Galatians 2:21 (NLT), "I do not treat the grace of God as meaningless. For if keeping the law could make us right with God, then there was no need for Christ to die."
Friday... There is definitely a difference in the two.
But we needed both.
When in Genesis our two representatives headed in a different direction than God's plan so he then set out to get us back on his plan. In the Old Testament there was no Jesus on earth as a human but it all was laid out to bring God's Son into the world to get us back on track. But a lot had to happen before he came.
It is said that the Old Testament is His story so we do need it but it has a different purpose than the New Testament. It was built upon laws and obeying them and their were major consequences in disobeying those laws. I read today Psalm 78 and Jeremiah 48 in the OT. Yes there were consequences. But I read also Galatians 2 in the NT and Paul showed the difference that Christ's death and Resurrection made.
The Jews had lived by those laws but Paul was out striving to bring the Gentiles to believe in Christ but the Jews were having problems in there not needing to live by all the laws.
Now Paul writes in Galatians 2:21 (NLT), "I do not treat the grace of God as meaningless. For if keeping the law could make us right with God, then there was no need for Christ to die."
In verses 15-16 Paul was talking to Peter and he said, "You and I are Jews by birth, not 'sinners' like the Gentiles. Yet we know that a person is made right with God by faith in Jesus Christ, not by obeying the law. And we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we might be made right with God by faith in Christ, not because we have obeyed the law. For no one will ever be made right with God by obeying the law."
Again, "For if keeping the law could make us right with God, then there was no need for Christ to die."
Now one of the problems with the laws was that the religious leaders of the Jews had added and added and added to the laws. A big portion of the laws in those days were from man not God and those religious leaders were the ones who killed Christ.
It is important to know that the laws of God had a purpose. They were to lead people eventually to Christ and to God but man got in the way.
Paul says in verse 19, "For when I tried to keep the law, it condemned me. So I died to the law - I stopped trying to meet all its requirements - so that I might live for God. My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."
Yes the Old Testament has a purpose. It leads us to Christ. It gives us the whole picture. Yes, yes! #todaysbeginning

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