Christian apologist Anatoly Yudenko shares his reflections: LAW AND GRACE!

December 1, 2014 · Adam Bondaruk, Baptists, Victor Belykh, AUCECB, Persecution, Interview, KGB, Books, Unregistered Pentecostals, Nikolay Kotyakov, On Emigration, United Church of Evangelical Christians, Vestibule, Petr Saenko, Pentecostals, Religious Mafia, Slavik Radchuk, Contemporary Persecution, Security Services

…the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

Gospel of John 1:17

Many so-called modern zealots of the Old Testament law, trying to justify their view that unless you return to Judaism you will not be saved, also remind us of the words of the Apostle Paul, who wrote to the Romans – to the church there – 7:12: the law is holy and the commandment is holy, righteous and good, referring, of course, to the law God gave to the people of Israel through Moses.

All of this is certainly true, and there is no point in disputing or disagreeing with the Apostle Paul’s statement, but in addition to this, we must surely know that unlike the classic Jew who wrote those words, within him at that time not only the budding rabbi Saul was formed, but perhaps even more so the New Testament Christian, the Apostle Paul. In addition to what he already had, he also received revelation from God through Jesus Christ that the long-awaited day of salvation, of deliverance from sins, had finally arrived.

That day which all Israel had waited for agonizingly long, promised to them through the prophets, was fulfilled in Christ Jesus.

Not only the other nations did not know this, but the sons of Israel themselves did not either.

And the Apostle Paul also knew, for example, that Christ is the end of the law (Rom. 10:4), something which the ruling elite of Israel largely did not know, nor did many of the fledgling Christian churches, especially those of the circumcision.

And the Apostle Paul received all this and much more through revelation when he went on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:17–18). Therefore, he knew what he was talking about and what he was affirming to the churches.

He also knew that when there is a change of the priesthood, there must also be a change of the law (Heb. 7:12), and so forth. You will find all this in his epistles.

And we must also take into account that God gave Israel the commandments, or the law, at a time when Israel had just been born and was essentially an infant, who, like every newborn, needed a guardian, a tutor, a schoolmaster, whose task was to bring him up, to educate him, and to lead him to a definite goal. That tutor–guide for Israel became the law of Moses.

This law was very simple, short, and understandable to any child. Just ten essential rules, which were later condensed into two great commandments – love for God and love for one’s neighbour – which embraced the whole law and the prophets.

The question is: were these commandments necessary at the dawn of humanity?
Of course they were, because where they were absent, chaos reigned among those peoples, descending to the level of animals, and the people themselves were sometimes not even regarded as a people.

Therefore, the law, although it brought nothing to perfection (and, by the way, that was not its purpose), at least maintained the people at a level that prevented God’s wrath from being poured out until the promised Reconciler would come. So, of course, the law is holy, and the commandment, as part of that law, is of course righteous and good, for it brings to humanity both holiness and life. But with all that, we must always remember that what worked well yesterday is not always suitable for today.

For example, I grew up in a peasant family, and we peasants also had a sort of commandments for growing children.

Mother would sometimes instruct her child: “Son, don’t run through puddles – you’ll get dirty, catch cold, and fall sick. Don’t climb trees. Don’t steal from someone else’s orchard, or from anyone at all. Don’t argue with grown-ups. Don’t wipe your nose on your shirt-sleeve. Give up your seat to the elderly in public transport. Don’t spit anywhere,” and so on.

Now, if each of you were asked: were these motherly commandments good, even though they appear weak and primitive?
I think you would all say, “Yes, of course they were good and even necessary,” and I fully agree with you, because although they were not entirely perfect, they nonetheless (though not always) protected our children from unnecessary problems.

But now, when our son has grown up, graduated from university, and been appointed to a large factory as an engineer, and our same loving mother, seeing him off to work just as she once did to school, stands at the threshold and begins to lament and instruct him from the arsenal of her old rules: “Now, son, don’t run through puddles, don’t climb into other people’s orchards, don’t wipe your nose on your sleeve,” and so forth. How would that look, both from the outside and in general? And what would the neighbours say, who have become willing or unwilling witnesses of such a scene? I think, and I fully believe, that you all think the same: yesterday’s rules, though good and highly necessary, today look ridiculous, because the son is no longer that same son.

He should no longer be told the same thing over and over, as was done before.

