Law and Grace - Part 1 — Norman Grubb

The Problem of Sin and the Meaning of Being Christ

Re-examining a bit the answer to the question that is a commonplace question we all ask or are asked which John raised up yesterday when he spoke about being annoyed because he lost the way. And what why is it and why is it if we say we're Christ.

We have this deviating element in our lives this temptation sin syndrome in our lives. Where did it fit. We've been over that again again but you also to be teachers of others we're just starting come along.

How this started. You're quite punctual. I'd like to try and give you as I say it's not for our own sakes for the sakes of those who constantly ask this kind of question how can you say what you mean that you're Christ in human form.

And yet there's the area which we appear to be not Christ which you appear to respond to the citations of the flesh. And we just go over the Bible interpretation and explanation and pitching together the whole thing how it's presented supremely of course by Paul so I'll go into that.

Then we can raise up any else we want or raise up questions on that. That's why we have to have to fit in the reason for the introduction of the law into the human race through the nation of Israel the purposes of the law and what it finally means when it says the final point is become become dead to the law.

A whole chapter is given to that. That's Romans 7 not dead to sin. That's Romans 6 dead to the law. This is the final the final issue before we move into the the right way of daily living which is Romans 8.

Humanity Created in the Image of God

If we start right back at the beginning we know just quoting what the scripture gives we're made an image of God that we're made to be forms of him who's good by good we mean him whose life is love which is other love goodness is I for others nature of God whose love we're made as image.

So the motivation of our life is we're being for others we're lovers. We probably see that in the instinctive relationship between Adam and Eve themselves unconscious of self-gratification the relation between between Adam and Eve and God and the nature because they they so loved say there is such a love relationship that all the different grades and animals were brought to them.

They were in a friendly relationship with animals and named them all. There was a love relationship because that's all they knew. There was nothing except love in action. That's the that's the image in which we created.

Oh nothing. Nothing have become nothing. We can never become conscious of anything. And we can't operate except by virtue of opposite. We know need we really and all life is handling opposites. Therefore in order to become conscious people we had to know there was an opposite which in God had been handled where it says he can't lie.

The possibility in God which but was it which must have been there to be a liar who's a self-lover have been swallowed up by its opposite. He is a self-giver so he cannot lie as one swallows up the other.

That's the that's the the final meaning of opposites that one one gets his strength for swallowing up the other like we always illustrate. You couldn't have the comfortable sofa unless it has a hard framework and soft cushions.

One swallows up the other and all life is a what Walter Russell calls a balanced interchange between opposites. I say we're cooking of course everything. So there you have to have. We have to have the interchanging but get those and have one finally swallowed up the other which is swallowed up in God so he has no darkness in him.

He's swallowed up he all the power of his selfhood which could be a self-loving selfhood is swallowed up in being a self-giving selfhood which is God who is love. And we had some reflection of that in being created in his image.

Now we had to have the opposite to find there is an opposite ultimately he hasn't swallowed up. So we had to move into the realm of the fall under Satan where we attempted to choose for ourselves for our own to choose what we wanted as against what was in the quality of self-giving love.

Self-giving love of course would have continued to do what God was saying is the right to do which is Adam and Eve were tempted out of that. So we get a condition now in which are mainly unconscious.

That self-loving self is a false thing geared to a self-loving that self and all these disastrous consequences. We don't call them sin. We don't know them as against God. We just know as an inconvenience.

So if you live among the Africans it's just inconvenient to see somebody else's wife or fear somebody else. Not because it's against God or a sin but merely on or the only idea of having good and evil is whether it is convenient or not.

So the Bible says sin is not imputed where there's no law. That's in Romans 5. Sin is not imputed where there's no law. So it's not known to be a sin. So we fall into a world where we think it's all right to be what we are and do what we can and make the best of our messes and make life work somehow.

That's our blindness condition which we think. Therefore this false self which is a self-loving self is the only self we know the right self and where it's wrong build it up as you can. Not because it's wrong but because it's inconvenient.

Israel, Law, and the Purpose of Grace

So God now moves on the human race to bring us back to a full purpose of being a human. The ultimate purpose which is to be the means by which he is his self-giving self. Self-giving self through the eternal ages by his son expressions invisible by the visible.

