DEWITT TABERNACLE TEACHING SERIES
“GOD’S PERFECT LAW
VERSES
MAN’S INABILITY TO KEEP IT”
By C.W. Wood
MAY
2011
A
PERSONAL NOTE TO OUR READERS:
Dear Friends, due to reasons beyond my control (health reasons), I have
not been able to answer all my mail and some of you have sent offerings for the
work and have not received a “Thank You” from me. I am very sorry about this
and I continue to pray that you will accept this little note as yours
personally. I am most grateful to all of you. Your faithfulness has made a
lasting impression on me, and I plan to spend some time on the other shore
thanking you for your help.
In
Christian Love,
Br.
C.W. Wood
In these closing days of time, God has set out to prepare His Bride for
the Rapture. One of the great and powerful works that He must perform is to
DELIVER US FROM CONDEMNATION. I John 3:21, "Beloved if our heart
condemn us NOT, then have we confidence toward God." Condemnation and
perfect faith cannot dwell together, and we have been taught that we must have
perfect faith for a perfect Rapture.
QUOTE: PERFECT FAITH, PAGE 28, "He is here, He does this to
create a PERFECT FAITH. I feel Him. I know He’s here now. I know that His
Spirit is here. I know that He knows all things. Amen! And I know He wants to do
something to create this perfection of faith in the people." "....The
Word made flesh. Hallelujah! The Word operating in human flesh, by physical
signs, perfectly. To bring you to a PERFECT FAITH FOR A PERFECT RAPTURE."
(End quote)
The all important question is, "How will our Lord bring us out from
under all condemnation?" will He perfect our flesh over a period of time
until finally we are able to keep al His Holy and perfect Law Standard? Will we,
some glorious day, be able to please our Father by bringing our flesh under
complete obedience to all His Holy Law so that we fail not in one jot or tittle?
Then, with no more failures in the flesh, will we come out from under
condemnation? To believe this does away with God's great plan of Salvation!
The scriptures declare that we will never attain to RIGHTEOUSNESS through
our struggle to keep the Holy Law. (Though we must strive with all our strength
to do so.) Gal. 2:21, "I do not frustrate the grace of God: for
if righteousness come by (keeping) the law, then Christ is dead in
vain."
To watch the flesh man and wait for the day that he will be able to
please God, is to do away with the whole plan of Salvation. GOD'S PLAN OF
SALVATION HINGES AROUND THE ALL IMPORTANT TRUTH THAT A SEX- BORN MAN CANNOT KEEP
THE HOLY, RIGHTEOUS, AND PERFECT LAW OF GOD. Paul said in the preceding
scripture, that if a man could attain to this high standard of the Law, then
Christ died for nothing. From what has been said, a powerful revelation emerges.
GOD HAS PURPOSELY SET BEFORE US AN IMPOSSIBLE STANDARD; a Holy Law that no man
can keep perfectly. In very fact, the Law was sent as our School Master to teach
us just that: that it is too high and Holy for us to attain to. Gal. 3:24,
"Wherefore the law was our School Master to bring us unto Christ, that
we might be justified by FAITH." (Rather than trying to trust our
flesh-man to perfectly keep the Law.) Does the Scripture actually say that our
Father has set before us a Law Standard so high that we can't keep it? Yes! Gal.
3:21, "Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid! FOR
IF THERE HAD BEEN A LAW GIVEN WHICH COULD HAVE GIVEN LIFE (Or, if God had
set the standard low enough for us to keep it.) VERILY RIGHTEOUSNESS SHOULD
HAVE BEEN BY THE LAW."
Do you see, Little Bride? God made sure that no man could keep His Holy
Law! Why so? Because according to our Prophet, He had in Himself attributes, one
of which gave Him a powerful desire to be a Savior. He was determined to
demonstrate this attribute and therefore, before He ever created the first atom,
He laid the foundation of a plan that would make room for this surging desire.
