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Part 3
Rejecting the Commandments of God Is Lawlessness
Everyone who teaches disobedience to the laws and commandments of God is
following in the steps of Satan, who was the first lawbreaker. That is
why Jesus told the Pharisees that their father was the devil (John 8:44).
While professing to teach and practice the laws and commandments of God,
they were teaching and practicing their own religious laws and traditions in
place of the commandments of God. During His ministry, Jesus condemned the
religious leaders of Judaism for their traditions, which they held in higher
esteem than the laws and commandments of God. He made it clear that in
observing their own human traditions, they were rejecting the commandments
of God: “…The Pharisees and the scribes questioned Him, saying, ‘Why don't
Your disciples walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread
with unwashed hands?’ And He answered and said to them, ‘Well did Isaiah
prophesy concerning you hypocrites, as it is written, “This people honor
me with their lips, but their hearts are far away from Me.” But in vain do
they worship Me, teaching for doctrine the commandments of men. For leaving
the commandment of God, you hold fast the tradition of men, such as the
washing of pots and cups; and you practice many other things like this.’
“Then He said to them, ‘Full well do you reject the commandment of God,
so that you may observe your own
tradition. For Moses said, “Honor your father and your mother”; and,
“The one who speaks evil of father or mother, let him be put to death.” But
you say, “If a man shall say to his father or mother, ‘Whatever
benefit you might receive from me is corban’ (that is, set aside
as a gift to God), he is not obligated to help his parents.”
And you excuse him from doing anything for his father or his mother,
nullifying the authority of the Word of God by your tradition which you have
passed down; and you practice many traditions such as this" (Mark
7:5-13, AT).
Most of the world’s professing Christians have committed the same mistake
as the Pharisaic Jews. Many church denominations teach that divine
revelation is contained in church tradition as well as in Holy Scripture. In
the majority of churches, the religious leaders elevate their traditions to
a higher status than the Word of God. It is evident that they have done so
with the Fourth Commandment. They have exalted their unscriptural
tradition of Sunday-keeping above the Sabbath commandment of God. In
rejecting the commandment of God to keep the Sabbath day holy, they have
become lawbreakers in His eyes. According to Jesus’ teaching, they are
workers of lawlessness. Likewise, those churches that use any form of
idols—including statutes, pictures, relics, icons or other symbolic
objects--are rejecting the Second Commandment for the sake of their
tradition. Because they are breaking the commandments of God, they are
guilty of practicing lawlessness.
In his first epistle, the apostle John clearly defines lawlessness:
“Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law, for sin is the
transgression of the law” (I John 3:4, KJV). Although this is a
correct translation, it does not convey the literal meaning of the Greek
text. Here is a more precise translation of John’s words: “Everyone
who is practicing sin is also practicing lawlessness, for sin is lawlessness”
(AT).
To practice lawlessness is to live in a state of sin, committing sin as a
habitual way of life. In other words, lawlessness is the habitual
breaking of God’s laws and commandments, which is sin. Religious leaders who
teach and practice lawlessness, appear to be righteous because they use the
names of God and Jesus Christ and often quote Scripture. However, they
are not true servants of God because they reject His laws and commandments.
The apostle Jude, the brother of Jesus Christ, witnesses the rise of
lawlessness among the churches of his day. Jude delivered an urgent
plea to the believers to reject ungodly teachers of lawlessness, who were
turning the grace of God into license to sin by preaching a false gospel of
faith without obedience, and by replacing the commandments of God with
traditions that originated in ancient paganism. Notice what Jude
wrote: “Beloved, when personally exerting all my diligence to write
to you concerning the common salvation, I was compelled to write to you,
exhorting you to fervently
fight for the faith which once for all time has been delivered to
the saints. For certain men have stealthily crept in; these are
the ones who a long time ago have been written about, condemning them
to thisjudgment. They are ungodly men, who are perverting
the grace of our God into licentiousness, and are denying the only Lord God
and our Lord Jesus Christ” (Jude 3-4, AT).
The apostle Peter also warned of false teachers who would reject the way of
obedience to God’s commandments, as taught and practiced by Jesus Christ:
“But there were also false prophets among the people, as indeed there
will be false teachers among you, who will stealthily introduce destructive
heresies, personally denying the Lord who bought them [by
rejecting His teachings], and bringing swift destruction upon themselves.
And many people will follow as authoritative [exalting church
tradition] their destructive ways; and because of them, the way of
the Truth will be blasphemed” (II Pet. 2:1-2, AT).