So we we settle in to be gods in the sense we are spontaneous human expressions of him self-giving self that's our ultimate. And that of course is perfect harmony perfect everything. Now it's God's purpose to get us back.

It always has been his purpose. Because he knew we had to go this way because we had to find self again into focus and have the have the opposite and have the positive and the negative to make a to make a total being a human full being.

So we're on now on the opposite level. We don't even know it's opposite before we know. We're now on the negative level to fulfill his purposes. He began of course to trace up to Abraham and Satan but it broke through in Abraham when he began to reveal his plan of a special company people who'd who'd who'd be operate under the law.

Something else was to come in here and so Abraham was to be the father of a nation which first of all is to be a law nation is to be a grace nation. So the ultimate family of Abraham is ourselves of course the Israel of God the vast those outnumber who who are now the people of grace the people the people of expressions of self-giving God.

But that's the ultimate that comes up through Christ. We're talking before Christ now. So the first first faith had to be a people enough to be a people. So it could be a nativity in this world this holiday which had made that's one amazing fact.

Israel still is a problem. You never hear the Moabites or the Canaanites or the Hivites and Jebusites disappeared. They were just Amalekites just passing tribes. Israel's here because they were the original key they were the means by which God could could could build grace because he had to build grace on law as we shall see because law makes us know who we are in our lost condition.

And we've got to know who we are in our lost condition before we can find. Grace makes us know who we are in our found condition. So the two go together. So in that sense they were chosen people. The covenants were there the promises were there and so forth.

And of course there were the great men who knew grace all the way through. Abraham always knew the spiritual kingdom and didn't and went geared to the physical the material kingdom. That's why I think it's so foolish to waste your time on the Lord's company talking about law and material kingdom.

It's only a little anyhow if there are ultimate temporary purposes but I don't think there are in which Israel becomes very particular. It's only temporary because we are the Israel that babyhood that other stuff.

We have a human nation that human nation with its kids stuff war games war between nations race color and all that stuff sex and luck. And we're pulling out of that thank God the body has begun to see better very slowly.

But we've begun we're getting out of the old topic out of the topical forest a little however we go back and so here was God's purpose have a nation. And they must have been nation who find the wrong form of self that the deceived for we've been deceived.

We've been the same thing. It's okay we're just people bit messy on route but that's the inconvenience. But just people that we'll best people we could be with every self for self self for self. So of course it has chaotic because it's self for self.

So we get the birth of the nation the Israelitist nation. And then we get the incoming of the law to the first private primary great revelation after the because Abraham had the fundamental revelation that all nations be blessed through him there's going to be a vast nation of human family who's going to be blessed through Abraham through Jesus Christ and through grace.

But that's it. Let's see the father seeing the power of future as it was to Abraham. It is only closer now. But the first phase had to be a discovery that a fallen self is a wrong kind of self. So we get the great the great man of history Moses to have the revelation.

Moses, the Law, and the Glory of God

Moses had the full revelation so we had he could only veil. It is marvelous man. He saw the pain. He saw what he gave us a pattern of the truth. He saw the pattern of which which of which tabernacle was only a other form.

The pattern was Jesus Christ final grace final purpose of God in expression. Man he saw it. Marvelous man. So he saw God face-to-face which is the community means he God's really is. He did not see God the face-to-face when he took when he gave it got the law.

He only saw an angel. His first visit to 40 years 40 days was only an angel because God's not law. God's grace be by an external form for certain purposes. We discuss he gave law. We'll discuss in a moment.

So Moses did not think God's face-to-face. And he saw it when he heard Lord God of angels. It says. It says in Galatians I haven't. You haven't got your Bible so you can't follow it through. It says the angels that the the the Lord was given by that by was mediated by an angel not by God.

Later on he went back when the law thing had been fixed up or we're going to be fixed up. And he said you see the tabernacle. They saw the face-to-face. The tabernacle was the outer form of the total Jesus in total grace all the rest of it.

So it Moses saw right through. That's why he had the veil. He saw the glory. He couldn't put out the glory. Man couldn't self couldn't take that glory. We have the veil off us. Now we've begun to be like Jesus or rather to be as to be Jesus.