I am bringing all this up in connection with what I have said before: that the law God gave to Israel through Moses – yes, it was needed, but needed precisely for that time. For the time of childhood, until Israel would come of age and attain the fullness in Christ.

And when the fullness came, and Christ appeared in this world, the law lost its force; it simply exhausted itself. As a tutor, it led the people of Israel to the coming Christ, and with that its purpose ended. It was a law for childhood, and it is absolutely inapplicable to the fullness in Christ, because all those initial requirements of the law have been so dissolved in the fullness of Christ that it is as if they are no longer there.

The day came, and the sunlight swallowed the light of the rushlight.

An example: once, perhaps not even a hundred years ago, our fathers and mothers used kerosene lamps, and even earlier simply a rushlight, just to somehow feed their children for a short time in the evening and put them to bed. And it must be said, people lived their entire lives in these meagre conditions, somehow adapted, endured, and passed through centuries and even millennia in such conditions, and they made peace with it, and to some extent each of them even experienced a certain joy and pleasure in life. And no one ever questioned whether the rushlight or the lamp was necessary for these people’s daily lives.

Of course it was necessary. Is that good or bad? Of course, good; how else could it be?

Well now, let us suppose, conditionally, that fullness came – electricity appeared. People use an incandescent bulb, hundreds of times superior to wax candles, not to mention primitive rushlights. With one flick of a switch, the room is flooded with bright light. And suddenly someone of a different mind arises, rebels, and says: “But I don’t want to abandon my former way of life; I’m not rejecting the new, but I don’t want to give up the old either, so I’ll light both.”

In that case, I say: go ahead – alongside the turned-on bulb, light also a candle and even a rushlight. Perhaps they will, after all, add something to the shining bulb. Yet apart from unnecessary soot and the fuss of constantly replacing the rushlight with a fresh one, I see nothing beneficial.

No one has banned the rushlight, but in my life (and I am already eighty years old) I have never seen anyone resort to a rushlight as an additional source of light where electricity was doing its job properly.

Naturally, when there was nothing more suitable for lighting, the rushlight passed for top quality, but when electricity came into our homes, the rushlight fell away of its own accord. And wouldn’t it look ridiculous if someone tried to bring the rushlight back into our daily life amid an abundance of light?

It would look exactly like that grandmother admonishing her grown-up engineer son.

With my example, I do not mean to say that we are guaranteed against some calamities. And I do not rule out at all that perhaps one of us may have to use a rushlight, or perhaps even be without any light altogether. That is not my point.

My point is that if we have received Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour, who has come into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, then we must believe and know that in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead, beginning from His incarnation in the body and continuing with even greater fullness of His victorious glory, dwelling in our hearts through the Holy Spirit.

And if some people today seek to come to Christ while also bringing along the rushlight, that would not mean that Christ left something unsaid or failed to teach His own adequately, but rather that those people do not fully trust Him. And that is very bad. Especially considering that He gave everything for us, even His life.

It is written, Christ is the end of the law. After all, the end. Where Christ begins, the law ends (Rom. 10:4). And again, Heb. 7:12 says, with the change of the priesthood there must also be a change of the law.

And also: the former regulation is set aside because it was weak and useless (for the law made nothing perfect), and a better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God (Heb. 7:18‑19). And that hope is Christ!

One could say that the rushlight was never banned either. It simply became useless against the abundance of electric light. And the law became obsolete and useless, having been completely absorbed by the Sun of Righteousness rising in our hearts.

If it was said to those of old, “Do not commit adultery,” I tell you – said Christ – that anyone who looks at a woman with lustful desire has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

You see how highly Christ raised the bar of holiness.
Higher than any Old Testament commandment – the old letter. Hence the following conclusion: anyone intending to sin with a woman physically, and thereby to break the law of Moses, will first have to break Christ’s law, because whoever looks at a woman with desire has already sinned with her.

Therefore, by thus fulfilling Christ’s law, a person necessarily also fulfills the law of Moses, whether he realises it or not.

The law of Moses, as it were, dissolves into Christ’s law and is preserved in it, becoming one whole with it. And so, Christ Himself commands us: cut off every evil thought in yourself and do not cultivate it; take it captive – neutralise it. As it is written, 2 Cor. 10:5: we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

This is precisely what we, and only we, must do: cut off at the level of thought every uprising against God and His teaching.

By doing this, we will never descend to that critical level of breaking the law of Moses.

