Page 26 - Laying Down the Law

united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the
likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with
Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer
be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died
with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ,
having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion
over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life
that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead
indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Yahshua our Lord.

When Moses led the children of Israel through the waters of the Red Sea,
Yahweh was signifying that their old life of slavery had come to an end. The same
waters that provided a path of escape to the people of God brought an end to Pharaoh
and his armies. So too, when we are baptized into Christ, we have a path of escape
from a life of bondage to sin opened up to us. At the same time, the power of sin to
hold us captive is cut off.
However, we must not stop there. There is yet a third part to this work of
salvation. We are delivered from the rule and authority of sin over our lives when we
are united to Christ, but we must take Another to be our ruler and authority. We have
been freed from one master who offered us only death in payment for our labors. We
must be joined to another Master who will pay us with eternal life. If we stop short of
coming under the rule of Yahweh after having been freed from sin, we are lawless.
This then is the third aspect of salvation that is signified in the life of Moses.
Moses brought the people of God under the rule of Yahweh by establishing between
the two parties the covenant of Law. We have a Savior today, a prophet like unto
Moses, who also brings us under the rule of Yahweh. He does not accomplish this
through a covenant of Law. He does it by the far surpassing means of joining us to the
Father by the Spirit. Yahshua makes the rule of God in our lives an inner work.

Ezekiel 36:26-27
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart
of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit
within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My
judgments and do them.

People of God, do not make the mistake of thinking that Yahshua fulfilled this
prophecy of Ezekiel by inscribing the Laws delivered to Moses upon the heart of man.
Many are teaching such a conclusion, from these words of Ezekiel, or similar ones
found in Jeremiah.

Jeremiah 31:33
"But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those
days," declares Yahweh, "I will put My law within them and on their heart I will