Reformed Doctrine Daily Devotions

 ³  He said to the man with the withered hand, “Get up and come forward!”

 ⁴  And He said to them, “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save a life or to kill?”  But they kept silent.

 ⁵  After looking around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, He said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.”  And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored.”  Mark 3:1-5.

This is another time when it seems so right that one Scripture should follow another Scripture.  Just when I was fearing that my devotion yesterday may seem antinomian (against Law), this Scripture follows.

Here, through the healing by Jesus in this Scripture, we better see that our freedom from the Law is not just an opportunity to indulge our lusts, but rather our freedom from the Law is an opportunity to truly do more good than what we would do by merely our attempts to obey the Law.  The Spirit leads us to do good and produces the fruit of the Spirit within us.  ^“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.”  Galatians 5:22-23. 

Let us make it clear that we are certainly not maintaining that the Law is bad.  “So then, the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.”  Romans 7:12. 

The problem is sin within us.    

^“Therefore did that which is good (the Law) become a cause of death for me?  May it never be!  Rather it was sin, in order that it might be shown to be sin by effecting my death through that which is good, so that through the commandment sin would become utterly sinful.  For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin.  For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.  But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good.  So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.  For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not.  For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want.  But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.  I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good.  For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members.  Wretched man that I am!  Who will set me free from the body of this death?”  Romans 7:13-24.     

Is there any hope for us?

^“Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!  So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin.  Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.  For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.  For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”  Romans 7:25 to Romans 8:4.