So with the glories begun to shine now we've begun to show forth that glory but only in a minor way. We got a little touch in the transfiguration shown as the Son. We get a little touch of that and more and more to come.

We don't they longer pass from grace to grace. We pass from glory to glory. That's why I mistake that scripture. When you say aren't we still changing. They quote that scripture 2nd Corinthians 5. We change into saying maybe not from grace to grace we are all grace but from glory to glory.

Grace to grace is total. That's what we totally are. Jesus is total glory towards a little more what he is the more he is not not growing into something understanding who he is operating as such. So we transfer where it changes from glory to glory even by the Spirit of the Lord.

That's that's the outshining face. That's the that's the unveiled face. And we have a little of that. Thank God we feed each other. Don't we. But that's that's. I'm only passing by the fact that Moses saw the full glory.

But he couldn't. He wasn't there. He couldn't record it. He even could not transmit the full glory because he he himself saw that. Because he knew the way he found the way he found the way the burning bush.

Of course he knew that from the beginning of Horeb. Horeb was the moment God said you know I called you out because I'll meet you at Horeb. Not because I get you out to the Red Sea. That's a way through.

I'll get you out of Egypt. I'll get you out to the Red Sea. You'll know I bet you when you meet me at Horeb Mount Sinai because that's where. That's where the purpose of God took then the next great phase.

And the first great phase had to be the introduction of the law. And the simple proof gives us in the Bible and historical evidence of the necessity of the law. He didn't stop by law. If you as I say you can't follow the scriptures I can hear in there give it to you.

The Law Exposes Sin

When he met them at Horeb he did not give them law. He gave them grace in order then to show. They couldn't take it because he slipped a little bit into grace which was necessary and which was a little bit of law as he had to in the Garden of Eden.

So we could find our offices and get him in focus. So he had to put a little bit of law in his first first word of grace when he met them at Horeb. It says in advance somewhere my way from moment is here.

This is the Lord speaking through Moses to the children of Israel. This was a word of grace with a little bit of law tucked in in this necessary purpose. He said the Lord called unto him out of the mountain and told Moses thou shall save the house of Jacob and tell the children of Israel you see what I did unto Egyptians how I you on eagles wings and brought you unto myself.

That's now a little bit of law now. Therefore if you obey my voice indeed and keep my covenant then shall ye be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people. For all the earth is mine. It should be a kingdom of priests not not have a priest all priests a kingdom of priests and the holy nation.

These are the words which I shall speak unto the children of Israel. That's pure grace. That's the fulfillment of the kingdom of priests of course the kingdom of those who are expressing God in his self-giving being.

But I stuck in this little word this little touch of law just the same as the law in the Garden of Eden because law exposes. And here came the first explosion exposure. We're all right. They're blind.

We don't know what sin is. We're all right and so on. And so the answer was we always say you do or you say to us we'll do. Which of course was to expose. They couldn't. So here comes the purpose of law by the laws of knowledge of sin.

So quite clearly they said oh yes we'll do. We'll keep the covenant. And then we your peculiar treasure we're a kingdom of priests and so on. I born you on eagles wings. So here's the beginning of the exposure of law.

That law was to tell them in human terms what they are in his image. And that's where sin had tricked them what they are in his image the law of God. This was just the beginning of it. It's the first little touch the covenant.

Of course that didn't care. After that came the Ten Commandments and so on. And that's where you are. You're this kind of people. Of course you don't lie. Of course you don't murder. Of course you love God only.

Of course you don't commit adultery. Of course you don't commit and so on. That's what we are. This was implied. All that he says we'll do there sin comes up with a big laugh. Because sin which is Satan sin is just the character Satan called just to say love is God.

If you like sin is it's called Satan called sin. John Paul usually spoke of sin. That's why it's more practical to us than Satan. But sin of course is Satan in action. Like love is God in action. So call him sin.

Call him Satan. Call him love. Call him God sin either side. And sin has a laugh. Sin to see is because I said see you know of course keep the covenant. You can't. I've got you. You'll find. If you try you all you do is love yourself.

You can't not lie. You can't not steal. You can't love God only and so on and so forth. You can't do it. So sin deceives you. It's to see the exposure because the God they've eaten. Yes it'd be what you like.

