Several months ago, a friend and I went through a book study because we had a talk one evening and we both realized that we didn’t feel our faith was making an impact in our lives.  I had been given a copy of Dan Stone’s “The Rest of the Gospel: When the Partial Gospel has Worn You Out” by a friend at work, and at one time started reading it earlier, but I was distracted at that time and didn’t fully get into the book.  However, at that time I knew it was going to be a powerful and meaningful read.  Now, talking with my friend and wanting to figure out how to make faith more active in our lives, this book  stood out as the one we would read.

We are now a few months removed from the book, but there were a few key thoughts from one chapter that have really  challenged my daily thinking.  They are not new thoughts in Christianity- but they are new thoughts to a mind that hasn’t grabbed on to the ramifications of what Jesus did dying on the cross, and being raised from the dead.  However, if you and I take them seriously and let the implications of their truths touch our daily thinking, they will change us.

1. The believer is dead to sin.
2. The believer is dead to the law.
3. The believer is dead to himself as their point of reference in life.

Now, each one of these ideas deserves to be unpacked with some extensive meditation.  But the one that has been pretty profound to me is the second one: the believer is dead to the law.  You are telling me I do not have to ever put myself up against the commandments again, against the “shoulds” and “oughts” of moral reasoning, and find myself lacking, stained, or condemned?  I cannot be whittled down by my moral failings as I move forward in life, even though I know I will continue to struggle to “be righteous”? I am from this moment forward forgiven of all that I will fail in through the rest of my life?

Jesus’ work on the Cross tells us, if anything, that living our daily lives is no longer about “being good”- about trying to make ourselves be that conforming, perfect person that the law demands that we be.  God is no longer concerned with our moral perfectionism(as if He ever really was in the first place), because He has become the good that rules us.  And he views us in the same way as He sees His Son- as perfect people, renewed and righteous.

In short: being dead to the law, we no longer live under it.  We cannot be held under it, condemned by it, or measured against it.  And if we are dead to the law and cannot be condemned by it, we are also dead to its indictments of our sins.  Sin is no longer our master, as the law has no power over us any more.

In the acrobatics of my thought life, and especially when I think about who I am to God- these truths are liberating indeed.