The Law of Sin vs The Law of Yahweh

The conflict within, Flesh vs. Spirit

Previously in Romans…

In the epistle to the Romans Paul presented us with various types of laws that govern us. The law of sin (Chapter 1), the laws of men —traditions— (Chapter 2) and the laws of lust (Chapter 3 Part One / Part Two), and of course the perfect Law of Yahweh (Torah).

For our disadvantage, throughout centuries we have been presented with the argument that we are no longer required to follow the Law of God, simply because the fathers of Christianity had missed the point about what law Paul is referring to when he speak that we are free from the law.

In Chapter 4 y 5, Paul began to point us to the direction we are to follow, and how we are justified by faith, not by the obedience of the Law of Yahweh. This does not mean that we are not required to follow Yahweh’s Law but teaching us that our salvation is only possible because what Yeshua did for us, conditioned by our faith towards Him.

But faith is not just believing from our lips out, instead, is a faith like the faith of Abraham and David, they walk and lived their lives convinced that the promises of Yahweh for their lives were true and will come to pass, even when there was no evidential circumstances providing definitive conclusions of this, just believing truly in what Yahweh has promised, and His faithfulness.

Now, let’s begin… Romans Chapter 6

Do we have a license to sin?

​Romans 6:1-3 LSB —
¹ What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? ² May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? ³ Or do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?

The main purpose of the LAW, Torah, is to point us into the right direction. As Paul declares later in this chapter, the wages of sin is death, meaning that the ultimate destination of a life of sin is death. We, through Adam, bind ourselves to sin, we made ourselves slaves to sin, but through the work of salvation, Yeshua, we have been set free from this bondage of sin.

After we have been set free of the slavery of sin, we are to learn to live in the Spirit of Freedom, stay bonded to the promises of Yahweh. This bond was explained throughout history through the LAW. The laws given by Yahweh in mount Sinai were given to teach the Israelis how to remove “DEATH”, —SIN—, from their mist.

To come into the presence of Yahweh, the priests as well as those bringing sacrifices, needed to make sure they were not in contact with anything that relates to death, anything that reminded us about the curse brought to us through Adam’s failure.

If you come in a finite state to the presence of the infinite being, how long do you think you would last? You would vanish without a trace, —poof—, now if you come before Yahweh in a clean state you will rejoice with Him in His presence at His appointed time.

Clean state refers to a state where there’s no signs of death around and within you. But you might ask, whoever comes to His presence still will die someday, how can they still be able to stand in His presence? That my friend is the purpose of the sacrifice, an innocent creature pays the penalty of sin, death, on behalf of you.

At that time, the clean slate was temporary, the sacrifice of bulls, goats and lambs were not a permanent solution, and that is why we needed a perfect sacrifice. Since Yeshua died for us, but was raised from the death back to life, in the same way, we submerge ourselves in water as a symbolic death, baptism, where we leave behind our unclean state and being renewed by the works of salvation into a new clean state.

Through Yeshua Ha’Mashiach, Yeshua the Messiah, we are made new every day. For what reason? Simple, in this way we can come into the presence of our Father, covered with the Holy Spirit, Ruach Ha’Kodesh, to be perfected more and more each day.

Romans 6:4-7 LSB —
⁴ Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. ⁵ For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, ⁶ knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; ⁷ for he who has died has been justified from sin.

Think deeply on this, baptism is a public declaration before the community that has embrace you and made a covenant to make you grow, to disciple you, that you in return will die to self to let yourself be molded by the Holy Spirit in benefit of the community and lastly in benefit to you, where your recompense is life and life abundantly.

You see, throughout generations we have been led into bad doctrines and teachings, we were forced to conformed to traditions of men, neglecting the times and seasons of Yahweh, these doctrines and traditions have led us into chaos and death, farther away from Yahweh. Yeshua led us into the right path, into Yahweh’s Kingdom, into His perfect and just ruling. Yeshua accused these false doctrines and teachings as the thief. Why? Because they have taken from us the freedom we were bought from. As Yahweh’s perfect law stipulates at its very beginning:

Yahweh set us free from captivity, through the Passover Lamb, He set us free of death, and led us into the wilderness, so we can walk His way and not our way.

Our ways led us to death and captivity, but His Passover Lamb freed us from death and prepared the way into the wilderness where we received His perfect law, the law of redemption. But then again, we rejected it and sold ourselves back into slavery. But then Yahweh fulfilled His promises in Yeshua, our perfect and eternal Passover Lamb.

As John the baptizer said:

Yeshua came to lead us back to the Father, and not only that, but He also promised to give us His Holy Spirit, Ruach Ha’Kodesh, to lead us constantly and daily to the presence of the Father. With the purpose of instructing us into the life of the Kingdom of Heaven. To soften our hearts to the Laws of these Kingdom.

