He said to another man, “Follow me.”

But the man replied, “Lord, first let me go bury my father.”

Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead,

but you go and proclaim the Kingdom of God.”

(Luke 9:59-60)

Our task is not to bury dead doctrines, but rather to preach Jesus. Light dispels darkness. If we simply proclaim the gospel in love, false foundations crumble and prisoners are set free. We do not have to battle with ghosts of the past.

Speaking the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ in the power and grace of the Holy Spirit deals a fatal blow to legalism and false tradition, main support pillars of the structure of evil. There are many other supports for unbelief, such as rationalism, false piety, and a legion of wrong beliefs, but legalism and tradition are central. Without them, the structure of false religion will fall. Truth shatters them even as the strong arms of Samson broke asunder the two central columns of the Philistine temple of the false god Dagon, causing the utter collapse of that cesspool of idolatry.

Paul noted the relation of falsity in belief to these two problems in his letter to the Colossians when he wrote:

See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.

The principles of the world to which Paul was referring are legalistic elements or principles. They hold the world’s machinery together. Paul called them weak and miserable principles and cautioned the Galatians they could once again be enslaved by them. He let them know that their legalistic religion was quenching their joy and that he did not want them to be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. He had similar words of caution for the Colossians when he told them:

Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules: ‘Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!’?

Paul tells us that:

Before faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed. (Gal. 3:23)

He further tells us:

…when we were children, we were in slavery under the basic principles of the world. (Gal. 4:3)

Legalism is a great bondage of the human spirit, a prison of darkness. How are we cleansed of these legalistic bonds that would enslave us?

Remember once again the Hebrew children: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego (Ref. Daniel 3). They would not bow the knee to the golden image built by King Nebuchadnezzar, so he had them thrown into an exceedingly hot and fiery furnace to destory them. But a fourth figure appeared in the fire as Christ delivered them from all harm. Not even their robes were singed and there was not so much as the smell of fire on them. All the flames did was burn their bonds without in anyway harming them.

So it is in our walk with Jesus. The apostle Peter tells us not to think of the fiery trials that come upon us as a strange thing. We go through trials that melt these earthly elements with a fervent heat and free us from prison. We may not even perceive what some of these bonds have been. We just know that after we come through a time of testing, we have a deeper understanding of Christ and His love for us along with much more freedom in Him.

We have fiery trials because God loves us and wants to burn away our bonds. God is a Consuming Fire (Deut. 4:24). His burning love for us consumes all of the dross and carnality out of our lives and leaves pure refined gold.

Before meeting Jesus, people generally believe in the ten commandments or some other ethical code of conduct. The Heaven of the religious or ethical person without Christ is a Heaven under law. When we come into Christ, we are translated into a Heaven under the Grace of God. All things are made new. We are seated in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus (Ref. Eph. 2:6).

When we accept Jesus, He brings us into this New Heaven, apprehended by faith, where He is. He lives in us. He and the Father make their abode in us. Heaven is where God is and it is in the eternal hearts of the redeemed. The Kingdom of God is within and the King reigns from within.

But there is warfare in Heaven. In our battle to be free from the legalistic elements of this world, we wrestle against the principalities and powers in the Heavenly realms that would keep us in bondage to law the and man-made tradition. As we walk with Christ and let him fight our battles for us, we are set free and He cleanses our Heaven. We come into alignment with Him. Our Heaven becomes purely a Heaven of Grace. His consuming fire destroys everything that would bring contamination or defilement. Christ has already won the Victory. In Him, we share the fruits of this Victory.

He gives us this New Heaven the day we accept Him as our Lord, but we need to march in and take possession. We need to know what He has given us. In our battle to claim the Land, the dragon and his motley crew come with messages of condemnation, legalism, false tradition and despair in their efforts to put us back into the chains of slavery. But we know that all of the principalities and powers in the Heavenly realms had their power completely shattered at Calvary.

