The Purpose of the Commandment

The Purpose of the Commandment

“Now the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith . . . .”

The law doesn’t reach any further. The former offerings sanctified to the purifying of the flesh. Heb. 9:13. Every sin that a man does is outside the body. 1 Cor. 6:18. So the one who sins has thereby defiled his body and is under the law. The law works outside the body, but the Spirit of Christ works within the body. Consequently, the one who is led by the Spirit is free from the law.

“But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.” Jas. 1:14-15. The law comes right away to chastise and stop sin. However, the Spirit of Christ comes before that. He condemns sin in the flesh before desire has conceived and has gained a foothold in the mind. Rom. 8:3.

Few people are so God-fearing that they can hear the Spirit’s voice. They awaken only after the law has chastised them in their conscience, which is why the purpose of the law is love from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith. The law can no longer touch you after you have come to a full surrender. Then you have started to walk in the light and in the Spirit; then you are no longer chastised by a bad conscience and an insincere faith.

Sin is constantly being condemned in new areas on this walk in the light with the result that the dying of Christ is always working. 2 Cor. 4:10-11. This is the hidden life with Christ in God.

When the Gentiles came to faith, the Jews wanted to put them under the law instead of guiding them into the leading of the Spirit. Even today many shepherds bind souls to rules and regulations, and most people like that. They think it is safer when they have a commandment they can follow. They think that listening to the voice of the Spirit is too vague and uncertain. They do not exercise their ears to listen to the voice of the Spirit; they think it is safer to go and ask a brother. Thus they avoid taking responsibility, but they also lose their reward. They come into bondage to men. They cannot hear what the Spirit says when they have to make a decision, but they think of what brother so and so would say, and they are afraid if anyone should find out what they are doing. This is not how they will progress on the way of being conformed into the image of Christ.

Modern Christianity will not have anything to do with laws and commandments; yet the law is good, and it is given for the lawless ones. You cannot be liberated from the law without being led by the Spirit. All other liberty is false liberty. They had already begun to slide into this false liberty in Peter’s days. “While they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption . . . .” 2 Pet. 2:19.

You can hear them speak about the fullness of the Spirit, power, and liberty in the midst of not having victory over honor seeking and envy—even fornication and unrighteousness in money matters. They borrow and do not repay, and quite often worldly authorities have to intervene, but they maintain they are liberated Christians for the blood and grace covers everything. This deception of Satan has more or less defiled almost all of today’s Christianity.

It is as Paul writes that they have strayed from the purpose of the commandment and have turned aside to idle talk. Listen carefully when you hear these preachers and you will hear much idle talk; and when you compare what they say with the Scriptures, you will be appalled. However, only a few people show sufficient interest that they take their Bibles along. Just look around in the assemblies. It appears as if the preachers have preached the Bibles out of the assemblies, and in the homes they serve mostly as a decoration.

It is high time that you wake up and are set free from the world and people so you can enter into the leading of the Spirit. It is not enough that you are pious and proper according to other people’s ideas, and it is even worse that you imagine you are free from the law in the midst of living in sin.

Godliness is not a means of gain, which is what the religious leaders of our days have made it into. You are fleeing the cross of Christ—the very cross that Paul gloried in—if you don’t want to acknowledge the judgments over your self-life and conceit (Gal. 6:14; Phil. 3:18); then you are not part of God’s house. 1 Pet. 4:17.