The Bulletin
of the
Church of Christ at
New Georgia
Tim Johnson, editor
November 18, 2007
In
This Issue:
What
a Friend We Have!
by
Steve Klein
The
Perfect Law of Liberty
by
Cecil Willis
What A Friend We Have!
It was Aristotle who said, "Friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies." That is a good description of the fellowship that we enjoy with close friends. Jesus' sacrificial love for us, coupled with our obedience to Him, allows us to experience just such a relationship with Him. He told His disciples, "Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends. You are My friends if you do whatever I command you" (John 15:13-15).
We all have had friendships that were disappointing, and probably all of us have not been the friend we should have been at one time or another. Friendship with the Lord is not disappointing. God Himself has shown us in Scripture what it means to be a perfect friend.
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A friend is someone you believe in: "'Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.' And he was called the friend of God." (James 2:23).
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A friend is someone you enjoy giving to: "Are You not our God, who drove out the inhabitants of this land before Your people Israel, and gave it to the descendants of Abraham Your friend forever?" (2 Chronicles 20:7)
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A friend is someone you speak freely and comfortably with:
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"So the LORD spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend" (Exodus 33:11).
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"No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you" (John 15:15).
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A friend is someone you share your life with: "And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him" (Genesis 5:24).
Without friends, life is a sad and desperate experience. Human friends are special and hard to come by; a Divine Friend is all the more rare and special. The Lord extends His friendship to us. He believes in us and wants us to believe in Him. He freely gives us all things. He has spoken openly to us in His word, and He wants us to talk often to Him in prayer. He wants to share life with us. Jesus said, "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him." (John 14:23).
But we do not deserve His friendship. We have not been friendly toward God. By our sins we have declared our intention to be God's enemies. Yet God is unwilling to let the friendship end so easily. Even though we have not always been friendly toward God, He has gone out of His way to make friends with us. "And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight" (Colossians 1:21-22).
What a Friend we have!
-- Steve Klein
The New Testament writer, James, said, "But he that looketh into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and so continueth, being not a hearer that forgetteth but a doer that worketh, this man shall be blessed in his doing" (James 1:25). There are several important lessons to be learned from this passage.
(1) IT IS A "LAW." This body of truth which is the source of all pure religion is here called a "law." There are some who would have us to believe that the Old Testament had law, but no grace; and that the New Testament has grace, but no law. They therefore teach that we should preach "the Man" but not "the Plan," else we become legalists.
However, a law is simply a "rule of action." If there is no prescribed rule of action (i.e., no law), then it would be impossible to sin, since sin is the transgression of the law (1 John 3:4). The body of truth that guides us is elsewhere called the "law of Christ" (Galatians 6:2; 1 Corinthians 9:21), the "law of the Spirit of life" (Romans 8:1, 2), and here it is called "the law of liberty" (Jas. 1: 25; 2:12). It is true, however, that we are not under the Law of Moses (Romans 6:14), but this does not mean that we are under no law at all.
(2) IT IS "THE PERFECT LAW." It is the only "perfect law." The Law of Moses had some imperfections, the Hebrew writer says (Hebrews 8:7, 8). The Law of Moses could not take away sins (Hebrews 9:15; 10:1-4). But the gospel is "the perfect law." There will be no other law like it given forever (Matthew 24:35).
"Perfect" means "completeness," "fullness," or "wholeness." In this gospel, "all truth" for all time was revealed (John 16:13). Jude taught that the faith was "once for all" revealed (Jude 3). Thus this "perfect law" cannot be amended, improved, or transcended by man. Any tampering at all by man, whether to add to it or to take from it, will destroy its perfection. It must be left just as it is to maintain its perfection.
(3) IT IS "THE LAW OF LIBERTY." The Law of Moses constituted an unbearable yoke (Acts 15:10). When the gospel was inaugurated, the "yoke of bondage" was removed. Jesus taught, "ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32). Paul taught the "law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death" (Romans 8:2). The power of the gospel to liberate one from the tyranny of sin is another mark of its perfection. The gospel is God's only power unto salvation (Romans 1:16).
The fact that the gospel is "the law of liberty" does not mean that one is free so that he does not have to obey the gospel. Some teach that since the gospel is a liberating gospel, one does not necessarily have to obey that gospel; he does not have to believe and be baptized, we are told. But the only way we really can honor "the Man" is to obey "the Plan." When one is baptized "in the name of" Jesus Christ, he shows his faith in the saving power of Christ. It is only when one has obeyed that this "perfect law" becomes to him "the law of liberty" (Romans 6:17).
-- Cecil Willis