The Spirit, Not Just the Letter – The Law of God: Questions and Answers

The Spirit, Not Just the Letter
The Law of God: Questions and Answers

How shall we understand and apply the Law of God today?

God’s Spirit brings out the full intention and application of the Law.

…our sufficiency is from God, who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. 2 Corinthians 3:5, 6

One of the purposes of the Law of God is to kill us dead. The Law exposes and condemns the sin that lingers in us, but it has no power to resuscitate us into true life.

That is the work of the Spirit. The Spirit uses the Law to destroy our old works and to make a mockery of our ever thinking we might be able to do anything to earn the favor of the holy God.

Then He uses the Law to guide us into the good works God has before ordained for us in His Law (Eph. 2:10). We take up these works, not to earn some favor from God. Rather, having been favored by Him, we take up His Law to show our love for Him and to acquire the mind and power of the Spirit for living in love toward our neighbors.

The Law of God, as it was given through Moses, is much deeper and richer than even Moses or the Prophets understood. It holds insights to the mind of God which must be mined in every generation, and this is the work of the Spirit. Just as the Spirit taught the Apostles how to apply the Law to their situations in ways that would have left Moses scratching his head, so He intends to bring out from the letter of the Law its relevant spiritual truths for our contemporary lives.

But unless we have the mind of the Spirit and are committed to the path of holiness, we’ll never be able to make meaningful sense of the Law, or to know its power to bring holiness, righteousness, and goodness to light in our lives and times.

We must take up the Law daily, heeding whatever the Spirit would teach us, and press on toward the holiness which is in Jesus Christ alone. As we do, and as we continue this discipline, we will discover new and wondrous ways that the Law of God brings the blessings of God to bear on our everyday lives.

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In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T. M. Moore, editor of the Worldview Church. He serves as dean of the Centurions Program of the Wilberforce Forum and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of twenty books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are The Ailbe Psalter and The Ground for Christian Ethics (Waxed Tablet).

Scripture quotations in this article are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, (c) copyright 2001, 2007 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.