Hey Mike …

I liked your e- mail that you had with Gary Amirault … I guess I should introduce myself, but first, my hat’s off to your ministry. I sure have been lifted up by reading on your website, and I keep checking for new stuff. Ah, back to introduction; D____ from Illinois, heart of Amish country; born and raised that way … Obviously not anymore … To make a long story short, God brought a wife to me; from Louisiana. Now I have a 4 month old … OK, ’nuff formalities. I would like to join you in Mobile sometime, Lord willing … Anyhow, Gary [ Amirault] is coming to Champaign, IL this Friday. I enjoyed your chat that you had with him…, but I have a question concerning the law; Rom 3:20, Heb 7:19, and where it says it was our schoolmaster …

Well, my question is, do we think the law has the power to bring us to Christ, or does it just condemn us and make us realize our DIRE need for a SAVIOR? If we look at the original, it speaks of our need for a teacher, but it leaves me right where I’m at not bringing us to Christ but showing us our frailty… Does that make sense? If you get time to write back, that would be great, but if not, that’s quite OK too. Signing off. You truly have been a blessing in our home. MAY GOD BLESS ALWAYS

D____

Hi D____,

Congratulations on your new baby daughter! It takes a special man to rear a daughter as he ought.

Thanks, too, for your encouraging words. Letters like yours are what make it all seem worthwhile.

It is good that you have read the letter to Gary. I hope you will also read the letter to L____, who agrees with Gary, and the letter to D_____, who is at the opposite end of the pendulum. Both schools of thought are equally poison to the truth that Christ came to bring; that is, the truths of the New Covenant. Gary and L____, being led by the teachings of A. E. Knoch, believe that there is nothing for us to do, because Christ has done it all for us. This doctrine teaches that if you believe that Christ should be living His life “in” you, then you are guilty of believing in salvation by works.

D_____, on the other hand, believes that the fact that Paul says that Christ came “under the law,” means that His entire ministry was in complete agreement with Torah. D_____ is coming from the Messianic Jew school of thought. Both are equally false.

Christ was not “under the law” because he kept the law; he was ‘under the law’ simply because he was “made of a woman.” He was flesh and blood by virtue of being “made of a woman.”

Gal 4:4 But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,

The scripture you quote, as with ALL scripture, has a Christlike quality about it, seeing as Christ IS the Word. Here is that particular quality that Christ reiterates over and over again in scripture:

Rev 1:8 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.

Do you see those emboldened words? It will take you time to do this, but if you can begin to remember those words every time you read any verse of scripture, your understanding of the Bible will grow exponentially.

So when Paul says that the law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ… that is a statement “which is, and which was, and which is to come.” It is not just true for his generation. It is a statement that has been true for every generation since Christ, and will be true till the consummation. It is, was and will be ‘the law’ that will always point us to Christ.

Gal 3:22 But the scripture hath concluded all under sin [ under law], that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.
Gal 3:23 But before faith came, we were kept under the law [ under sin], shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed.
Gal 3:24 Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.
Gal 3:25 But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.

Contrary to what Mr. Amirault teaches, Christ was “the Lord of ” the schoolmaster law. The only way Christ was “made to be sin” was by virtue of being “made of a woman”; made flesh like us. He did not need to be “brought to Himself.” Whether Gary or any of us ever come to see it, Christ was never intended to keep or teach the old covenant. If he had, he would not have fulfilled the law, because the old covenant was only designed to endure ” until the time of reformation.”

Heb 9:10 Which stood only in meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the time of reformation.

So if Christ had come and simply kept the law of Moses and not reformed it, He would then have proven Himself to have been a false Messiah. Every “you have heard that it hath been said by them of old [ old covenant teaching]…” and every “But I say unto you… [ New Covenant teaching],” proved that this was indeed the promised Messiah. And sure enough, everything that had been prefigured in all the sacrifices and offerings and prophecies was accomplished in His being hated by His own; His betrayal, His crucifixion, and His resurrection. And what was it that brought all these things upon Christ? Was it because he had kept the law of Moses perfectly? Here is the answer of an apostle whom we are told the Lord “loved” :

Joh 5:18 Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God.

Christ admits to this ‘breaking of the sabbath’ in Mat 12:

Mat 12:1 At that time Jesus went on the sabbath day through the corn; and his disciples were an hungred, and began to pluck the ears of corn, and to eat.
Mat 12:2 But when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto him, Behold, thy disciples do that which is not lawful to do upon the sabbath day.
Mat 12:3 But he said unto them, Have ye not read what David did, when he was an hungred, and they that were with him;
Mat 12:4 How he entered into the house of God, and did eat the shewbread, which was not lawful for him to eat, neither for them which were with him, but only for the priests?
Mat 12:5 Or have ye not read in the law, how that on the sabbath days the priests in the temple profane the sabbath, and are blameless?
Mat 12:6 But I say unto you, That in this place is one greater than the temple.
Mat 12:7 But if ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless.

Christ was not “guiltless” because He had kept the law of Moses perfectly; He was guiltless because he refused to keep that law whenever it conflicted with the never changing “law of the Spirit.” The qualifications of our sacrifice were not determined by a law that was “not made for a righteous man.”

1Ti 1:9 Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers,

Christ was “a righteous man” not by standards that are designed “for the lawless and disobedient,” but by the standards of the “law of the Spirit of life” (Rom 8:2). That law made Christ “free from the law of sin [ for the lawless] and death.”

Rom 8:2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.

There are two laws under consideration in the New Covenant scriptures and in the prophecies of the Old Covenant. The one is called “old bottles and old cloth,” the other is “new wine and new garments.”

Here is the assessment of the Great Reformer as to how much these two covenants have in common:

Luk 5:36 And he spake also a parable unto them; No man putteth a piece of a new garment upon an old; if otherwise, then both the new maketh a rent, and the piece that was taken out of the new agreeth not with the old.
Luk 5:37 And no man putteth new wine into old bottles; else the new wine will burst the bottles, and be spilled, and the bottles shall perish.
Luk 5:38 But new wine must be put into new bottles; and both are preserved. Luk 5:39 No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new:

People to this day ‘prefer the old.’

If you go to hear Gary, keep these scriptures in mind. It is vital to know who our savior is. If your Savior kept the law of Moses blamelessly, He is not the same Savior that I have.

Let me hear from you.

Mike