"I Delight in the Law of God"

by Pastor Don Fortner

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"For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:"

Romans 7:22

The believer is a person with a new nature. And that new nature, being born of God, is holy. It is called "the inward man," "Christ in you," and God's "seed". Every truly regenerate sinner can, and does, with honesty declare with Paul, "I delight in the law of God after the inward man."

God's saints are not antinomians. There is nothing written in the law of God (Ex. 20:1-17) but that with which our hearts are in total agreement. But, as Pastor E. W. Johnson states, "We do not need the commandments to bring us to do these things." We are not under the law as a rule of conduct. The law is not our motive. We do not serve God by the letter of the law, but by the spirit of grace. "The grace of God that bringeth salvation" teaches us to deny "ungodliness and worldly lusts," and to "live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world" (Tit. 2:11-13). "The principles of right and wrong contained in the law of God are in our hearts because the love of God is in our hearts" (E. W. Johnson).

1. We worship none but the true and living God revealed in Christ.
2. We worship God in Spirit and in truth, seeking to avoid every particle of idolatry.
3. We reverence and adore the name of our God.
4. By faith we rest in God's providence and grace in Christ, who is our Sabbath.
5. We render honor to all God ordained authority, symbolized first and foremost in parental authority.
6. We respect the lives of other men and seek their happiness.
7. We seek to honor God in our bodies and avoid sexual and sensual abuses of the body.
8. We respect and protect the property of others.
9. We seek to maintain social order, protecting the names of others from gossip and false accusation.
10. And we seek to avoid covetousness, envy, and jealousy.

This is the bent of the will and the desire of the renewed soul, the heart's desire of every regenerate person. Though we are totally free from the law in Christ, we are not, in any way, opposed to God's holy law. We love it.

"But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members." These words describe our flesh, the old man, our carnal nature. It is nothing but corruption and sin. It keeps us from doing and being what we earnestly long to do and be perfectly. It makes perfect obedience to the law impossible. But, thanks be unto God, Christ has fulfilled the law for us! And we fulfil the law, which we love, by faith in him (Rom. 3:31; 8:1-4).

Grace Baptist Church of Danville
2734 Old Stanford Road - Danville, Kentucky 40422-9438
Donald S. Fortner, Pastor -Telephone 606-236-8235 - Email grace@mis.net

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