Unmerited Favor (12 page)

The sinner transfers his sins to the innocent lamb, while the lamb’s innocence is transferred to the sinner.

“Why did the lamb have to be killed?”

For the sacrifice to be complete, the lamb has to be killed. Now, the man who brought the offering can walk away with the righteousness of the lamb. Instead of the curses that he deserves, he can now expect God’s blessings.

Jesus’ one perfect payment cleared your lifetime of sins and now you walk in newness of life with the righteousness of the Lamb of God! You can now live life with a confident expectation of God’s blessings coming upon you. What a life!

The lamb suffers the judgment of God. The offerer walks away under the blessings of God.

Beloved, Jesus had to die an agonizing death because “the wages of sin is death.”
¹⁸
He did not just take away your sins and give you His righteousness. He also took upon His own body the
punishment
for your sins. Once you accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior, you are no longer a sinner. All your sins—past, present and future—have been punished at the cross once and for all. Jesus does not need to be crucified ever again. His one perfect payment cleared your lifetime of sins! Today, you can enjoy all the blessings of the new covenant because of what Jesus has done for you. You are now under the covenant of His unmerited favor and all the terms to be met for you to be blessed have been met by Jesus!

Chapter 10: Perfected By Unmerited Favor

In the last chapter, we talked about how you can enjoy all the blessings of the new covenant because you are now under the covenant of His unmerited favor, and all the terms of this covenant you have with God have been fulfilled by Jesus. God found fault with the old covenant—where man could only be blessed by his goodness and obedience to the law—and replaced it with the new covenant of His unmerited favor where you can be continually blessed because of Jesus’ obedience.

I trust that you are beginning to understand that no man can be perfected by the Ten Commandments. No man can keep the law perfectly, and be perfected and blessed based on the law. Our dependence today for God’s blessings in our lives has to be on Jesus and Him alone. Only Jesus can meet the full righteous requirements of the law on our behalf. If you review the Old Testament, you will find that not a single person under the old covenant was blessed, justified or sanctified by the law. They all failed to meet the perfect standard of the law. Even King Solomon, who ushered in the golden age of ancient Israel, failed despite all his wisdom and understanding.

Under the old covenant, God knew that it was impossible for the children of Israel to be blessed by their perfect adherence to the law, so He provided a way out for them. They were not annihilated by the curse of the law despite their sins because they offered burnt offerings to God every morning and evening.
¹
In the previous chapter, we learned that shadows that pointed to Jesus were hidden in the Old Testament. I am about to reveal another shadow to you. Jesus, our perfect offering, hung on the cross from 9am to 3pm,
²
thus fulfilling the type of the morning and evening offerings!

There are no insignificant details in the Bible. God did not record all the details of the offerings in the Bible just so that we can carry a big and impressive Bible to church on Sundays. No, the details all point beautifully to the one sacrifice of Jesus on the cross such that even the
timings
at which God told the Israelites to make their offerings point to our Savior. Hence, even under the old covenant of law, the children of Israel could be blessed even when they failed because of JESUS. Every offering that God taught them to make pointed to Jesus’ work on the cross!

If you fail in just one law, you are guilty of breaking all the laws!

Think about this for a moment. If it were possible for the Israelites to keep God’s law perfectly, why would there have been a need for animal sacrifices and offerings under the covenant of law? They may have attempted to keep the laws outwardly. Physically, they may not have worshiped idols, committed adultery or murdered anyone. But the standard of the law is immaculate and they would have failed in God’s eyes because they would have sinned inwardly.

For instance, if any man looked at any woman apart from his wife with lust or if anyone got angry with his neighbor, God judged them as having committed the sins of adultery and murder. And if they failed in just
one
law, they were guilty of breaking
all
the laws!
³
God’s standards are much higher than man’s standards. Man may judge based on outward appearances, but God was not interested merely in
outward
adherence to His laws. He demanded adherence to the law in their hearts and thoughts as well!

“But Pastor Prince, isn’t that a little bit harsh? Who can keep the Ten Commandments completely both inwardly
and
outwardly?”

That is exactly right, my friend. No man could or can! The law is an impossible standard and it was designed to silence all human efforts to earn God’s blessings. That is why the children of Israel needed the right offerings and sacrifices to cover them. They could never have kept the law perfectly the way God demanded it. By the way, I did not make up the standard of the law. It was Jesus who taught that the law had to be kept inwardly as well as outwardly. He said that “whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment [for murder],”
⁴
and that “whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
⁵

Jesus came to show man the pristine standard of God’s law. The Pharisees had brought God’s law down to a level that could be upheld through their own efforts, so that they could boast of their ability to keep the law. But Jesus came to expose their utter failure and showed them that God’s law was an impossible standard for man. It was Jesus who said, “If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you...And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you...”
⁶
Clearly, He did not mean for man to take His words literally, otherwise, the church would look like a huge amputation ward! No, Jesus merely brought the law to its purest form so that every man would come to the end of himself and see his need for the Savior!

