{"id":6716,"date":"2021-02-18T00:00:11","date_gmt":"2021-02-17T14:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/?p=6716"},"modified":"2021-02-18T07:51:35","modified_gmt":"2021-02-17T21:51:35","slug":"cursed-by-the-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/2021\/02\/18\/cursed-by-the-law\/","title":{"rendered":"Cursed by the Law"},"content":{"rendered":"

Galatians 3:10 10\u00a0<\/sup>For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, \u201cCursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

The law brings a curse upon humanity because no one is able to keep all of its terms. Everyone breaks the laws of God. Paul explains the reason for this in Romans 5:12 as the sin and death that came into the world because of Adam. There is something deep within the human heart that puts self above God. In this fallen world, we can call this the survival of the fittest. We do what we have to do to survive. Most of the time, this shows up as selfishness. If not countered with the universal gift of love that God gives all people through prevenient grace, the result is that other people are treated as objects to further our own cause or even survival. People fight one another. They break God’s laws because they are following their own agendas. God’s law are all a reflection of loving God or loving others. Because of this sin nature within us, this love becomes distorted and turned in on itself. We reject God’s laws because we feel they keep us from doing what we want. We fail to see the purpose of God’s laws.<\/p>\n

Some people think that they obey God’s laws and therefore are good enough to get to heaven. The good outweighs the bad. Paul quotes in this verse Deuteronomy 27:26 as support for his claim. The key phrase in this verse is\u00a0all things<\/em>. People may keep most of the law, but there are still parts that they do not keep. The law was never meant to be the way of salvation but the guide for those who have already received God’s grace. Salvation is by God’s grace through Christ and not human effort because of the impossibility of keep every aspect of the law.<\/p>\n

This whole idea can be simplified since Paul will simplify the law in 5:14 to the idea of loving others. No one’s love is perfect in the sense that we are always loving to others. That is our goal, but our selfishness still gets in the way. When the old life is crucified (2:20), our love still is not perfect because we make poor judgments, we misunderstand people and situations, and even act in self-defense of our so-called rights in neglect of those who are neglected and abused in this world.<\/p>\n

Theologians refer to these two problems with love as sins of commission and sins of omission. \u00a0That is why we must always rely on God’s grace and no our own human effort. Our love will grow as we walk the life of faith in Christ and obedience to the Holy Spirit. But we are always dependent upon God’s grace in Christ. This grace transforms us into the image of love from one degree of glory to the next (2 Corinthians 3:18). It is a life-long journey. The law points the way but is the not what gives us strength for the way.<\/p>\n

For older posts, click\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Galatians 3:10 10\u00a0For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, \u201cCursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.\u201d\u00a0 The law brings a curse upon humanity because no one is able to keep all of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-devotions","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6716"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6716\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6732,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6716\/revisions\/6732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}