Like people that moves into a country, they have to learn the laws of the land, to learn to love this new land, and to learn how to live at peace in this land, so it is with the work of the Spirit, who soften our hearts to learn to love the new Kingdom of Life and Peace, promised by our Elohim to the fathers of the family we Gentiles were grafted in.

So, to answer the original question, do we have a license to sin? No, sin is death, and death separate us from Yahweh.

Moving Along

Romans 6:8-11 LSB —
⁸ Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, ⁹ knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. ¹⁰ For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all, but the life that He lives, He lives to God. ¹¹ Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Let’s go back to the analogy about moving into a new country. Every country has its own laws, which we are to abide to if we do not want to end up in court, or in jail, or worst, executed for committing a crime punishable by death. That makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it? Then why, if it is so obvious, we let ourselves been led to believe that we can continue with our sinful lives and still being ok with Yahweh?

You cannot use as an excuse the laws you abide in an old country when you are judged in your new country. In the same way, we cannot pretend to come to Yahweh in an unclean state because we used to be slave to sin. If we died with the Messiah, we are to live with the Messiah. Messiah took our place to cover the penalty of our slavery to sin to be free of sin.

Yes, Yeshua set us free from slavery and led us into the wilderness, we are still in a sinful world, a world that decays and rots. Yahweh knows our bodies are still heading to destruction, and this is why we must constantly walk under His ruling and guidance, so we can come to His presence in a clean state. Removing all the death this world had thrown at us, baptizing ourselves daily in the living waters of Yeshua’s words. As we clean ourselves daily, or when possible, so that the stench of our decaying bodies does not overwhelm whoever is around us.

We cannot pretend to be servants of the Most‑High and keep sinning. Let us meditate on this concept, but this time through the words of the Apostle John:

This sounds normal, and probably something you hear from the pulpits at your congregation, but John does not stop there. You see, if we stop here, we miss the point. Yes, Yeshua covers multitude of sin, but we cannot use this as an excuse to keep sinning.

How did Yeshua walk? He was blameless. How do we measure this, how do we know He was blameless? Yeshua walked fulfilling Yahweh’s commandments. He did not treat the law as something to disregard. He never violated not even one of His commandments. And He accomplished this when He was on the flesh. As Moses said to the children of Israel before he died and the children were ready to cross the Jordan River.

And the Apostle John put it this way:

If you read the scroll of Leviticus (Vayikra — original scroll name), in fear of the consequences of sin you miss an important point. The Laws, either the ritual or moral laws, were given with two main goals: first a. to teach us how to come into the presence of Yahweh, and b. for us to know what Yahweh’s detests.

Feeling convicted by the law is a good thing, been uncleaned was never a final state, the scroll of Leviticus stands as a witness to us of Yahweh’s unending love. Yes, we are uncleaned, yes we are sinners, but Yahweh has prepared a way for us to be made clean again, to be sinless again. And that’s why our faith is founded in His promises, so we can remember to come to Him with a repentant heart, knowing that He is faithful to His promises.

Romans 6:12-14 LSB —
¹² Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, ¹³ and do not go on presenting your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. ¹⁴ For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.

And this is the law that Yeshua has made of free from, the law of Sin, not from the LAW of Yahweh, Yahweh bind Himself to His LAW for this. It is the LAW of God who set the parameters of His Grace, if we nullify His LAW, then we increase the law of sin, and we are back where we started, slaves to sin.

In the LAW of Yahweh, there is no provision for willful sin, but there is provision for unintentional sin. These laws has not changed, they are still in effect, as you can deduct from the passage of Hebrews 10:26-29, not a law just for Jews. (Leviticus 4)

What is Grace?

Romans 6:15-16 LSB —
¹⁵ What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be! ¹⁶ Do you not know that when you go on presenting yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness?

Here we can see clearly the two laws Paul wants us to put against each other. We are not set free to do whatever we want to do, to love others as we define love, and serve Yahweh as we define serving Yahweh. If that had been the case, we would not have needed Yeshua in the first place. Serving Yahweh in our terms is a very dangerous business, we set ourselves in to a never-ending spiral of corruption that will increasingly destroy us in an explosion of perversion and degeneration. As in the time of the Judges:

How did this happen? To find out about it, you need to go back to the beginning of the scroll of Judges.

The Israelis did as they pleased, because they neglected the commandments of Yahweh. There are two laws that we can abide to, either to the law of sin or to the LAW of Yahweh. If you are trapped in the law of sin there’s a solution provided for you, Yahweh provided a LAW that eradicates it, that’s why Yeshua said this about the Torah and the Prophets:

Yeshua did not neglect the rest of the commandments here, He clearly stated that His entire LAW was simplified in these two commandments, both commandments from the Torah, the first found in Deuteronomy 6:5 and the second found on Leviticus 19:18. The entire Torah is the full expression of the love of Yahweh, without these laws sin spreads unchecked. But there is something worse than the law of sin. The reason why Yeshua said the following to the congregation of Laodicea:

If you are bound by the law of sin, the LAW of Yahweh can easily set you in the right direction, giving you freedom of true obedience. But if you become slave of you, and as the Israelis in the scroll of Judges, where you determine what is good and evil in your own eyes, you become a child of lawlessness, you are neither hot, nor cold.

