EXTERNAL VS. INTERNAL LAW - Are you "under" or "free"?

Image: Part of the All Souls Deuteronomy, containing the oldest extant copy of the Decalogue It is dated to the early Herodian period, between 30 and 1 BC.

EXTERNAL VS. INTERNAL LAW - Are you "under" or "free"?

"Fear God, Honor the King" (1 Peter 2:17).
The fear of the Lord and the love of the Lord come through knowing the Lord; and all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are in Christ (Col. 2:3).

Virtuous character and conduct are driven either by external compulsion or by personal conscience.

Perception of right and wrong - righteousness and sin - is the basis of conscience.

"Through law is a knowledge of sin" (Rom. 3:20).

"The law was our tutor to bring us to Christ" (Gal. 3:24) [And remains the tutor to bring others to Christ].

"For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves, who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness..." (Rom. 2:14-15).

God's desire to grant autonomous, internal, conscience-based compliance to His will was expressed in the Old Testament: "Keep my commands and live...Write them on the tablet of your heart" (Prov. 7:2-3). Jesus exampled such internal compliance: "I delight to do Your will, O my God, and Your law is within my heart” (Ps. 40:8).

Compelling virtue by external means, whether by secular brute force or by the dead letter of the law, is oppressive - as expressed in Paul's terminology, "UNDER the law."

"Freedom in Christ" (Gal. 2:4; 5:1) refers to the autonomous compliance to God's law proceeding through the New Covenant which places God's law within the heart and mind (Jer. 31:33; Ezek. 36:26).

"The law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good" (Rom. 7:12)
"One jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled" (Matt. 5:18).

Without law the conscience has no bearing, the lost have no tutor, and the world is given over to lawlessness.

C.W. Steinle

https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Western-Lawlessness-Exposing-Ideologies-ebook/dp/B0795D9ZWG

Metamorphosis: A Multidimensional Approach to the Rapture

Awaking Report interview with Chris Steinle on the nature and purpose of the rapture.

This meeting is the same gathering mentioned by Paul in his second letter to the Thessalonians.

We shall be changed. We shall be robbed of our physical bodies – plundered. We will not be taken away immediately, but something will first be taken from us. Something that has already been purchased and merely waits for its redemption. The purchased possession includes both our spirit and bodies. For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s. 1 Cor. 6:20

https://www.amazon.com/Reclaiming-Rapture-Restoring-Gathering-Commonwealth/dp/0999204807

Why Most Christians Believe in a Post-Tribulation Rapture

Trunews interview with Christian author C.W. Steinle and his new book, "Why Most Christians Believe in a Post-Tribulation Rapture." Steinle reveals the statistical minority of pre-trib, and why the pre-trib theory opposes the obvious meaning of the Scriptures. Learn why St. Paul would never suggest that Jesus would leave the Father's right hand and descend before all of His enemies had been made His footstool.
https://www.amazon.com/Most-Christians-Believe-Post-Tribulation-Rapture-ebook/dp/B01ELQDL5E