And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. (Col. 2:15)

In the record of His earthly ministry, we glimpse the battle Jesus had against the legalizers of that bygone day. Those under the law were continually pointing the finger of condemnation at Him for healing on the Sabbath and other apparent infractions of their canon. But Jesus chose to walk by a higher law, the Law of Love, found only in the Spirit of God. He knew that anything done in love and faith was in the center of God’s will and that man could not justify himself.

Angered by His disregard for their traditions and threatened by the power of His gospel, they plotted His death. Yielding to the Father, He was handed over to the High Priest of the Law, the personification of legalistic religion, who clamored for His crucifixion. The Power of Sin came against Him as He was nailed to the cross. Little did his persecutors know that the law of commandments and ordinances was forever nailed to the cross with Him. By walking the pathway of love, He had fulfilled the law at every point and delivered mankind from its awesome power. He could look down from the cross and say It is finished. Freedom from legal bondage was complete. He blazed the trail before us in royal splendor and ushered in the Way of Grace, a way that tells us to bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. And the law of Christ? Why, of course — the Law of Love.

We are now no longer subject to the law of sin and death. Everything we need was accomplished by Jesus. We can let him accomplish the same wonderful work in us. He ushered in a New Heaven under grace. We can watch the Old Heaven of legalistic principles vanish from our lives as we submit to Him. Man is of the earth, made of clay, carnal. The New Man in Christ Jesus, however, partakes of the divine nature. In Christ, man’s carnality, mired in earthly clay, disappears. We have a choice of pathways: the grace of Jesus Christ or the fierce dark light of the law.

Jesus once told those under the law that they proselyted both land and sea to find one convert whom they made into twofold more a child of hell than they themselves were. To be under the law is to be a child of hell, burdened by the tremendous guilt and torment of condemnation that knowledge of the law brings with it. When law comes, knowledge of right and wrong comes with it, bringing no power to do the right and condemnation for the wrong.

In man’s carnal unenlightened mind, attitudes towards good and evil are determined by knowledge and understanding of the law. With a code of ethics come opinions of right and wrong, good and evil, by which man renders judgment. Adam ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. We could say Adam ate of the tree of the law. Jesus sets us free from its bitter fruit and gives us the mind of Christ that we might leave all judgment with the Father. When we judge others we quench the very love of God in us and cannot effectively reach out to help those who are drowning in a sea of problems.

As we walk with Jesus and allow His Spirit to work in us and through us, we share in His victory. His experience on earth was one of triumph.

…Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him … (Hebrews 6:7)

Jesus came to perfection. He was so completely conformed to the express image of His Heavenly Father that He could tell His disciple, Philip, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.” He was the Living Word made flesh.

God’s desire for us is that in like manner we be conformed to the image or likeness of Christ. We have the same Holy Spirit in us that raised Jesus from the dead to make this reality in our lives.

When we look into the mirror of our soul, may we see this same likeness, the likeness of love. As the seasons pass, may we view someone who is warm and friendly inside and know that the Master has truly been at work in us. And may we also look for Him in the joy and peace of others about us, for truly it is Jesus Who is coming in us, molding us into His express image. Even as He was the Word made flesh, He is making His Living Word flesh in us today. He is bringing His people to perfection as we partake of His very nature.

He does not command the impossible when He tells us to be perfect, even as our Heavenly Father is perfect, for perfection is found only in Him. As we walk in Him, we share in His perfection and righteousness. Our old nature was crucified at Calvary; we now live and have our being in Him, and He is the Perfect One.

Jesus comes for a bride without spot or wrinkle, perfection found only in Him. His bride is One with Him, bone of His bone, flesh of His flesh. Our identity is in Christ.

In Him, the shackles of legal bondage and false tradition fall off and the glorious image of the Son is revealed, CHRIST IN US, THE HOPE OF GLORY, as we begin to comprehend a truth so magnificent that it is difficult to realize it can be expressed with such simple elegance:

The only thing that matters is faith expressing itself in love. Galatians 5:6

Jesus is our Lord and our God!