The Letter Kills, But the Spirit Gives Life

 July 12, 2024

Friday

Jesus had trouble with the scribes and Pharisees. It wasn't simply that they opposed Him. Their teaching would lead people to hell. Let's look at that.

Matthew 23:15 (NASB 2020) ¹⁵ “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.

The scribes and Pharisees saw salvation as something to be grasped by meticulously keeping the law. In other words, their salvation was based on keeping the law rather that obeying God. Now, you ask, is there a difference? Yes, indeed.

Obedience to God requires some contact with Him to know what He wants you to do. It means that you must have a relationship with Him that goes beyond simply believing in Him. You must know Him. Abraham would be declared as righteous even before the law was established by Moses.

James 2:21–23 (NASB 2020) ²¹ Was our father Abraham not justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? ²² You see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was perfected; ²³ and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “And Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called a friend of God.

Abraham acted on his faith. He did so because he believed God. This was credited to him as righteousness even though it had nothing to do with the law. He knew God so well that he was called a friend of God.

The scribes and Pharisees, on the other hand, took the law of Moses and created a system of laws which if followed did not require knowing God. Their learning of God was that of the intellect rather than spiritual encounters with Him. When they made a convert, that convert was not pointed to a relationship with God but one with the law. Thus, they rested in their condemnation for they could not be saved by their own works.

Paul would express it this way:

2 Corinthians 3:4–6 (NASB 2020) ⁴ Such is the confidence we have toward God through Christ. ⁵ Not that we are adequate in ourselves so as to consider anything as having come from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God, ⁶ who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

The letter of the law kills. It leaves the person condemned because the Spirit compels us to receive Christ. We know His forgiveness and we receive our salvation through it.

Be careful of those who seek keeping a law over the relationship with Christ. Those who cry for conforming to the law (even if it is a new law that they have made) will not lead us to spread the gospel. They will be like the scribes and Pharisees who make their converts twice the sons of hell.