You need to upgrade your Flash Player
Is living a disciplined life the same as keeping the law?
Question:
Keeping the Law requires performance and compliance which can never be done. The Pharisees were experts at trying to do this. They were disciplined to a fault trying to look good but they were crooked as snakes. Yet, we as Christians still need to live disciplined lives. Paul tells Timothy to discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness. Spiritual disciplines are still valuable. On the surface keeping the Law and living a disciplined life look a lot alike...What do you think?
Answer:
Great question. Paul was clear that the absence of Law does not mean the absence of standards for those under grace. The difference is that under the Law standards had to be administered externally and forcefully. It was a system of obligation and not transformation. The believer under grace is empowered by the Spirit to change from within (the promise of the "spirit within" that Ezekiel foretold, 36:25-28). The spiritual disciplines we talk about appeal to something living and real inside...which is what the Law could never do. It could only whip from the outside. One who is "in the Spirit" (i.e., a believer) is "led" by the Spirit because he is a "son" (8:14). The language is rela*onal, not legal.
Sometimes believers in the rush of life forget that they are sons and not slaves. They act as though under law instead of crying "Abba! Father!" (8:15). Paul described a frustraion at his own failure as a believer (Rom. 7:14-21), but remember that for the unbeliever he describes hostility toward God and a totally inability to please him (Rom. 8:6-7).
Paul is teaching that the difference between living the Law and living a "disciplined life" (as a believer) lies in the administra*on of the standards (external versus internal) and in the experience with the standards (inability versus ability).
Sometimes believers in the rush of life forget that they are sons and not slaves. They act as though under law instead of crying "Abba! Father!" (8:15). Paul described a frustraion at his own failure as a believer (Rom. 7:14-21), but remember that for the unbeliever he describes hostility toward God and a totally inability to please him (Rom. 8:6-7).
Paul is teaching that the difference between living the Law and living a "disciplined life" (as a believer) lies in the administra*on of the standards (external versus internal) and in the experience with the standards (inability versus ability).
