Devotional: Jesus Fulfills the Law

Romans 8:1-4

“For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit” (Rom. 8:5, NASB).

For years I heard it said in the church, “Jesus came to fulfill the law. I heard this time and time again, but the truth is this: I really did not understand what this means. I often wondered if the people that I heard repeat this over and over again understood it. Why did they not explain it further? Paul gives us the answer, and I first heard it in a sermon delivered by the late Dr. Samuel D. Proctor.

When I heard Dr. Proctor say, “Jesus came to do what the law could not do,’ I thought that these were Dr. Proctor’s own words. Here it is, “For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in likeness of sinful flesh and an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh” (v. 3, NASB). The Law is powerless to save because it has not the power of the Spirit. It has the power to tell the flesh what it should do and what it should not do. We all have the sin nature in us, and the Law cannot change that nature. On the other hand, Jesus died on the cross to pay the sin debt. As a result of His shed blood we are forgiven of our sins. God gives us the Holy Spirit so that we have access to the Father and the nature of His Son. In Christ Jesus we fulfill the Law because we have power to do what the law says do because the Holy Spirit gives us the mind of Christ and by faith we are able to walk in the Spirit. By Faith we can do what we could not do through the works of the flesh.

Prayer: Father, we thank you for Jesus who fulfilled the Law, and by faith we too can fulfill the law by the power of the Spirit that lives in us. Amen.