Those Who Practice and Teach Lawlessness
Judge the Law and the Lawgiver
Those who teach religious lawlessness not only blaspheme the truth of God,
but they also judge the laws of God in unrighteousness. In their lawlessness
they claim that all the laws and commandments of God have been abolished or
rendered inoperative. Notice: “In fact, the whole law of Moses has
been rendered inoperative. The New Testament message is clear for all
who have ‘ears to hear.’ The whole of the law of Moses has been
rendered inoperative by the death of the Lord Jesus. The law, in its
entirety, no longer has any immediate and forensic authority or jurisdiction
whatsoever over anyone….Christ is the complete end and fulfillment of
all of the laws’ 613 commandments, ending their jurisdiction over us
completely” (Tardo, Sunday Facts & Sabbath Fiction, p. 26-27).
By judging the law in this manner, the teachers of lawlessness are
rejecting God as Lawgiver and are not doers of the law. The apostle
James condemns this ungodly attitude. Notice: “Brethren, do not be
talking against one another. The one who is talking against a brother,
and is judging his brother, is speaking against the law, and is judging
the law. But if you are judging the law, you are not a doer of the
law; rather, you are
a judge. But there is only one Lawgiver, Who has power to
save and to destroy. Who are you, whoever is judging another?”
(James 4:11-12, AT).
Not only are they judging the law as unworthy, but also they are, in fact,
judging God Who is the only Lawgiver, as unworthy. To judge God and
reject His laws and commandments and to reject Him as Lawgiver is the
epitome of lawlessness. This spirit of judging God and His laws is the
spirit and attitude of Satan the devil. Moreover, it is the foundation
that has been used to establish various religions that are based on the
traditions and commandments of men, while they profess the name of Jesus
Christ.
The ancient patriarch Job perfectly obeyed God in the letter of the law.
However, he was trusting in himself and his ability to be righteous, rather
than trusting in God Who is the Lawgiver. He bragged and boasted of
his own righteousness, as if he originated righteousness. His boasting was
so great that God brought a grievous trial upon Job. After he was smitten
with boils from his head to his toes, his trial was almost more than he
could bear. Neither were three of his four friends of any help to him.
They were unable to give Job any understanding or comfort. Only one
stood for God, that was Elihu. Notice what he told Job:
“Furthermore Elihu answered and said, ’hear my words, O ye wise men; and
give ear unto me, ye that have knowledge. For the ear trieth words, as
the mouth tasteth meat. Let us choose to us judgment: let us know among
ourselves what is good. For Job hath said, “I am righteous: and God
hath taken away my judgment.” ’ (Job 34:1-5, KJV).
Then Elihu revealed Job’s sins to him: “ ‘Job hath spoken without
knowledge, and his words were without wisdom. My desire is that Job
may be tried unto the end because of his answers for wicked men. For he
addeth rebellion unto his sin, he clappeth his hands among us, and
multiplieth his words against God.’ Elihu spake moreover, and said,
‘Thinkest thou this to be right, that thou saidst, My righteousness is more
than God's?’ " (Job 34:35-37; 35:1-2, KJV).
After many long lectures by his three friends, and diatribes by Job
defending his own self-righteousness to the uttermost, he desired that God
Himself would speak with him. God obliged and answered him and
revealed Job’s true attitude of judging God Himself. Notice:
"Then answered the LORD unto Job out of the whirlwind, and said, ‘Gird up
thy loins now like a man: I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me.
Wilt thou also disannul my judgment? wilt thou condemn me, that thou mayest
be righteous?’" (Job 40:6-8, KJV).
This is the same self-righteous attitude that today’s workers of
lawlessness have toward God’s laws and commandments. They disannul
God’s judgment that His laws and commandments are holy, righteous and
spiritual. Rather, they judge them as evil and harsh, declaring them
to be a curse. In doing this, they also condemn God, in order that
they may establish their own righteousness in place of God’s holy righteous
commandments and laws. They claim just as Job did that Sunday is more
righteous than God’s holy Sabbath day.
Furthermore, because they use some of the Scriptures and retain some of the
commandments of God in their own systems of self-righteous religion, they
claim that their way will lead to salvation. However, they fail to
realize that their own self-righteous traditions, commandments, laws and
false grace will not bring them salvation. That is the same mistake
that Job made. Since God, and God alone is Savior, He powerfully
declared to Job that his own righteousness could never save him.
Notice: "Hast thou an arm like God? or canst thou thunder with a
voice like him? Deck thyself now with majesty and excellency;
and array thyself with glory and beauty. Cast abroad the rage of
thy wrath: and behold everyone that
is proud, and abase him. Look on every one that is proud, and
bring him low; and tread down the wicked in their place. Hide them in
the dust together; and bind their faces in secret. Then will
I also confess unto thee that thine own right hand can save thee"
(verses 9-14, KJV).
