Grace for Your Day March 7

March 7th, 2022

The word “law” is a confusing term as it is used by Christians today to refer to many things such as earrings and make-up. Some use it to say that it is “against the law” to get tattoos today or grow long hair or drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes or go to the movies. The reason for the confusion is because the Bible uses this term in many different ways.

In the 1600’s, the Puritan Samuel Bolton wrote a book to clarify this entitled The True Bounds of Christian Freedom in which he said that the law has six meanings in the Bible.

1). It is used to refer to the Old Testament as a whole (John 12:34; 15:25; 1 Corinthians 14:21).

2). It is used to refer to the Word of God (Psalm 19:7).

3). It is used to refer to the five books of Moses (Luke 24:44; Galatians 3:21).

4). It is used to refer to the moral code of the Old Testament (Romans 7:7, 14, 21).

5). It is used to refer to the ceremonial code (Luke 16:16).

6). It is used to the moral and ceremonial codes put together (John 1:17).

The point is that it can be hard to figure out what people mean when they claim to be “saved by the law” which is why the author of the Book of Hebrews says that we are not. In order to clear up the confusion, he tells us plainly that Christians are not saved by the things that we do. We are saved by Christ alone as Hebrews 1:10-12 says:

[And of the Son He says],
“You, Lord, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth,
And the heavens are the works of Your hands;
They will perish, but You remain;
And they all will become old like a garment,
And like a mantle You will roll them up;
Like a garment they will also be changed.
But You are the same,
And Your years will not come to an end.”

While that may not seem to relate to the law, it does because Hebrews 1 was written to show us the supremacy of Christ. It tells us that Jesus is greater than anything this world has to offer and, therefore, we do not need to keep the law anymore in order to be saved because we can just trust in Him. In fact, the author quotes Psalm 102 here to say that, just as God will outlast the earth, so Jesus will do that too because His years will never come to an end. The same Son Who created the universe (verse 2) and upholds it (verse 3) will one day destroy it and start over again. However, He will remain unchanged as He does so because He is all that we need for redemption. A Savior this great can take care of everything which is what we are going to be talking about this Sunday morning at Grace Fellowship Church.

This week, we will look at how “Jesus is Greater than the World.” We will do that because, so far in our study of Hebrews 1, we have seen how Jesus is greater than the prophets and greater than the angels and greater than the nations. Now the author will take it one step further and show us how Jesus is greater than the universe itself because there is nothing that is stronger than Him. He is bigger than everything that exists so He is the one thing that we need in order to be right with God.

This is important because we all have a tendency to be legalists at heart. We all want to try to save ourselves by our own efforts but the Book of Hebrews says that you do not need to do that because you have a Savior “who laid the foundation of the earth” (verse 10).
Please join us this Sunday morning as we study Him and praise His great name. The service will begin at 9:30. – Jeremy Cagle