The ingenious plan included allowing sin to enter
When a Christian has the revelation that God has set before him an
impossible standard, which standard is Holy Law, and that he will never be able
to reach it, then he is truly beginning to understand the plan of Salvation and
the reason for the VIRGIN BIRTH. A person born different than us must come to
live the standard and fulfill the Law in our place. God purposely set His
standard too high for us to make room for Salvation through Grace and Faith. He
would produce a GOD-MAN through a Virgin Birth who could live the high standard.
The GOD-MAN would have the same flesh as ours. The prophet said the food Mary
ate formed His body, just as the food our mother ate formed ours. But, the great
difference between the Savior and ourselves was in the BLOOD that flowed through
His veins.
We have stated that our blood was contaminated, but His precious blood
was the blood of God Himself. Do we understand that, "The Life of the
flesh is in the BLOOD.....for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the
soul." (Lev. 17:11) The life of the flesh, or the fruits that the flesh
produces, is determined by the BLOOD that flows through the flesh. In the flesh
of Jesus Christ flowed the blood of God, having been placed there in a seed by
the Holy Ghost. Medical science knows that the blood in the child comes from the
father. Therefore, the blood in Jesus Christ came from His Father. Let's take a
closer look at this statement in Lev. 17:11, "the life of the
flesh is in the blood..." Have you ever wondered how the man, Jesus
Christ, could have been in a flesh body like unto our own, tempted in like
fashion as we, yet without sin? What was it that made it possible for Him to
live all His precious life completely above sin while the rest of us, even after
our new birth, find it totally impossible to always keep all the perfect Law?
It was the difference in the blood! In His blood flowed the Spirit of Life that
came out of the Seed of God. In our blood flows a spirit of life that flows to
us from Lucifer, to the serpent, to Eve, to us. Our blood is contaminated,
therefore, our flesh is so affected by the blood until Paul cried out, "In
my flesh dwelleth no good thing." (Rom.
Now we are coming down to understanding the Plan of Salvation, and the
reason for the Virgin Birth. God would set forth His Holy perfect Law, which Law
could never be changed. His plan then included subjecting His Elect Children to
this perfect Law. In Rom. 8:20, "For the creature (us) was
MADE subject to vanity (sin), not willingly, but by reason of Him who
hath subjected the same in hope." Can we see it? God made His PERFECT
LAW, and then made His children IMPERFECT by bringing them into the world
through a sexual birth. He took a part of us out of the original creation, our
theophany, made in the likeness and image of God (Gen.1:26), and placed us on
Earth in a sinful-flesh body. He subjected us to sin for reasons of His own; the
scripture says He did so in HOPE. That is to say, He knew what He would do to
deliver us from our dilemma. He would come down Himself, be formed in the womb
of woman, in flesh such as ours, and then keep His own Holy and Perfect Law in
our place. He would be the GOD-MAN. The blood in His veins made Him God, while
the flesh that Mary produced by the food she ate made Him a man. In this manner
then, our God-Man fulfilled His desire to be a SAVIOR. By fulfilling His own
Perfect Law, He became our Savior. (Hebrews 2:14-15)
Matt. 5:17, "Think not that I am come to DESTROY THE LAW, or the
prophets.” (I am not come to set the Law aside, nor to make it any easier,
He came to fulfill the Law.) What does that actually mean that He came to "fulfill
the law”? He came to KEEP it in our place.
If He had set His standard so that we, in our sinful flesh, could have
kept it, there would have been no need for Him to come down and keep it for us.
There would have been no need for the Virgin Birth, no need for the Cross, and
therefore, His desire to be a Savior would have gone unfulfilled!
God Himself came down when the time was right, according to His plan, and
was made flesh through Mary made UNDER THE LAW. Gal. 4:4, "But
when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth His son, made of a woman,
made under the law..." What does the scripture mean, that Jesus was
made UNDER THE LAW? It means He was given a body that was subject to temptations
like we are. He could feel the pull of sin; His flesh desired the same things
our flesh desires. Yes, He was tempted by every sinful thing that tempts us. Heb.
4:15, "For we have not an High Priest which cannot be touched with
the feeling of our infirmities. BUT WAS IN ALL POINTS TEMPTED LIKE AS WE ARE,
YET WITHOUT SIN."
