Law and Sin

Law and Sin

Lent, a time of adherence to what the law is telling us, the direction we must point ourselves in assuring no stone is left unturned to see if our path is according to specifications.  The Old Testament required absolutes to be followed to the letter without deviation.  The Mosaic law prescribed by Moses was necessary since the teaching being given assisted a people that were slow to learn regarding God.  When it came to sin the High Priest once a year would go into the Holy of Holies, sprinkle the blood of a lamb on the enclosure of the Pentateuch for the forgiveness of the peoples’ sins.     

Our sins are not always exposed as on a billboard so everyone may view them.  Most times they are performed behind closed doors or only open to someone else with whom the misdeeds are shared with.  But we have gone beyond following a set of rules that condemns each of our misgivings.  Lent is not a period to catch us off guard when failing but an opportunity, like that of the Prodigal Son, to find a reason to attach ourselves to a structure of humility and seek him whom we have offended. 

“Jesus, superior to Moses; Therefore, holy brothers, sharing in a heavenly calling, reflect on Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, who was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses was faithful in all his house, But he is worthy of more glory than Moses, as the founder of a house has more honor than the house itself” (meaning God’s house).  (Heb. 3: 1 - 6).  

“Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: Oh, that today you would hear his voice, harden not your hearts as at the rebellion in the day of testing in the desert, where your ancestors tested and tried me and saw my works for forty years.  Because I was provoked with that generation and I said they have always been of erring heart and they do not know my ways.  As I swore in my wrath they shall not enter into my rest.”  (Heb. 3: 7- 11).

“Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will conclude a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.”  “For I will forgive their evildoing and remember their sins no more.” 

(Heb .8: 8a,  12).

Because of the sacrifice of Christ we now have an advocate we can depend on.  He is Jesus the lamb of God to whom our prayers were sprinkled on in the Old Testament.  

Ralph B. Hathaway, our sin now becomes the spirit of freedom from the law!