Do it. Do your own stuff. Now God's not very kind to you and have a bit your own stuff. The wrong tree. Do your own way. Okay. We do. Well all right. We'll run with our lives all right. And bypass the fact that so much mess in it we don't quite see.

You don't even know. It's in then. So we're tricked. Then we probably can't live alone. Then when the world comes. Yes all right. Then your major my mission for you should be be oh oh. Then we finally can't.

Sin laughs at us. I've got you when the commandment comes. Romans 7 sin revives and we die. Romans 7 says sin deceives us. And when the commandment comes wherefore for sin taking occasion by the commandment deceived me and by it slew me for sin taking occasion by the commandment deceived me by it slew me commandment.

All right. That's what you should be. Okay. Sin says I got you. You think you're. You think you're okay. You're mine. You're slave. You're a slave to self-interest. You have to live a self-interested life.

You have to break all the commandments. You have to lie and steal and do all these things. You can't empathize. You're full of self. Self-gratifying self. That's all you are. I've got you but you didn't even know I got you until you found you shouldn't do that.

So here law comes and you follow through the whole the whole process then through the whole history of Israel which is a summation of oscillation between to some extent seeking to follow God and falling on their faces.

So there were the Hezekiahs and the Davids and those who did follow God and there were the people who did. Then back the nation will come again which is idolatrous and it's lust and it's hate and it's birthday worships and all this stuff.

So there's a certain amount of Romans 7 in the in the history of Israel and the consequence guilt and condemnation. Now we can bypass we can go on to all that and we can move right on now for our own benefit to the operations of law upon us now coupled with you coupled with the operation of grace through Jesus Christ of redemption through Jesus Christ we've come into both of them.

Christ's Death, Redemption, and the Kingdom of God

So we find now that we have moved into a lower consciousness same as Israel had and in that in that lower consciousness finally we found we found we've sinners. The first operation of the law of God is all have sinned.

Not that we have sinned. We are sinned. We don't know that yet we know all have sinned. You don't know we are sinned yet that's deeper. So Romans 3 brings on us the recognition for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

We're guilty. Now the law's done its first work in us and it's exposed. We couldn't we couldn't fulfill it and therefore we've broken it and therefore we're guilty. And now we know we're guilty and we know we shouldn't be there.

We know that there's death and hell and judgment and so on to follow. And we're brought sharp up against the necessity of the law to compel us to find ourselves in our fallen condition and take the laugh or sins face which is I've got you.

Yeah we are God. But Jesus Christ. Christ came and took a laugh off its face and there we go. So we have now the great revelation of history of God who is the intercessor God who is other love that he himself takes it upon us upon himself which caught us in damnation death and damnation.

And that's the heading of the blood of Christ in going death. We shouldn't have time. This morning would be very interesting to follow the processes of Christ by which he found he was a Savior the growing processes from youth upwards by which he moved into lonely spot that he would be the founder of a kingdom of love which had no earthly meaning kingdom of God.

If my kingdom was this world then would my servants fight. We're not a kid before. We're not a war people. We're not an American people or British people or any people. We're not just we're out of this stuff.

We're in a spirit world with one great great family one in Christ Jesus. We haven't time to but it's interesting to us because we go that same way. The loneliness of how he found discovered by studying the scriptures that he was this one that there had been all through history an indication implication of one coming.

Moses was extremely daring. Chose our day. We'd be Moses said wait until there comes a prophet like unto me. So he didn't say he's like God. He said God's like me. That's something it Moses was so the soul so and so God in human form he says the another pop is going to come and you'll listen to him.

And he's like me not me like him. Where we dare you say we are Christ. God's like us some statements in it not be like him. It's all the way through the Old Testament the star in Jacob that was I aware having time this morning go through those wonderful statements.

That was the Balaam statement star rising and the Jacob statement when they saw saw the one coming. But I'm a little slow in in giving you these things offhand. That was in in the Jacob's last prophecy the ship of the stone of Israel.

That's one of one of them. Jacob's prophecy on the on the and then of course heads up. I won't perhaps spend too much time on that it heads up. In Isaiah the Balaam had a very great one. I can find it.

There shall come a star to Jacob a scepter to shall rise on Israel. One of the great statements smite the corners of Noah and so on. I'm only indicating all through the Old Testament. There was this. There was the indication of the coming one.

