Christianity Not a Sect of Judaism
Professor Emeritus of New Testament at the University of Tubingen Ernst Kasemann writes in his "Commentary on Romans" (p.191):
Freedom from the powers of sin and death takes concrete shape in freedom from the law. Made possible by the Spirit,this can be maintained only “in the Spirit.” Christianity is not just a Jewish sect which believes in Jesus as the Messiah. It is the breaking in of the new world of God characterized by the lordship of the Spirit. The intensification of the Torah which shaped Judaism in the days of the apostle is impossible for Paul even in the form of an internalizing of the law. He does not set up a new law as his interpreters do when they oppose living religion to book religion, or the statutory commands to the living will of God, a purified law, ethical activity, or inner moral power. All this would presuppose that God has to do primarily with the pious and not with the ungodly as Paul's doctrine of justification maintains, so that the order of the world and existence would be proclaimed as salvation under the banner of the law. For Paul the antithesis of letter and Spirit is the same as that of flesh and Spirit. As he sees it, the presence of the risen Lord in the power of the Spirit takes the place of the Torah of Moses and makes holy the world which otherwise, even in its piety and ethics, is unholy. The break with the law has to be proclaimed wherever the justification of the ungodly is the premise."
I get so discouraged when I see the Church forsaking the freedom of the Gospel and relying instead on the expectations and demands of the Law. Ugh! Has Christ died for nothing?! For freedom Christ has set us free! Stand firm therefore and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery seeking to feel good about yourself as if you could fulfill what the law demands. Flesh can't do it. Christ has done it. God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By this Jesus everyone who believes is set free from all those sins from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses.
Come on people. Let us return to the cross, the font, the table--the scene of the crime--that we may die to sin and rise to newness of life and walk before him in boldness and without fear.
Freedom from the powers of sin and death takes concrete shape in freedom from the law. Made possible by the Spirit,this can be maintained only “in the Spirit.” Christianity is not just a Jewish sect which believes in Jesus as the Messiah. It is the breaking in of the new world of God characterized by the lordship of the Spirit. The intensification of the Torah which shaped Judaism in the days of the apostle is impossible for Paul even in the form of an internalizing of the law. He does not set up a new law as his interpreters do when they oppose living religion to book religion, or the statutory commands to the living will of God, a purified law, ethical activity, or inner moral power. All this would presuppose that God has to do primarily with the pious and not with the ungodly as Paul's doctrine of justification maintains, so that the order of the world and existence would be proclaimed as salvation under the banner of the law. For Paul the antithesis of letter and Spirit is the same as that of flesh and Spirit. As he sees it, the presence of the risen Lord in the power of the Spirit takes the place of the Torah of Moses and makes holy the world which otherwise, even in its piety and ethics, is unholy. The break with the law has to be proclaimed wherever the justification of the ungodly is the premise."
I get so discouraged when I see the Church forsaking the freedom of the Gospel and relying instead on the expectations and demands of the Law. Ugh! Has Christ died for nothing?! For freedom Christ has set us free! Stand firm therefore and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery seeking to feel good about yourself as if you could fulfill what the law demands. Flesh can't do it. Christ has done it. God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By this Jesus everyone who believes is set free from all those sins from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses.
Come on people. Let us return to the cross, the font, the table--the scene of the crime--that we may die to sin and rise to newness of life and walk before him in boldness and without fear.
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