OUR TUTOR IS DEAD

“Carefully follow the terms of this covenant, so that you may prosper in everything you do” (Deut. 29:9): Under the old covenant of The Law God rewarded obedience with health and prosperity. Countless millions of sincere Christians have dragged this Old Testament precept into the New Testament -- the new covenant of Grace -- expecting health and prosperity as an entitlement of faith in God. But The Law is dead... defunct, replaced by a new and better covenant that has no provisions for guaranteed health and prosperity.  We can’t just pull cherry picked pieces of The Law into Grace, the Apostle Paul was very clear on that, holding onto any of The Law libels one for the whole of it. And, since man can’t keep the whole Law – only Christ fulfilled The Law – judgment and condemnation swiftly follow. So, we can quit salivating over those Old Testament passages on health and prosperity; “The Law was our tutor to bring us to Christ” (Gal. 3:24). Our tutor is dead...

“The former regulation (The Law) 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): The “Better Hope” is for Intimacy with God under the New Testament covenant of Grace where God has put His Spirit, the Holy Spirit, in believers to enable us to draw near to Him. The former arrangement of doing “good” to secure God’s blessings has been replaced with a desire for intimacy with our loving Father: Our attitude is “Thy will be done.” Our hope is to become like Jesus. Our strategy is to trust in Jehovah Jireh. Our experience is to celebrate God’s glory. Our passion is to intimately and continually know Christ, irrespective of the conditions of our life. Health and prosperity have no meaning or place under Grace where the best health and greatest prosperity is to be like Jesus.  

As the Apostle Paul put it, it was through the Law that we died to the Law that we might live to and for God: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me … I die daily.” (Gal. 2: 19-20; 1 Cor. 15:31) Saints, we too must daily crucify our fleshly nature… Self, that our Lord’s supernatural nature might emerge and reign in our lives. Isn’t it time to put away our childish ways and become the sons and daughters Christ died to produce? The desire for health and prosperity smells of misplaced love for this life in this world... futile desires of an earth-bound mindset. What we really need -- what we should really want -- is transformation into Christlikeness... By any means... At any cost... Christ in His fullness, permeating ever fiber of our being. Nothing less, not even His blessings, will do.

 “BUT CHRIST LIVES IN ME”