Lawlessness is a state where you think you are clean, but you are still unclean, in bondage, but what makes it distinct from sin, is that you do not feel the need to repent. How many times have you heard this from people or from your own thoughts: “I am good, other has done worst”? And why the Apostle John continues with this:

Sin is deceitful, and still, Yahweh has provision salvation, Yeshua. But if you are convinced you do not need a savior, when you do, what else there is to do?

Paul introduced us to two sets of rules, we are to obey either, we cannot obey both. Yahweh did not set us free from slavery, He just transferred us from under a cruel master to be His, under His just ruling, His guidance brings life and justice. Even Yahweh bound Himself to His LAW for our benefit. We are not obligated to follow His LAW, we get to follow His LAW, and in return we are under His eternal love.

Yahweh brought justice to the slave, to the poor, to the needy, to the orphan and to the broken. He created laws that protects them, He created laws that brings justice in the conflicts of war, He created laws that brings honor to women and children. Yahweh’s LAW forces men to take responsibility for his actions. Do you really think it is wise to get rid of His LAW?

Romans 6:17-18 LSB —
¹⁷ But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you obeyed from the heart that pattern of teaching to which you were given over, ¹⁸ and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.

Through Yeshua there was a transferring of power, you were removed from the cruel ruling of sin into the loving-kindness of Yahweh’s love.

The Law of Yahweh Sanctifies Us

Romans 6:19 LSB —
I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, leading to further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, leading to sanctification.

And all this leads to an important topic in Paul’s letters. We move from Justification to Sanctification. One thing that it is vital for us to understand, that we have been justified instantly by the blood of our Lamb, Yeshua the Messiah. But sanctification is not an instant reaction. Sanctification is associated with our understanding of what is required of us. Yeshua does not remove the yoke, He made it lighter, by removing all the traditions of men and the requirements of our perception of righteousness. Yeshua set the record straight of millennia of bad teaching and corruption of His perfect LAW.

In Jewish tradition, the teaching of a rabbi is known as the “yoke”, when Yeshua is bringing this concept into His teaching, He was very intentional. Paul made it even more clear in Romans chapter 6. Yeshua is not removing His teachings or commandments, He is removing the heavy weight added to the LAW of Yahweh by the religious leaders, laws that contradicted even the laws coming directly from Yahweh. He made the “yoke” easy and light. But you are still required to carry the “yoke”, this time you are being trained by a wiser bull, metaphorically speaking, Ruach Ha’Kodesh, the Holy Spirit.

Everything the Father has taught from the beginning to that moment is what the Holy Spirit will help you remember. Torah was breathed directly from the mouth of Yahweh, all what the Prophets spoke, came from the mouth of Yahweh. All valid today, as it was valid when they were spoken.

Abiding in the guidance of the Spirit, who guides you with Yahweh’s LAW, sanctifies you. What’s sanctification? Sanctification comes from holy, holy means to set apart. You are sanctified when you are separated from men’s culture to Yahweh’s culture, from men’s traditions to Yahweh’s traditions, from men’s festivities to Yahweh’s appointed times. You are set‑apart, as Israel was set‑apart from the nations, as Abraham was set-apart from his kin and his nation to a promise we all see fulfilled through Yeshua.

Romans 6:20-22 LSB —
²⁰ For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. ²¹ Therefore what benefit were you then having from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. ²² But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you have your benefit, leading to sanctification, and the end, eternal life.

Yahweh’s LAW set‑us‑apart from sin, we are no longer slave to the laws of sin, now we are His. Yahweh is now your Elohim, and you are His people. How beautiful is this? To better put this, Paul says it this way:

Romans 6:23 LSB —
For the wages of sin is death, but the gracious gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Conclusión

Yeshua never removed the LAW of our Elohim, He set us free from the law of sin, and from lawlessness. This is for us to be able to live a productive life, not a life concentrated in ourselves, but a life grounded in the concept of community, justice and love.

A life dedicated to love Yahweh with all our hearts, our bodies, and everything that is represented in us, our marriage, our families, our communities and our land.

We are not set free to live a life of lawlessness, but a life that abides by the justice of His love. Free from sin, bound in His love.

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May Yahweh bless you and keep you; May Yahweh let His face shine upon you and be gracious to you; May Yahweh lift His face towards you and give you peace.

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Shalom