Finally, after God spoke to him, Job forsook his own self-righteousness and
deeply abhorred himself and repented to God “in dust and ashes” (Job 42:6).
This is what the Christian professing religions of the world need to do.
They need to forsake their own self-righteous ways that they have
established for themselves and submit unto the righteousness of God the
Father and Jesus Christ. The “workers of lawlessness” need to quit
condemning and judging God in order to be righteousness in their own eyes.
A close examination of the history of Christianity will show that this is
precisely what has happened. They have established their own
self-righteous religions and have rejected the true righteousness of God.
True Christianity, as originally taught by Jesus Christ and His apostles,
was subverted from within by false teachers of lawlessness. The
teachings of these “ungodly men” that Jude and Peter wrote about were passed
down in the writings of the “early church fathers” and were accepted by the
Roman church as authoritative traditions. Through the centuries the Roman
church grew in power, using its influence to stamp out every remaining
vestige of the true teachings of Jesus Christ. After a power struggle
between the bishop of Rome and Constantinople, the church split into the
Roman Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox churches. As the influence of
the Orthodox church dominated the East, so the teachings of the Roman
Catholic Church molded the thinking of the entire Western world.
The authority of the Catholic doctrine and tradition was not seriously
challenged until the time of Martin Luther. When Martin Luther rejected the
corruption and lawlessness of the Roman Catholic Church, he appeared to be
seeking the truth of God. He labored diligently to translate the
Scriptures into the German language so that the common people could read and
learn from the Word of God. But the religion that developed as a
result of Martin Luther’s teachings, known as Lutheranism, did not restore
the true teachings of Jesus Christ. The reformation that Martin Luther began
was not complete, because he still rejected the Second and Fourth
Commandments. The result was another form of religious lawlessness.
Luther claimed that a person who had been saved through the grace of God
could not lose salvation, regardless of the degree or intensity of the sins
that might be committed. This perverse teaching is clearly expressed
in a letter written by Luther: “Be a sinner, and let your sins be strong,
but let your faith in Christ be stronger, and rejoice in Christ who is the
victor over sin, death, and the world. We will commit sins while we
are here, for this life is not a place where righteousness can exist….No
sin can separate us from Him, even if we were to kill or commit adultery a
thousand times each day” (Martin Luther, Saemmtliche Schriften, Letter
99, 1 August 1521, translated by Erika Flores in
The Wittenberg Project, The Wartburg Segment, as published in Grace
and Knowledge, Issue 8, September 2000, Article “Ecclesiasticus: The
Wisdom of Ben-Sirach,” p. 27).
The words of Martin Luther reveal the depth of lawlessness that Jude
condemned to which many religious leaders have descended. This
teaching is the epitome of the perverted “grace,” which rejects the
commandments of God and grants license to commit sin with no limitations
whatsoever. Luther’s teachings concerning murder and adultery are
diametrically opposed to the teachings of Jesus Christ, Who magnified and
greatly expanded the Sixth and Seventh Commandments to show their spiritual
application.
The promotions of lawlessness have succeeded in deceiving the vast majority
of professing Christians into accepting a false grace. As the New
Testament shows, this distorted view of grace does not lead to salvation.
In the Judgment Day, the teachers of lawlessness, who have been honored as
religious leaders and have even done noteworthy deeds in the name of Jesus
Christ, will be rejected: “Many will say to Me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, did
we not prophesy through Your name? And did we not cast out
demons through Your name? And did we not perform many works of
power through Your name?' And then I will confess to them, 'I never knew
you. Depart from Me, you who work lawlessness‘ ” (Mat 7:22-23,
AT).
The workers of lawlessness will depart into the lake of fire to suffer the
judgement of eternal death, from which there is no resurrection: “But the
fearful, and unbelieving, and abominable, and murderers, and fornicators,
and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the
lake that burns with fire and brimstone; which is the second death"
(Rev. 21:8, AT).
The teachings of Jesus Christ, as recorded in the Sermon on the Mount,
carry the full authority of God the Father. When Jesus taught the
spiritual application of God’s laws and commandments, the people who heard
Him were astonished: “Now it came to pass that when Jesus had
finished these words, the multitudes were amazed at His teaching; for He
taught them as oneWho had authority, and not as the scribes” (Matt.
7:28-29). When we truly understand what Jesus taught, we can
understand that He was giving spiritual intent and application of the laws
and commandments of God for the New Covenant, which is the full spiritual
standard that Jesus Christ gave, so that the true believer may obey the laws
and commandments of God in the spirit of the law and not in the letter of
the law only.
Listen to The Holy
Sabbath audio sermons for further study.
Be sure to Read or Download -
Rome's
Challenge: Why Do the Protestants Keep Sunday?
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