For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
12 Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling,
13 for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.
Today’s opening Scripture speaks of a change of dispensation, from one to another. It says the Law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. Evidently, the law is not grace, and grace is not the law. The dispensation of the law began with Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. What was the dispensation of the law all about? It was a dispensation of God dealing with spiritually dead men, who knew the will of God but couldn’t do it just because they were spiritually dead. Romans 8:1-3 tells us that the law was incapacitated because of the weakness of the flesh, spiritual death which ruled humanity. The law, therefore, couldn’t help them. It became an occasion for sin or sinfulness unto them, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But the dispensation of grace is that of God’s dealings with the man that is spiritually alive unto God in Christ Jesus. This is the
dispensation of the man in Christ – the born again, regenerated, recreated man. The law initiated the dispensation of struggle and of death. People were living from outside-in instead of living from inside out. God was not pleased with those under the law because they were not of faith, and it is evident that no man can please God without faith.
Today’s opening Scripture tells us that the law was given by Moses, but that grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. The law is mechanical and that means you must try as much as you can in your own strength to obey it but under grace, we keep the commandments of God not by trying hard, but by the power of an endless life, by the help of the Holy Spirit. The dispensation of grace is not license for sin. No! It is the dispensation in which God’s people are enabled by the power of the Spirit of God through their recreated human spirit to do the will of God. God showed this clearly in Ezekiel 36:26-27, He said “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.” This is the dispensation that we live in now under the New Covenant. The Spirit of God within us enables us to do what pleases the Father.
My Solid Front (Confession):
I declare that I am not under the law but under grace; I do not take the grace of God as a license to continue in iniquity; rather, by the Spirit of God within, I give expression to the nature of God, walking in love and righteousness in Jesus’ Name. Amen.
Further Meditation: Hebrews 8:8-13; Philippians 4:13.