. Why? Because He keeps them in us, who walk according to the Spirit. In sweet, dependent fellowship, we rely upon Christ to do all and to get all the glory.
Because we live in a world of performance-based acceptance, it may be tempting to think we keep the commands to earn God’s love, acceptance, and blessing—as if we could. The point of Romans 8:3-4 is that Christ must work in us the fulfillment of the law.
He gave His life to us to live FROM His indwelling life. Now by the Spirit, we finally can love and obey God so that the fruit of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, gentleness, longsuffering, and self-control—would be a divine gift from the Father. No more futile striving and falling short. No more searching for knowledge to set us free. We now have the tree of life, Christ, in us. God never counted on our faithfulness. The entire Bible is a picture of God’s faithfulness to us. Are you relying on your faithfulness to God, or rather, in God’s faithfulness to work obedience in you?
Is trusting in God’s faithfulness permission to ignore God’s commands? May it never be! The fruit of sin will camp in your soul and torment you. It is trusting Christ’s divine enablement to keep the commands so that the fragrant aroma of Christ will fill your life and relationships. You died to the power of sin so that God could impart His life to you so that by the Spirit and faith, YOU can say “no” to all sin and ungodliness. God is in you to help you. Why is this so important? One of my young clients summed it up perfectly: “Because I believed that God was mad at me for sin, I did not go to God for anything. But now that I know that all my sins are paid and that God is for me to help me overcome, I go to God for help with my sin.”
How do we enter this blessed life whereby we live by faith through the indwelling work of the Spirit? We sink deep down into our neediness, letting go of every vain attempt to meet our needs and be successful apart from Christ.
There was a little acorn that had fallen from a mighty oak. It lay on the ground, full of potential fruitfulness but did not grow. It feared its weakness and honest vulnerability and wanted to be seen in a good light. So, it clung to the dry ground and bright sun. There was abundant life within that little acorn, but it remained alone and fruitless in its little shell. Then a terrifying storm tossed that acorn about and buried it deep into its greatest fear of inadequacy. The little acorn mourned the death of its self-sufficiency and all its work to stay dry and warm. The little acorn gave up all hope of ever bearing fruit and died in its own coffin. When its self-protective shell was broken and useless, a miracle happened. It started to grow. It didn’t grow from a place of power, privilege, or position. It grew out of death to self-sufficiency. That is what Paul meant when he said Christ would fulfill the law in us who “live according to the Spirit.” We live according to the spirit when we die to living according to the flesh—religious or rebellious flesh.
The last commandment is the same as the first commandment. Love God, others, and yourself as you live FROM Christ’s indwelling life. Christ is the source of all lasting healing, freedom, and victory.
Do you struggle to love God? Yourself? Others? Do you, or someone you know, struggle with anxiety, fear, anger, shame, doubt, confusion, self-loathing, or feeling like you never measure up? God loves you and wants you to know His love and freedom. Our caring staff can show you how to experience lasting healing, freedom, and victory. Contact us today or forward this to someone in need.
Grace and peace to you,
Theresa