The Daily Word of Righteousness

The First Four Feasts, #12

But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. (Acts 1:9)

The record of the Book of Acts speaks for itself concerning the meaning of the feast of Pentecost.

Jesus had said, "Wait for the promise of the Father"; and again, "Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Spirit is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me."

"Ye shall receive power." The Book of Acts is a record of Divine power working in the lives of Christians. Speaking in tongues and the miraculous healing of the sick are two of the outstanding results of the outpouring on all flesh of the Holy Spirit of God.

The law of the Spirit of life. Pentecost (feast of Weeks) is associated with the giving of the Law of Moses on Mount Sinai. It is believed that the Law was given on Sinai fifty days after Israel left Egypt (Pentecost means "fifty").

It is true also under the new covenant that the law is given at Pentecost, for the law of the Christian is the "law of the Spirit of life" (Romans 8:2).

We Christians are not under the Law of Moses unless we choose to live in the flesh. We are free from the Law on the basis that we have been crucified with Christ and now are living in newness of life. The Law of Moses governs us when we are living "in the flesh." By "living in the flesh" we mean behaving in the understanding and appetites of the body, soul, and mind of the natural man rather than behaving under the guidance, discipline, power, and life of the Holy Spirit of God.

When we choose to "die" to the lusts of the flesh, and to live instead in the power and life of the Holy Spirit, we come under a law different from the Law of Moses. Our new law is the law of the Spirit of life. It is the law that rules Christians who are "not in the flesh, but in the Spirit" (Romans 8:9).

We are not "adulterers" although we have left the Law of Moses to be married to Christ because we have been released from the Law of Moses by our death with Christ on the cross (Romans 7:2-4). Death releases us from the Law of Moses.

We Christians are not without law. We are living under a different type of governing principles. We are to be ruled by the Spirit of God whose voice we are to obey at all times.

In our day there are numerous Christians who are spiritual "singles." They are married neither to the Law of Moses nor to Christ. They are lawless. Their end will be according to their works.

Living in the appetites of the flesh, obeying the lusts of the body and soul, brings some gaiety and satisfying of fleshly desires accompanied by an enormous amount of mental and bodily grief, remorse, confusion, sickness, spiritual death, punishment, and eventually, eternal separation from God.

Obedience to the law of the Spirit of life brings self-denial and delayed gratification, accompanied by peace, health, certainty, and eventually release and glory and the fullness of the Presence of God in Christ throughout eternity.

To be continued.