Lesson 8: Free from the Law
 
 Accepting this gift of salvation sets us free from the Law. To state this simply, God’s rules for life in His kingdom have not changed but our reasons for following those rules have. Under the law, the people followed the rules so they could learn what the rules were, what God’s standards looked like. The people were judged by how well they could keep those rules. Obviously, no one could ever keep God’s rules perfectly – this is why Jesus had to come to die for us. Now that Jesus has fulfilled every law, every rule, every punishment for not keeping those rules perfectly, we are free from those rules as a standard of merit.

Our reason for following the rules now is simply because we love Him and we want to please Him.

Again, we have a choice to make. We can choose to follow Him in love, or we can choose to make ourselves slaves to this system of Law that the people of the Old Testament were required to keep. In Galatians 5:1-4 we see God’s way He wants us to live – by grace rather than by Law. Jesus Himself said in Matthew 22:37-40 every law written in the Old Testament can be summarized with two commandments – love God with all you are, and love your neighbor as you love yourself. Where the old`` law was a law of doing, Jesus’ law is one of loving.