Now, here is the reason for the Virgin Birth: It produced a Person who
could be tempted exactly as we are, yet with the ability to resist every
temptation all through His life. The blood in His veins gave Him that ability.
We were not born with such ability. We came here "shaped in iniquity;
and in sin did our mothers conceive us." (Ps. 51:5)
He was born UNDER THE LAW, that is to say, subject to it, and He chose to
keep it, and having the ability to keep it, He did so. We were born UNDER THE
LAW, subject to keeping it, yet without the ability to keep it. Therefore, the
scripture says THE LAW FAILED. Rom. 8:3, "For what the law could
not do, in that it was weak THROUGH THE FLESH....." There was something
the Law could not do, it could not make a fallen creature RIGHTEOUS. There is no
saving power in the Law; it shows no mercy. There was nothing wrong with the
Holy Law. The fault was in our sinful, sex-born flesh. We were not Virgin Born.
We did not bypass the lineage of Adam, as did our Lord. Oh, friends, do you see
the great plan of God? It revolves around our inability to keep the perfect Law.
It is true that once the Seed is quickened in us, we have a burning desire to
keep His Law, yet not the spiritual ability to do so (Gal. 2:16). This makes it
possible for Him to display His attribute of a Savior. He loved us so much that
the only way He could ever makes us understand was to die for us, then we still
have problems grasping it. (John 3:16-17)
What we need to see then, is that there is nothing out of cater in God's
plan of Salvation just because we can't live up to His Holy Standard. This is
exactly according to the plan. Our salvation does not depend on the FLESH being
perfected, but rather on our FAITH being perfected. He has used His perfect
standard against our imperfect flesh to drive us to His faith plan of salvation.
This is why the Holy Scriptures say, "Without FAITH it is impossible to
please Him." (Heb. 11:6) Without faith in what? Without faith in the
plan. Faith in the plan delivers us from CONDEMNATION. Once we see the plan, and
how it was meant to work, we can accept forgiveness for all our failures to keep
the Law, knowing that the Holy Law was sent to "....bring us to
Christ." (Gal.3:24) That is to say, the Law was sent to DRIVE us to
Christ and faith in what He has done for us. This is to be delivered from all
condemnation.
Lest someone misunderstand, we pause here to say that our inability to
keep the Law perfectly does in no way excuse us from our responsibility to the
Law. Rom. 6:1, "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin
that grace may abound? God forbid! Verse 13, “Neither
yield
ye your
members
[as] instruments
of unrighteousness
unto sin:
but yield
yourselves
unto God,
as those that are alive
from the dead,
and your
members
[as] instruments
of righteousness
unto God.”
It behooves us to study the 7th and
8th chapters of Romans diligently, for there we see the great apostle Paul, in
the 7th chapter is under CONDEMNATION. (Please read the 7th chapter Romans at
this point.) He is heart broken because he is unable to attain to the perfect
Law of God. He had found in his fleshly members a "...law of sin."
(Rom.
Now what does his deliverance consist of? Is his flesh to be so quickened
by the Holy Ghost in him that it can at last attain to the Holy Law? Not so at
all. The flesh does not improve. A prophet said it will remain
"STICKY" as long as we live. Then, what constituted the deliverance
that Paul was so fervently thanking God for? He had seen that God's standard was
purposely set too high for mortal man. He was shown that the burning desire to
keep the Law was being produced in him by the Holy Ghost and that was for a
specific reason. The reason being to cause just such DESPERATION as he had been
experiencing. He had to have an answer to his desperate situation. (We must have
the same answer, Little Bride.)
