I wonder sometimes if we understand the difference of the two things. The Law and the Spirit of the Law.
One easy reference we can use and dissect the two is the Law of Moses and the ‘New Covenant’,the Law of Christ.
These two things are the same on the surface but they are totally different in reality.
Let’s look at the first one, “The Law”, it was given to Moses by God for His people, the nation of Israel to follow and heed them to the things of God. It was a human way of doing certain things that made them ‘stand out’ as a group as being different in the world. The three main things that made them stand out were of their food laws of eating certain things or not eaten of certain things. It was a ‘marker’ for Jewish men to be circumcised to be apart of God’s people. It was also a ‘marker’ for the nation of Israel to have specific religious days and rites to their God. These were all specific and obvious things for the world to notice in their daily rituals. They stood out in this time of society, it was that society was just the opposite in their rituals of obedience.
The second one, being the “Spirit of the Law” was different. It was not of the human ways of doing things, it did not pertain to the ‘ways’ of society. It was to be ‘distinct’ in its coming across to the believers of God, and was a showing of what was of the inside of mankind to just be as God. God’s ways, are different. They are ‘seen’ as coming from ‘above’ actions and beings. This is foreign to us even today, we still believe that we have to really ‘work’ at being different in the world to ‘make’ that difference that we think we have to be. This is what we call the difference between the “old covenant” and the “new covenant”, It is different totally in nature and actions. It is because the new covenant changed things, in realizing that the old covenant could not be fulfilled by the second party(the Jews), The first party, the originator of the covenant, then steps in to fulfill the covenant of ‘being the one’ to fulfill the covenant by doing and being the law. This is the New Covenant being set up for ‘new’ steps for Gods people to just ‘be’ His.
It is this ‘step’, God’s son Jesus, fulfills the old covenant as it should of been, but it showed the Israelites that they to were not capable to fulfill the law, as the gentiles could not of either. They were all in the same boat. This is a plural problem of ‘mankind’ that they were incapable to follow a law or laws. Mankind was/is tainted. We need Help!
Help was on it’s way with the God’s son, Jesus to follow the law, and was the law, so to put the law in God’s hands to be accomplished. The Law as we understood it was now irrelevant to us, because we were and still are unable to fulfill these ‘laws’ as mankind wanted to.
God has now brought in His Son, Jesus to follow, in all aspects of our lives, All of our Lives. For it was mankind that failed, not just a few, or a group, a race, or appointed ones to fulfill the things of God. He is giving all the blessings of himself to all men and women to live in the Kingdom of God!
The Eternal Purpose 