Down to Earth But Heavenly Minded

Question:

“O.M.A.B., Boyle,” asks for replies to the following questions: ―

(1) Tell me the meaning of Galatians 3:10.

How can it be said of saints, justified sinners by faith in Jesus, even though they should make the law their “rule of life,” as they say, that they are under a curse? To be sure, such practically deny their oneness with Christ in resurrection; they are rendering themselves incapable of living in the power of the risen life, but this does not alter the fact that they are one with Christ ― risen, ascended, and seated in the heavenlies, and that God looks at them as such. How, then, can it be said they are under a curse?

Answer:

The Apostle is not speaking of the standing of persons, but is showing the effect of the law upon all who put themselves under it, or are striving to live on that principle in their relationships with God. That they are in fact putting themselves back in the state to which the curse of the law applies, and consequently putting them selves under the curse, for the simple reason that they do not fulfil it, and it curses all who fail to do so. If a Christian puts himself under the law, he must be consciously only in the position to which it refers; i.e., he must be “in the flesh” (Romans 7:5). Whereas the standing of a Christian is “not in the flesh but in the Spirit (Romans 8:9), and, as a matter of course, he is not realising his place as risen with Christ. The law applies to a child of fallen Adam, responsible to God as a sinner, and to none else. It pursues its claim upon him as far as the death of Christ. There, the believer, as having died with Christ, disappears from its pursuit, and it can go no further. It has no claim over one who is dead, and has thus eluded the uncompromising grasp of the law, and is now alive in another state, in Christ risen from the dead. So that, if a Christian puts himself under it in any way, he practically denies the place where Christianity has set him, and cannot consciously be in his true position before God. Of course then he breaks the law ― (Who ever kept it as alive in that state?) ― and it curses, without distinction, all who do so!

This is quite a different thing than if Paul was pronouncing upon the standing of a Christian, as God sees him, “in Christ.” Impossible that in such a position he could be under a curse; and were he realising it, he could not put himself back into a condition to which the curse of the Law applies. When consciously there, he walks, not in the flesh, but in the Spirit; and the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in him who does so (Romans 7:4), but never by being under it.