No Man Can Be Justified By The Law

Let me elucidate this further. Turn with me to the Book of Romans, where God’s Word says this about being under the old covenant of law:

There is none righteous, no, not one...Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law,
that every mouth may be stopped
, and all the world may become guilty before God. 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 3:10, 19–20

These verses are loaded with several truths. First, it tells us that the law was designed to show “all the world” that they are guilty of sin before God. NO flesh can be justified by the deeds of the law. All humanity needs the Savior to rescue them! This passage also explains why the law was given. God gave the law to
expose
man’s sin, “for by the law is the knowledge of sin.”

Listen carefully to what I am saying.
The Ten Commandments were never given to stop sin.
They have no power to stop sin. God gave the law to
expose
man’s sin! If you can understand this last statement, you will understand one of the greatest misunderstandings occurring in the church today.

Today, we hear all kinds of teachings about the Ten Commandments in the church. There are people who think that some believers are struggling with sin because there is not enough teaching on the Ten Commandments. These people are under the impression that if you preach strong and hard about the law, and about all the “Thou shalt nots,” believers would be free from sin! In all the 1,500 years that the children of Israel were under the old covenant of law, did the law stop sin from occurring? Is there any scriptural basis that a strong emphasis on teaching the Ten Commandments will bring about holiness and stop sin? Absolutely not.

The Law Stirs Up Sin

I know that I may be stepping on some toes here, but let’s go by what God’s Word says and not by what man says. I have not found any scripture in the New Testament that tells me I should teach more about the law so that sin will stop. On the contrary, it says in 1 Corinthians 15:56 that “the strength of sin is the law.” The apostle Paul explains this further in Romans 7 when he shares,“...I would not have known sin except through the law.
For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, ‘You shall not covet.’ But sin, taking opportunity by the commandment, produced in me all manner of evil desire. For apart from the law sin was dead
.”
⁷
Read the verses again. The law does not stop sin. It stirs up sin and produces “all manner of evil desire”!

To help you understand this, you need to realize that our human propensity to sin is aroused when a law is given. For example, imagine a group of boys walking down a street that is flanked by rows of greenhouses. None of the greenhouses pique their interest and the boys barely pay attention to them. Then, they come to one particular greenhouse that is plastered with signs that say, “Fragile glass. Do not throw stones. Trespassers will be prosecuted.” Suddenly, they stop in their tracks and start daring each other to do exactly what the signs say
not
to do.

Our human propensity to sin is aroused when a law is given.

The next thing you hear is the sound of glass shattering and the boys hooting with laughter as they run away. Notice that this same group of boys had passed by the same type of greenhouses earlier without any incident. But once a law is introduced, their human propensity to sin is awakened. That is what the law does. It stirs up the flesh and in Paul’s words, produces “all manner of evil desire.”

Paul goes on to say:

I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. And the commandment, which was to bring life, I found to bring death.

—Romans 7:9–10

Wow, Paul said some powerful things here. C S Lewis wrote a brilliant book entitled
The Screwtape Letters
. It tells the story of a senior demon teaching a junior demon how to exploit man’s weaknesses and frailties. Along the same lines, I would
imagine
that Romans 7:9 is probably the most studied and memorized verse in hell. All junior demons would be taught this verse and the lecture would be titled, “How to bring about a revival of sin”! According to Paul, when you introduce the law, there will be a REVIVAL OF SIN! And that’s not all. Apart from reviving sin, the law also kills and brings death! Isn’t it amazing then, that there are well-meaning ministers who preach strongly on the Ten Commandments, thinking that imposing the law would cause sin to be removed?

Earlier on, we saw that according to Romans 3:20, “
by the law is the knowledge of sin
.” In other words, without the law, there would be no knowledge of sin. For instance, you can drive at any speed that you like on a road that doesn’t have a speed limit and nobody can accuse you of speeding. But once the authorities put a speed limit on the same road, you now have the knowledge that if you drive beyond say, 70 miles an hour on this road, you would be breaking the law.

The enemy uses the law to heap condemnation upon you and give you a sense of guilt and distance from God.

In the same way, Paul said, “For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, ‘You shall not covet.’” That is why the enemy always pours accusations on you using the voice of a legalist. He uses the law and the commandments to show up your failures, to put a spotlight on how your behavior has disqualified you from fellowship with God, and to constantly point out how you are undeserving of His acceptance, love and blessings! The enemy uses the law to heap condemnation upon you and give you a sense of guilt and distance from God. He knows that the more condemnation and guilt you experience, the more likely you are to feel alienated from God and to continue in that sin.

The Law Has Been Nailed To The Cross

But beloved, I pray that today, you will know the TRUTH that Jesus has already nailed the law to the cross:

...having
wiped out the handwriting of requirements
that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having
nailed it to the cross
. Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.

—Colossians 2:14–15

What does this mean for believers today? When all the laws of the old covenant were nailed to the cross of Jesus, the enemy and all his minions were DISARMED! The devil had armed himself with the law to accuse and condemn man, but we have good news for you, my friend. The devil can no longer use the law as a weapon to condemn the believer and stir up sin because under the new covenant, the believer in Christ is free from the law! Our Savior has already wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us! Unfortunately, many new covenant believers do not know that they are no longer under the law. They are defeated by their lack of knowledge, and the enemy takes advantage of their ignorance and continues to wield the old covenant of the law to condemn them and revive sin in their lives.

“Pastor Prince, since Jesus had to nail the law to the cross, does this mean that the law is bad?”