The Way to the Father

The Way to the Father

God’s law can mean the Law of Moses as well as the law that is now being written in our hearts, together with all the light that is God’s own nature.

The first thing that can be said about the law is that it is good. Next, we should remember that it is inflexible, which means that it is unchangeable.

The Law of Moses was given to the people of Israel in order to get them to acknowledge in their hearts that they were evil and incorrigible, worthy of death, that they were people who were lost, who needed salvation from God. Israel, who were a chosen people by God on earth, in contrast to the Gentiles (all the other nations on earth), were just as sinful as all other nations. However, as long as the Law had not been given to them, they were ignorant of their corruption. Therefore God gave them the Law and its precepts and commandments as to what they should do and not do in order to show them day by day that their own lusts which they had followed, possessed the power of corrupting their spirit, so that they could not do what was right and live according to God’s pleasure. Jesus came and consecrated the way of salvation when the people were thoroughly convinced of their corrupt and incorrigible nature.

Since the natural body to which the spirit is bound is incorrigibly sold to the law of sin and death, something new had to be done. And this is precisely what Christ has done: He brought light and immortality to light through the gospel. 2 Tim. 1:10. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation . . . .” 2 Cor. 5:17.

It is written that Jesus came in the fullness of time (Gal. 4:4) because the cup that contained the conviction of perdition was now full. The Law had now chastened the people to expect and hope for the Messiah who was to save them from their sins. The Law had (historically speaking) chastened them to Christ (not all of them, but as many as were willing to be chastened). Gal. 3:24. Just as the Law of Moses chastened Israel—the Jews—to Christ, so now, after Christ, a law has been given to all nations as a tutor to bring them to Christ. This law is written in the hearts. It testifies just as decisively as the Law of Moses did about right and wrong, so that people’s evil deeds work condemnation in their hearts and in their consciences, while at the same time the Spirit of God convicts them of sin because they do not believe in Jesus Christ (however, this last part presupposes the preaching of the words of Christ; see Romans 10:17).

Also this law, which is written in the heart, convicts a person of his insufficiency and lost state and chastens as many as submit to chastening to Christ, who has life which He gives as a gift to the lost soul.

The law is spiritual. Rom. 7:14. A person is a slave of sin as long as he is under the law as his tutor. And just as surely as a lord is unpleasant to a slave, so the law is inconvenient to a sinner. Sin is a transgression of the law. 1 John 3:4. “To him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.” Jas. 4:17. Everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin. Notice: This enslavement by sin often continues after a person has turned to God and believes in Christ, with many people remaining in this enslavement all the days of their life. Therefore such believers know nothing more of God and His kingdom on the day they die than on the day they turned to Him.

The person who now becomes tired of slaving under the law as a transgressor is a good part of the way to being saved from sin. However, it is of no avail to be on the way to anything if one doesn’t get there. Such people are described in Isaiah 57:10. The person who continues on the way by struggling with all of his strength to keep the law and please God will come to a point when he, out of love for God, with a hunger and thirst for righteousness, can no longer endure this sinful life, and dead tired, he succumbs. At this moment such a soul hears the testimony of the Spirit: “Believe in Jesus, and you will partake of Him!” Helpless, having given up all hope of improvement from himself, the soul apprehends eternal life to which he has been called. At this very moment, he dies to himself and to the law as a tutor—old things have passed away and all things have become new (2 Cor. 5:17)—and thus begins a new life of faith in the Spirit, in Christ.

What about the law? Shall I now reject it as something evil, the very law that helped me to die to my wretchedness? Am I now separated from it? Not at all! It is precisely now that I am united with the law in that it has now come inside of me—instead of standing outside of me and condemning me—so that its requirement is fulfilled in me. Rom. 8:4. Before it was a relationship between lord and slave; now it is a relationship between friends! I was not to die to the law as if it were something evil, for it is good; but I was to die to myself as something evil, and God’s light, which previously could not find room in my heart, has now come in, and light and the law now give each other a good testimony because they are one and the same.

Now I can understand that the law is spiritual, that it is light and truth and thus reflects the nature of God.

Have I thereby come to all light? Not at all! Now I have simply been enabled to bear the light in my heart so that God can gradually give me more and more light. Essentially I am not pure in myself because my spirit is bound to my corruptible body, but God has in a marvelous way given me a purity with which He can be united. This purity is in and through that great mystery of godliness: Christ manifested in flesh. 1 Tim. 3:16. Seeing that it is a mystery of godliness, only God-fearing people can ever receive it; and even so, only those who continue to walk in the fear of the Lord can remain in this pure state in Him! Let those who can, let them comprehend it.

By faith I reckon myself dead, crucified with Christ, so that my “old man” does not refer to me but to the body of Christ on the cross, while the new “I” refers to a new life in the light in the new man who is incorruptible, who is born by the word of truth—by faith. I can now walk in the newness of life in Christ just as I entered into Him, namely, by faith—and this is the only way. Through this faith I have the victory—as far as the light shines—and walk in purity according to the conscience. Heb. 9:9. The Law was unable to lead us to this because it judged only sinful deeds, which are outside the body. However, Christ was able to do it by God condemning sin in the flesh, in the body. Rom. 8:3. Nevertheless, I am bound to the earth—in spite of being placed with and in Christ in the heavenly places, walking in purity and therefore without condemnation—with my corruptible body in whose flesh still is only sin and must therefore follow the law of sin and death in those areas where I have still not been enlightened and by faith have been surrendered into the death of Christ. But am I then not truly dead with Christ? Yes, I certainly am! But the life (the new “I”) which I receive through salvation and redemption is not the fruit of just one step; it is the fruit of a walk which consists of several, even many steps. It is a walk of faith in obedience! How can anyone believe without having heard? Has the person now heard everything? Can he now differentiate between evil and good in everything? Far from it! Heb. 5:13-14. But now he can begin to differentiate between the pure and the impure in various matters. Partaking of the death of Christ begins by faith in a moment, and this fellowship with Him in His death increases also by faith as I hear, as the Spirit, besides speaking on the outside to everyone, also testifies in the body (the church) to which the soul was led when he forsook his own life and by faith was united with and in Christ.