I once was outside one summer day when I heard a kind of a chirping noise. Curious as to what was making this noise I eventually traced the sound back to it’s source, and I found that it was coming from a frog that had gotten caught by a garter snake, as it was preparing to eat it. I decided to free that frog from his untimely demise and extracted him from the snake’s mouth, separating the two of them from each other and went back to my business.
Well, about five minutes later I heard that same chirping noise again, and yes, once again, that frog had been captured by that same snake. In disbelief of how ridiculous and foolish this frog was, I also once again freed him and went back to work.
Do you know what happened five minutes after that? You guessed it. Chirp, chirp, chirp. He had gone back and gotten himself caught a third time! However this time I simply gave up on freeing that frog because he clearly was just going to keep on going back to there once again after he was freed. My efforts to try to save him were pointless because of his insistence to return back to his previous place.
Similar to that frog, some people can be freed from something, only to go right back to it once again. This is what was happening in Galatians 5, as Paul in his letter explained to them that they had been set free from the Law by Christ’s death on the cross.
Galatians 5:1-6 “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing.
For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law.
Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace.
For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith.
For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love.”
If you are going to try to keep the Jewish Law, then you are bound to the entirety of the Law, and not just one or two points. What one must realize is that the Old Testament Law and the New Testament (grace) are two separate things. The Old is Judaism, the New is Christianity. And while it is the same God for each, the New Testament is the law that God has now implemented, and is in force.
As no one could keep the law, no one was made justified, and so this was why it was needed for Jesus to come and take it away through His death. Upon His death when He said, it is finished, that marked the end of that era. The Law became the Old, and Jesus instituted the New.
Paul explained that to try to keep the Law nullifies everything that Jesus came to do and did. We are not saved by trying to keep the Law. Thousands of years of the Jewish law proved that no one could keep it perfectly, and that everyone will at some point break the Law and commit sin. Sacrifice after sacrifice needed to be offered for the sins of the people under the Jewish Law, but this is something that Jesus took away as He became the sacrifice for our sins. No more sacrifices, no more observation of days, etc. Jesus took that away.
Realizing that we have been given liberty from the Law, why would we go back and try to keep it? If we were able to get to Heaven by keeping the Law then Jesus wouldn’t have had to come. But trying to keep the Law will not save you, only Jesus can. So don’t be like that frog that I kept rescuing, and go back into the Law. Enter into His grace and He will save you.
In Christ
Andrew
Teufer Lake King James Bible Church 