True Reality
(Not Virtual)
All sound scientific principles are those that have been identified by observation through experimental investigation of natural phenomena. Despite being demonstrated in the laboratory, the knowledge of sound scientific principles cannot constitute the basis for any man's Love, Joy, or Peace in any real meaningful way. Therefore, it must be concluded that scientific principles, though observable in the laboratory, belong solely to the realm of virtual reality for it is the unseen things of life that constitute the only real basis for any man's happiness and contentment and, even, his very existence. Accordingly, it must also be concluded that the unseen things of Life are the True Reality of our world since the observance of unseen things are the true basis for man's happiness or the neglect thereof for his discontent. Every honest man who cannot reject these self-evident and incontrovertible truths is, therefore, faced with a moral choice: Do I accept and follow God, the Father, as revealed in the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, who says, "This is the way, walk ye in it." (Isaiah 30:21) or do I reject God and Jesus Christ and make my own laws for living and accept the ensuing chaos that results in my world such as was demonstrated in the Scriptures when "Every man did that which was right in his own sight." (Judges 17:6)?
There is a way which seemeth right
unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.
Proverbs 14:12
Judge not according to the appearance,
but judge righteous judgement.
John 7:24
Who Needs the Law of God?
This question can only be answered by asking and answering another question:
Question:
What man is above the Law of God?
Answer:
No man is above the Law of God.
True Realities:
Sin is the transgression of the
Law.
1John 3:4
“Knowing this, that the Law is not
made for a righteous man, but for the
lawless and disobedient, for the
ungodly and for sinful, for the unholy and profane
and irreligious, for murderers
of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers.”
1 Timothy 1:9
Now we know that what things soever
the law said, it said to them who are under the law: that every mouth may
be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.
Romans 3:19
All have sinned and come short of
the glory of God.
Romans 3:23
For God has consigned all to disobedience,
that he may have mercy on all.
Romans 11:32
Question:
Who needs the Law of God?
Answer:
Athiests, Agnostics, Muslims, Catholics,
Protestants, Hindus & every other human being that lives on earth no
matter what their religious, political, or philosophical persuasion.
Irrespective of those who will go there whole lives telling everyone they know that "No one is perfect." and "No one can stop sinning.", it is far from adequate to establish that every man has sinned and every man needs the Law of God if there is no knowledge to impart to every man about how to overcome sin.
True Reality:
Come to your right mind, awake
to righteousness and sin no more, for some have no knowledge of God, I
say this to your shame.
1 Corinthians 15:34
The central core of the sin problem
is that men "have no knowledge of God". Every man needs the Law of God
because the Law is an expression of God's character. Needing the Law of
God is needing God, Himself, to take over our lives, not forcefully, but
giving our lives willingly to God because there is no other way to happiness
and contentment for any man.You see, it is important to know that "Sin
is the transgression of the Law", but that
true reality does not tell you how to overcome sin because it doesn't tell
you the cause of sin. Just as a doctor cannot cure a disease unless he
determines the cause of that disease, no man can overcome sin unless he
understands the cause of sin. Sin in this world can only occur in a man's
condition of being separated from God. It is the direct result of a man's
alienation from God. A man may have a neighbour that he lives next door
to much of his life and that man might claim to know that neighbour, even
though he has never been in his house or gone anyplace with him, he may
think he knows the neighbour because he has only talked a little with him
over the back fence. The man really only knows of that neighbor; he doesn't
truly know him. Not being close to our neighbours can result in their being
hostile, indifferent, or irrelevant to our lives and it is the same with
God. Many know of God, but they believe He is either hostile, indifferent,
or irrelevant to their lives because they are not veru close to Him and
do not know God as he truly is. They remain alienated and continue to sin
against Him because they do not have a true knowledge of God.
Do you think you might ever walk
into an elementary school classroom and find a
large poster in front of the children
that reads, “It is a law that you must like ice cream”?
Who needs a prominent law to tell
someone to do something that already is the natural
longing of one's heart?
By the same token, can you imagine
large posters attached to the walls of the New Jerusalem warning the inhabitants
that stealing gold from each other's mansions is strickly forbidden? In
our original condition, as well as in our restored condition, God didn't
and won't need to tell His people what to do or how to behave. His Law
was and will be written on our hearts.
[See Hebrews 8:10, 10:16]
When human hearts went astray from
their Lord, and thus from His wise Will, it became necessary for Him to
warn us, to guide us, even to command us to live in certain responsible
and healthful ways--to protect ourselves and others from pain and destruction.
It was no longer natural for our hearts to do the loving and wise thing.
God clearly identifies in His word just who it is that needs His Law:
It is people who would not otherwise live by its principles. The Law cannot
change one's inner values, but it can and does point out the need for a
Christ-wrought inner change.
Many Christians have believed that
the Law serves only to pass condemnation on us, and that once Jesus has
given us a legal covering of “declared Righteousness”, the need for the
Law vanishes. But in reality the Law changes its posture, its means of
working. It moves from external to internal, from a statement of what one
must
do to a description of what a loving person will do when bonded
to Jesus through Faith. As the Scriptures declare, “Are
we then undermining the Law by this insistence on Faith? God forbid: we
establish the Law and put the Law in its proper place.” (Romans 3:31, Phillips)
That proper place, of course, is
written on the heart. For the Law is an expression of God's character,
a restatement of His values. Those who adoringly behold Jesus Christ will
become like Him in their hearts, in their thoughts, and in their lives
because, through God's Word, His Spirit of Life dwells in them.
(John 6:63)
True Reality:
“Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster
to bring us unto Christ, that we might be
justified by faith. But after that
faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.” Galatians 3:24,
25
There are many Christians who believe
that the moment they believe and accept Christ into their lives, they receive
their diploma from the School of Christ and the Law of God is now [for
them, at least] nailed to the cross and it is no more binding upon their
lives. Let me ask those who believe in this way this question: When you
were in school and you graduated from a teacher's class and you loved that
teacher dearly, did you go out into the world and forget all about the
principles that your beloved teacher had taught you to live by? Of course
you didn't. You didn't go out and live just any way you wanted because
the principles you learned from your beloved teacher were what made him
or her the lovable person that you cherished in your heart.
It is the same way in the School
of Christ, once we graduate to another class or to a higher Faith than
that of our own, if Jesus Christ is our beloved teacher, we won't discard
the Principles that He taught us and that He, Himself, has always lived
by. The beloved teacher we had in our earthly school may not be our teacher
anymore, but even though he or she may live thousands of miles away and
we haven't seen them for years, in our hearts they will always be our dearest
friends. If this is so with our earthly teachers, how can it not be so
much more so with our heavenly Teacher?
True Reality:
“But now has He obtained a more
excellent ministry, by how much also He is the mediator of a better covenant,
which was established on better promises.”
Hebrews 8:6
Did God break His promises to Israel
or make faulty promises to them in the Old Covenant? God forbid any would
even think such thoughts! It wasn't God's Law that was faulty in the Old
Covenant, it was the broken promises of the people that annulled the Old
Covenant. The “better Covenant” and “better Promises” of Hebrews
8:6 for modern Israel today are the “for sure
and for certain” Promises of our beloved Teacher and dearest Friend, Jesus
Christ, whose character and principles are cherished in our hearts.
* ~ portions of the above
have been adapted by Jon Zwayer from 'God's Healing Love' by Dick Winn,
pg. 278
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