We also who are Born-Again, have a burning desire to keep our Father's Law. Have
we, as Paul, yet discovered the impossibility of this? Do we now understand that
the standard was placed so high that only the GOD-MAN could Himself keep it, and
that this was to make room for Father to express His attributes of a Savior? Do
we now see that Paul, and us, serve the Law of God with THE MIND, but with the
flesh we still serve THE LAW OF SIN and that Paul made this all important
statement AFTER HIS DELIVERANCE? This was his mighty revelation, that he would
always remain a sinner in his flesh. The blood of Christ did not leave him
sinless, it only washed him moment by moment from his sins, as he had need and
repented. Then in Rom. 8:1 with this delivering revelation under his
spiritual belt, he shouted, "There is therefore NOW NO CONDEMNATION to
them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh (trusting in), but
after the Spirit." His problem was solved, his heartache eased as he
saw that his Father had subjected him to all this in HOPE, and that as he lived
as best he could, repenting every time he failed, no charges were being accepted
against him in Heaven.
Rom. 8:33, "Who shall lay anything to the charges of God's
elect? It is God that justifieth. Verse 34, "Who is he that
condemeth?" (Who does the devil think he is condemning God's children
that He Himself has justified?) Brother Branham taught that we can never become
perfect in our flesh.
QUOTE: HEBREW BOOK, PAGE 284, "Now what makes (keeps) us from
being perfect this morning, (to be able) to do those things just as He did, is
because we are still in the veil...." (The veil is the flesh.)
QUOTE: C.O.D. BOOK, PAGE 1030, "Now is anything (any one)
perfect but God? No sir!
QUOTE:
And so we see that those who trust in the keeping of the Law for
Salvation are actually trying to make void God's law of Faith.
We strive to keep the Law with all our strength, but when we fail, we
have an advocate with the Father. I John 2:1, "My little
children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we
have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." Let us
examine Rom.
The Law, when used as a means of Salvation, works wrath in the heart of
God because it tends to make vain His terrible sacrifice on the cross. Gal.
2:21, "I do not frustrate the Grace of God. For if righteousness
come by (keeping) the law, then Christ is dead in vain."
As has been said, our goal is to bring ourselves out from under all
condemnation. To do so, we must understand that the power that sin has over us
is through the Law. In other words, the enemy holds over our heads our failure
to keep all the Law perfectly. Because of our failures, which we will have all
our lives, he constantly condemns us. Paul said it like this, I Cor. 15:56-57,
"The sting of death is sin..." In other words, the fear of
death comes from the fact of known sin in our lives, and from doubting that they
have been forgiven. Then Paul went on to say, "and the strength of sin
is the law." He says sin has strength, then he tells us where sin gets
its strength; it comes through the Law.
Sin's strength is condemnation, and condemnation comes through our failure to
keep some part of the Law. Verse 57 gives us the answer to our problem, "But
thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus
Christ." In other words, the Lord Jesus Christ lived all the law in our
place, and then imputed that Law-keeping to us. Now, we accept our righteousness
by FAITH. Rom. 4:13, "For the promise that he should be
heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the LAW, but
through the righteousness of FAITH."
And so we see that spiritual weakness is produced in us when the enemy
CONDEMNS us over our failure to keep some portions of the Law. He uses the Law
against us to cause our faith to drain out. Faith and condemnation cannot abide
in the same house. Now, here is the revelation that will set us free Little
Bride, God also uses the Law, not to condemn us, but to show us the
impossibility of our keeping it all, at all times. This revelation will drive us
to Jesus Christ as our only hope. When we end up as did Paul, with no degree of
confidence in our flesh, realizing that not one place did God ever promise to
sanctify the flesh, then and only then will we transfer all our confidence to
God's plan, and the one who carried it out, Jesus Christ. Phil. 3:3, "For
we are the circumcision, which worship God in the Spirit, and rejoice in Jesus
Christ, AND HAVE NO CONFIDENCE IN THE FLESH." When we said above that
God does not use the Law to condemn us, we do not mean to imply that He does not
use it to CONVICT us. "We had not known sin but by the law."
(Rom. 7:7) The Law does convict us, but conviction lifts the moment we truly
repent, while condemnation never lifts until driven out by faith in God's plan.
May we see the plan and that it included the impossible standard of God's Holy
Law, set before us to drive us to the Lord Jesus, who was not only our standard
setter, but our standard keeper.