By fulfilling Christ’s law, we automatically also fulfill the ancient law: do not murder, do not steal, do not commit adultery, and so on.

That is why this ancient law has lost its force – because another law, a more perfect one, came to replace it.

The fullness came; the eternal came, and everything temporal that pointed to that fullness lost its force, having fulfilled its role as a tutor. Glory to the Lord for all this!

Having all this in Christ, there is no point in repeating day after day and hour after hour the things we studied in childhood – all those motherly precepts, so very good and kind, that worked beautifully at that time. To everything there is a season.

The dawn of a new era has come; the day of Christ has arrived! The shadow remains in the past. The original and perfect has come in Christ Jesus. Glory to Him forever!

And so, as we affirm all this, we certainly agree with the Apostle Paul that by acting this way we do not break the law of Moses but uphold it.

We uphold it because every time we fulfill Christ’s law, we necessarily fulfill the law of Moses within it. It cannot be otherwise.

At the same time, we must note the following: those people who try to place the law given by God through Moses above the law of grace that came through Jesus Christ remain without Christ and His grace. They drop down to the lower level of initial childhood, to whom one must continually remind: do not taste, do not touch, do not slander, do not fornicate, do not steal, and so forth – as I mentioned above.

Of course, someone may object and say: “But the law of Moses was also given by God – so what’s the point?”

The point – and this is absolutely true – is that the law was indeed given to Israel by the same God whom we all confess, but it was given for a specific time, because you cannot apply the same demands to a child as to a grown person. That is what we are discussing throughout this whole topic. What is suitable for an adult is not always beneficial for an infant. We all know that. So God did not change, and this unchanging God dealt with Israel in the way I wrote above.

He could not give to imperfect infants what they would be unable to bear.

In Eph. 2:15 it says that God abolished the law of commandments. Yes, abolished – that is consistent with “set aside.” That is, as I wrote above, not simply destroyed, but for example: when the day arrives and the sun shines in its strength, a lit candle will hardly help it to increase the light for those around.

The same thing happened with the law of the ancients.

So then, do we destroy the law by faith? Not at all! On the contrary, we uphold the law, strengthening it so greatly with the light of Christ that it – being by its nature, let’s figuratively call it a rushlight – shines so gloriously and mightily, encompassed by the light of Christ, like the rising sun in its strength. And all this happens only because of Jesus Christ.

Outside of Him – a condemning dead letter, unable to bring anyone or anything to perfection.

So, after all, we do not destroy it but uphold it. Uphold it by what? By faith. Faith in whom? In Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour. By accepting Him, together with Him we naturally accept everything He has done for us, including the fulfillment of the law, which none of us could fulfill.

From this we can boldly affirm that we, being in Christ Jesus, fulfill not only Christ’s law but also the entire law of Moses, with all its prescriptions, including the observance of all sabbaths, knowing at the same time that the true rest – the sabbath – is Christ, and we have entered into that rest and are at rest from everything.

And now, let no one judge you with regard to a sabbath day (Col. 2:16). Starting from verse 9, we read: For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity dwells bodily… and you have been given fullness in Him, even circumcised in Him, both Jew and non‑Jew.

So the old circumcision is no longer needed. There was neither better nor worse.

And verse 14 says: having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross.

The written code that was against us is not only the law of the letter but also the lists of all our sins, which were exposed by the law and condemned us through the law, yet offered no way out of that dead end. By the sacrifices of goats and calves those sins were merely held over until the coming of Christ, but not destroyed; but Christ took them all upon Himself and in His body nailed them to the cross.

So then, let no one judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a new moon celebration, or a sabbath day. These are only a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. And naturally, those who are in the body of Christ have no need to remain in the shadow that pointed to the reality, which has been fulfilled in Christ.

First grade is very good for a schoolchild. But all the same, it is only the beginning. And would it be sensible to remain in the same class for two, three, five years? Yet in the lives of many Christians it often happens that when they entered first grade, there they remained – for ten, thirty, fifty years, sometimes their whole lives – not entrusting themselves to Christ and offending Him with their unbelief, rejecting His grace and the eternal sabbath rest, which does not end with sunset but abides forever in Christ Jesus. It is into such a rest that we have entered, and such a rest that we keep, preferring no longer to stay in the shadow of ritualistic lettering.

Glory and thanks for all this to Jesus Christ, the Lord God and our Saviour, forever and ever!

15 ноября 2014 г.

Анатолий Юденко

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