(341) – THE TWO HOUSES 5c (continued)

1.   In the house of Jehovah all were slaves. The apostle Paul explains the allegory of Jehovah. The slave Hagar, the Egyptian, whom Abraham brought from Egypt, posed a mystery of Jehovah that no one would have ever known if Paul had not revealed it by the Holy Spirit: “Tell me, you that desire to be under the law, don’t you listen to the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the handmaid, and one by the free woman. However, the son by the handmaid was born according to the flesh, but the son by the free woman was born through promise. These things contain an allegory, for these are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children to bondage, which is Hagar. For this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and answers to the Jerusalem that exists now, for she is in bondage with her children” (Gal. 4:21-15). And Jehovah here declares that his people live in a type of slavery similar or worse than that of the kingdoms of this world. Ezekiel registered: “When Jehovah saw that they humbled themselves, the word of Jehovah came to Shemaiah, saying, ‘They have humbled themselves. I will not destroy them; but I will grant them some deliverance, and my wrath shall not be poured out on Jerusalem by the hand of Shishak. Nevertheless they shall be his servants, that they may know my service, and the service of the kingdoms of the countries’” (2 Chr. 12:7-8).

A different thing happens in the house of Jesus and of the Father. Jesus said: “You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free” (John 8:32). And he continues: “If therefore the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36). Paul closes the issue saying: “But to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart. But whenever one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord, the Spirit” (2 Cor. 15-18).

2.   In the house of Jehovah those whom Jehovah saved died of thirst, hunger, pestilences, and plagues in the desert. The promise was to take them to paradise (Ex. 3:7-8). If they had remained in Egypt they would have had better luck. Instead of taking them straight to Canaan according to the promise he interrupted the progress in the desert of Sinai, established the covenant of the law, and established conditions to be fulfilled: “You shall walk in all the way which Jehovah your God has commanded you, that you may live, and that it may be well with you, and that you may prolong your days in the land which you shall possess” (Deut. 5:33).

=>   You shall have no other gods before me.

=>   You shall not make for yourselves an idol, nor any image of anything that is in the heavens above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: you shall not bow yourself down to them, nor serve them, for I, Jehovah your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and on the fourth generation of those who hate me, and showing loving kindness to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.

=>   You shall not take the name of Jehovah your God in vain, for Jehovah will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.

=>   Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. You shall labor six days, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to Jehovah your God. You shall not do any work in it, you, nor your son, nor your daughter, your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your livestock, nor your stranger who is within your gates; for in six days Jehovah made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day; therefore Yahweh blessed the Sabbath day, and made it holy.

=>   Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land which Jehovah your God gives you.

=>   You shall not murder.

=>   You shall not commit adultery.

=>   You shall not steal.

=>   You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.

=>   You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s (Ex. 20:3-17) THE TEN COMMANDMENTS.

The condition that Jehovah imposed was keeping the law: “You shall therefore keep my statutes and my ordinances; which if a man does, he shall live in them: I am Yahweh” (Lev. 18:5).

In the house of the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ it is the opposite: “Stand firm therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and don’t be entangled again with a yoke of bondage. Behold, I, Paul, tell you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will profit you nothing. Yes, I testify again to every man who receives circumcision, that he is a debtor to do the whole law. You are alienated from Christ, you who desire to be justified by the law. You have fallen away from grace” (Gal. 5:1-4). The death of Christ on the cross begot the grace, which delivers from all law: “For sin will not have dominion over you. For you are not under law, but under grace” (Rom. 6:14). This means that those who adopt the law of Jehovah are under the dominium of sin; therefore Paul said: “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law” (1 Cor. 15:56).

3.   In the house of Jehovah everyone is condemned, because it is written: “Now we know that whatever things the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be closed, and all the world may be brought under the judgment of God” (Rom. 3:19). Why is someone condemnable if he is under the law? “For through the law comes the knowledge of sin” (Rom. 3:20). If someone desires something, he does not take the desired object because the law prohibits it; then the desire, repressed, increases. This is the concupiscence that the law produces: “But sin, finding occasion through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of coveting. For apart from the law, sin is dead” (Rom. 7:8). Concupiscence, repressed, increases more and more until it produces irresponsible abnormal and perverted people, greedy and furtive. This is why the ministry of the law, of the Old Testament, is called the ministry of condemnation, and they were all condemned (2 Cor. 3:6-9). Even those for whom Jehovah completed salvation with great power were condemned: “Now I desire to remind you, though you already know this, that the Lord, having saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who didn’t believe” (Jude 5).

In the house of the Father, Jesus died on the cross to save those who Jehovah condemned; therefore John declared: “He who believes in him is not judged. He who doesn’t believe has been judged already” (John 3:18). And those who believe receive the Holy Spirit to guide them in the way of sanctification and free them from the law: “But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law” (Gal. 5:18).

4.   In the house of Jehovah sin mercilessly killed: “The soul who sins, he shall die” (Ezek. 18:4). And Jehovah declared that there is no man who does not sin (Eccl. 7:20).

In the house of the Father everything changed: “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 6:23). How does the miracle happen? The prodigious effect of the revealed love of God in Jesus Christ on the cross and the glorious action of the gifts of the Holy Spirit in the soul of men produce such a productive and lovely virtue, that there is no more space for sin. This is why John says: “You know that he was revealed to take away our sins, and in him is no sin. Whoever remains in him doesn’t sin. Whoever sins hasn’t seen him, neither knows him” (1 John 3:5-6). The Latin proverb says, Aquila non capit muscas (The eagle does not entertain itself in catching flies). That is, the one who is born again soars so high that he does not lower to the earth to bother with sin.

By Pastor Olavo Silveira Pereira

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