Jesus could save Abraham. He rejoiced to see my day not see me. Day is an area of the light. Abraham saw some we aren't told what something which is his day. The day when light would come. That's all the way through until you get Isaiah.

Of course who says that virgin shall conceive of a child. His name shall be called Emmanuel. A child is born and so on his name is his name shall be called wonderful counselor mighty God everlasting father Prince of Peace.

And we know Isaiah even saw Calvary. I'm only saying I can't pass through the magnificence of the lonely walk of Jesus that he he could foresee in the scripture without any. He had no other indication.

He walked as we did. He didn't have things from heaven except where it says. So he had to grow in wisdom and stature. And he had to see in the scriptures those 30 years 28 years that he was a coming one.

And he was that one. And that was the undoubtedly the intensity and the startling consequences of him. Questioning the elders. He doesn't say he made sacrifices to them. He said they heard them and asked them questions.

At 12 years of age he heard them and asked what does it mean. They shook them. What's this young man talking about. He was pursuing truth. Truth which came finally to him is his baptism out of symbol.

And that's where the dove came upon him. And that's where the voice now the voice. The dove was only seen by John and Jesus. So it was a mystical dove wasn't seen by the common people. And the voice of course would be like that Nimrod voice.

Thou art my son. Thou art my beloved son. This is how he said. Thou art my beloved son. He said in one word please an inner voice. And that's when he came out after the the establishment of the temptation.

Jesus' Temptation and the Use of Power

Temptation establishes how we got how we get on this morning. But we've talked about. Of course we do. Temptation doesn't doesn't bother you. It establishes you because temptation confirms you in the opposite.

And therefore the confirmation to Jesus and what he heard at baptism which was indicated to him that you are the one you are God in the flesh and so on was in temptation. In each case to use to use power for self ends.

There are great powers. There are miraculous powers. There are definitely there. Sometimes it's geared to the human race like the people could walk on walk on on burning coals and not be burnt. That's a mental attitude that's not religious at all.

You can get a mental attitude get disease a great deal. Healing is a mental attitude. Very good. Using mind to put that that body into focus. Very good. It's not wrong. It's only who uses it. And so there are those other things.

And there's that man that man who said he's a there a lot of the day they talk about it as holism I think. And doctors are following a great deal who's proving nothing to do with religion at all. It's somewhat yogi.

But by mindset you would handle your bodies. You do not. You're not touched by pain. And one of the things I was with a friend just now I've been to see them. They had a big congregation at San Diego.

Many doctors come. It's not irreligious. It's not necessarily devilish at all. Don't call anything devilish. It's human. Why not use humanity. It depends for what reason you use it. But it isn't humanity.

It's how you use humanity. It isn't the flesh. It's lust of the flesh. It's lust of the eye. There's nothing wrong in using power hypnotism and so on. And he demonstrates among other things demonstrate before them all how you can.

It's been a mindset in which you can do things which humans cannot do. And he had she saw him through this great trench of fire 25 feet on. He quietly walked on the fire and walked out again. And he and the doctors and everything was nothing there.

That's not devilish. Nor is it deity. It's just powers of the human. And as undoubtedly a great deal of human is suggested of healing is suggested. Why not. And we may say it's God which is God. Everything's God in that sense.

But it's really setting a person to a position. I am well I say I'm well. And what the attitude of mind affects the body. We may say God's behind that mind. But it doesn't always say it's the Holy Spirit.

It's not always the Holy Spirit at all. There's great powers in yogis yoga. Yogi is a person who practices yogi. Yogi is a person who practices yoga. I mean but you read the other I got that book. He died in Los Angeles an end or something.

He's kind of introduced the yoga system here in this country. Very fascinating. Isn't that book. They do all sorts of things and levitation and live without food for months by something they claim to get out of the air.

These aren't foolish things. They aren't these necessary devilish things. Depends what they're using for the devilish things. We use it for devilish purposes. If they're just a self well maybe they are then that self devilishness is self self-centeredness.

And if we use our power that's devilishness. A bad thing is how you use a thing. That's why we need to be much deliberate on this fighting fundamentalist. Because they call everything a devil which they don't like then so at all.

