* note: the content of the following teaching is not my own, it is taken from excellent teaching by Gavin Porter from a series called God's Vision God's Mission. You can access the full teaching on YouTube by following this link: Dust and Stars
The only way to keep the Law is in relationship with God. It is impossible to keep the Law apart from relationship with God.
This means that if you have the relationship with God, without the Law, then you will automatically fulfill the Law:
Gal 5:13-18 For you, brethren, have been called to liberty, only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." But if you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another! I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
If you are led by the Spirit you are not under the Law. The Law was not meant to be there in this form at all. The Law was meant to be in relationship with God. But the Law is there for the unrighteous, those who do not have relationship with God. You are most welcome to read more about this here.
Let's look at this relationship:
The Voice of God Walking
Gen 3:8 And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. (King James)
Enoch walked with God, Noah walked with God. God said to Abraham walk before Me and be perfect.
Gen 17: 1-2 When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, "I am Almighty God; walk before Me and be perfect. And I will make My covenant between Me and you..."
When God spoke to Abraham in Gen 17 and He said walk before Me - the word here actually means: walk in front of My Face - in Relationship with Me. In the very next verse, God says: this is My agreement(covenant) with you.
This makes sense because in Amos 3:3 it says: Can two walk together unless they are agreed?
Enoch, Noah and Abraham must have been listening to God's Voice because in Gen 3:8 it says the VOICE of God was walking.
God's Voice is not static. As we listen to God's Voice we have to keep walking with Him. If we are not walking with Him, in His way, we won't be able to keep up with His Voice. If we want to listen to His Voice we have to walk with Him.
In Gen15:4 And behold the word of the Lord came to him (Abraham) saying: This one shall not be your heir, but one who will come from your own body shall be your heir." Then He brought him outside and said: Look now toward heaven and count the stars if you are able to number them. And He said to him: "So shall your descendants be." And he believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness.
The word of the Lord came to him saying - he believed it and it was credited to him faith.
We know that faith comes by hearing. Abraham walked by faith in God's way. God's Voice will always take you to God's Vision, to His plan and purpose.
Abraham hears the spoken Word of God. The Word which became flesh. The Word which is God.
Gen 22 when God adds the Oath to the Promise:
Gen 22:18 In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed because you have obeyed My voice."
Because you have obeyed My voice!
Romans 1:5 Through Him we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations for His name
To the obedience of faith
Romans16:26 but now made manifest, and by the prophetic Scriptures made known to all nations, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, for obedience to the faith.
For the obedience of faith
Abraham obeyed God's Voice. So for us to be obedient to faith we must hear God's Voice.
Genesis 26:4 And I will make your descendants multiply as the stars of heaven; I will give to your descendants all these lands; and in you seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed; "because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws."
Abraham lived 400 years before the Law but Abraham kept the Law. That means that as he was listening to God's Voice and was led by the Spirit he automatically kept the Law. Abraham was keeping the Law even before there was a Law. He was keeping it IN the relationship. It shows us how important it is to hear God's Voice.
We see this pattern of the Voice of God throughout Scripture. Let's look at a few examples:
In Deuteronomy, we read about Israel. Israel took eyes off the vision and was wandering in the wilderness :
Deuteronomy 8:3 So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.
There is life when we hear God's Voice.
We read about the Blessings and Curses of the law in Deuteronomy 28:
Deuteronomy 28: 1 Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments which I command you today, that the Lord your God will set you high above all nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you because you obey the voice of the Lord your God."
Listen to my Voice then I will set you high above the nations - it sounds just like the marriage proposal we read about in Exodus 19: 1-6.
The Blessings we read of in Deuteronomy 28 are the Blessings of walking in relationship with God. The curses we read about in Deuteronomy 28:15 is the Curses of not walking with God in relationship.
It is all about relationship, this is where the blessing is.
The Israelites are complaining at Marah in Exodus 15:25, God proved and tested them:
Exodus 15:25 So he cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree. When he cast it into the waters, the waters were made sweet. There He made a statute and an ordinance for them, and there He tested them, and said, "If you diligently heed the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in His sight, give ear to His commandments and keep all His statures I will put none of the diseases on you which I have brought on the Egyptians. For I am the Lord who heals you."
If you diligently heed the voice of the Lord then I will not bring the diseases on you.
Exodus 16:4 Then the Lord said to Moses, "Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you. And the people shall go out and gather a certain quota every day, that I may test them whether they will walk in My law or not."
It says "walk in my law", but there wasn't a law yet. God is speaking - He wants them to listen to His Voice.
Exodus 16:5 "And it shall be on the sixth day that they shall prepare what they bring in, and it shall be twice as much as they gather daily."
God said that on the sixth day they could take twice as much and it wouldn't go bad. It was a test to see if they would listen to His Voice.
Exodus 16:27 Now it happened that some of the people went out on the seventh day to gather, but they found none. And the Lord said to Moses, "How long do you refuse to keep My commandments and My laws?"
God asks "How long do you refuse to keep my laws?". But there were no laws and commandments yet, it was about listening and obeying God's Voice.
In Exodus 19:5 when God says that He will speak to Moses and all the people will be able to hear Moses, Moses wasn't up on the mountain. Moses was down the mountain with the people when God spoke the ten commandments the fist time. They received the ten commandments and the first time it was not on the tables of stone. The fist time they received the ten commandments was in an audible voice of God. The ten commandments were given to them in Genesis 20:1 And God spoke all these words saying:
But they didn't want to listen to God's Voice, they ran away and stood afar off.
They said to God: "please don't speak to us, speak to Moses and he can speak to us."
Then Moses went up to the Mountain and God put the commandments on stone. So why did God put the commandments on stone? Maybe it was because God wanted to write His law on their hearts but they hardened their hearts. Maybe God wrote the commandments on stone to show them the condition of their hearts. Moses came down with the Law engraved in stone. But the Law was meant to be in relationship with God, in the Israelites hearts. It became this Law written in stone which the New Testament describes in 2 Corinthians 3:7 as the ministration of death. Because the Spirit gives life but the letter kills.
2 Corinthians 3:6
who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
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