Emmanuel (God with us)

One of the teachers at the school I work at is a Jehovah's Witness and we've talked about the Scriptures and Christ a number of times. She's a fun person and I enjoy her a lot. She seems to enjoy our talks and my presence as well as she has invited me to a number of gatherings of the Witnesses. I have not had much experience with them other than what I have basically read and heard. Apart from everything else they believe (no matter how strange), the important difference between them and Christians is that they have a works-based religion whereas God is grace-based. I don't say this from hearsay but from knowledge I gained from attending their church last Sunday. Their sermon (they would probably call it a lecture) could literally have been labeled "Obey God's law because He commands it." Only lousy parents would give such a reason to their children to obey them. I can see it now:

Mom: "JOHNNY! You go apologize to Carla right this instant!"
Johnny: "But whyyyyyy mom?"
Mom: "Because I said so!"


God does not deal with such frivolous explanations. He focuses on the heart and changing it. He explains to us why we should obey Him. For instance, in many places all over the Bible His reason is basically, "because I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of bondage and slavery." Our motivation to do what is right is not motivated out of fear, guilt or confusion but out of gratitude for our rescue from slavery and death!

I was angry over the words of the lecturer simply because his teachings were so wicked and wrong. For him to teach in the name of Christ who alone was able to obey the law for us and then tell those he was teaching to do the same is like giving them concrete boots and throwing them into the ocean to swim. We live a life of GRACE! Our works are filthy rags and at best we are unprofitable servants! Nothing we can do will gain us favor or right standing before God. That is why it took His perfect life, unjust death and glorious resurrection to purchase our entrance into God's presence. Who wants to trade pearls for sand? Trust in God's grace and not in yourself and you shall find life.

Still, I was not surprised to hear the law preached and was trusting that God would provide me the opportunity to minister His truth. One of the students from the school was there and he came to say hi. We chatted a little bit, parted ways and then saw one another again on Monday when he came for class. He asked me what I thought about the church service and I told him that I was "disappointed." I was thankful that he asked why and then actually listened as I registered complaints against the teaching.

I took with him the position from Romans 7 that in living through Christ we are now dead to the law:

⁴So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God. ⁵For when we were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death. ⁶But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.

We bear fruit through the law keeping of Christ and the grace He showed to us when He gave Himself as a ransom for us. As children who put their hand in the cookie jar after being told not to do so, so are we before the law when it tells us how to live. In Christ, we are bound to righteousness through the power of His blood and no longer to sin that, through the law, made us unrighteous.

⁷What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, "Do not covet." ⁸But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from law, sin is dead. ⁹Once I was alive apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. ¹⁰I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death.

The law was necessary to teach us of our own incapacity to be righteous before God. It was meant to drive us to the mercy which Christ provides. Without a code to tell us the proper path to walk, we would have no reason handed down by God to live a certain way and could not be judged as sinners. Paul, as Saul, found his righteousness through the keeping of the law and thus did not consider himself judged by it.

¹¹For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death. ¹²So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good. ¹³Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! But in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.

Sin had deceived Paul into believing himself blameless before the law and ultimately blinded him to his own spiritual death before Christ gave him sight to see. So the law is good because it reveals the heart of sin that is withing us. the punishment for sin is death and if we don't realize that we deserve such punishment then we cannot understand our need for Christ to supply our redemption. Either justice will find you, or you will find your shelter from justice in Christ who took your punishment. Either way, justice must be carried out. The law will be upheld by the sword and no one who is outside of Christ will be spared.

The next attribute of God I explained was that Christ is God incarnate. Anyone who knows a little bit of Spanish knows that "carne" is meat. Carne is a Spanish word derived from the Latin word incarnare which means "make flesh" and caro which means "flesh." Thus, Christ is the enfleshment of God. I said to Him that if you do not believe that Christ is God then you cannot be saved. In other words, if you don't believe God in the flesh who is with us then how can you believe God in the Spirit who is transcendent?

Praise God that we were able to speak again on Wednesday. He wanted me to bring Scripture detailing how Christ is God. I brought a lot. If you would like to read some of what I showed him then you can find it on this site: http://www.jesus-is-lord.com/jesusgd2.htm. We'll see where God takes it from here.