So that mind powers which you knew ESP like all the ESP. So I use those things. Of course we admit we haven't got Christ. You do use it for self. So in the end you've got the devil's as you're not the use of him but because you're for yourself.

And that was the amount of temptation. Would he. Would he gain a vast following by operating powers from powers he had in his case powers he used for God for personal ends. Would he. Would he use his power to produce food.

Which he did in certain elements which of course we get the mind to turn stones into bricks. Would he use his powers kind of levitation to descend from a pinnacle and not crash. And everybody would say this person is some weird.

You wouldn't follow him because you were because you loved him. Or but you were too feared. And superstition. Everybody has a God. Everybody has a God somebody you fear you and reverence it as the best of what you think is the highest.

Whether he's Lenin or Christ. That's how I think. Why not be like that. And then Satan says if you do that if you're one who will feed people's fill their bellies. If you're one who can be a person whom they'll cheer and adore and superstitiously follow you've got him.

Then he says go my way. You can't you handle the world. I'll give you the kingdom of the world for your own benefit. Very much what communism has done. Communism produces bread. There's no unemployment in communism on a certain level.

They feed them produces superstition. Lenin philosophy Marxism. So this is their God. So they've got their God. Then he handled them. They're the slaves of the leaders. And the whole country is enslaved to their world purposes.

So the temptation amount was very much what has come into being in our modern day in communism. That's what Jesus rejected. He said that's what he knew the word. He didn't go by mysticism. He said it is written.

It is written. It is written. And this is this is expression. The God whom I'm attached that's the one. That's why I'm here. And that is with which of course is self-giving love. Well that's only by the way.

I was only passing on root on that because it's it's the magnificence of a person who dies alone. He formed the kingdom which no one saw. A kingdom of the spirit. What. It's a spirit anyhow he'd come on Jesus he'd come in history.

But they do much about it in any personal form. A kingdom of spirit. A kingdom of spirit of love. A kingdom not of this world of time and space. I just like to help us there. And I do with space time.

The Cross, the Last Adam, and Following Christ

I don't do it beyond that. And he I formed this kingdom. It's a kingdom of love. And love has its two opposites. It has its mercy and its wrath. It must expose what is false. It must confirm what is true.

So it confirmed this truth by his love. Loving the leper loving everybody confirmed his wrath by exposure what is wrong. He never was wrathful of sin. He was wrathful of hypocrisy. He was wrathful of the false form of claim of truth.

So the Pharisees who claim truth with their temples are those who should be exposed. And he died for it. Walked alone walked alone to Gethsemane walked alone to Calvary. Was he wrong. Was he right. That was the point.

How did he prove it. And I had to prove it if I said the word of God. And certainly in the indication something else. How do you know. How do we know. And his final gamble was that I'm the I am the spirit.

I'm the last Adam. I'm the progenitor of the spirit. The last Adam was a quickening spirit. Quickening quickened. Quickening gives life to everybody. I'm the last Adam. I'm a quickening spirit. I'll die in my body and I'll arise again.

And that spirit will come into men and men will be the Jesus's of their day. That was the gamble he made. Would he be so twelve runaways all he had. Twelve men who slept while he agonized upon these he rested his head the future of God's eternal purposes.

That's the gambling made. That's why it says we follow Jesus. Follow me. Because that's precisely what you are. You know it your own way. You are alone. There's the area which all alone are we fools or not.

Who proves it. If you in your life bunk or truth who's to prove it. All you know in the end is your inner conviction. In the end we all follow it by inner consciousness. All men do. The devil follows it by the inner consciousness.

Hitler follows it in the inner consciousness that the Aryans are white race destroy the Jews all right. You call him a devil. He was just a man who had a fixed conviction. That's all wrong one. That means that all people have fixed convictions.

So recognize that rather than condemn people Jesus had a fixed conviction. Was he right or wrong. He died to this world. He'd be killed because he. He would expose the highest forms of selfhood the highest forms of selfhood religious pride.

And which Paul was a member. They'd kill him because he was going to kill religious pride which is self-loving religion. There's a great deal of the day church church for church faith. That's when I of course I'm the son of a minister.

I so deeply antagonize his paid ministries ghastly. I'm shocked to find a dear man. I thought it's like well I don't. Because we don't understand standards. Or at least I don't understand standards of salary and so on.