Free to Keep the Law …

Understand this! When a person is born-of-Spirit, there is no condemnation of the “new self,” the infant son of God (Rom 8:2), for God does through spiritual birth what the law could never do (v. 3). This new self is born free. This new self, unlike the “old man,” is not born consigned to disobedience, but is free to keep the commandments of God. The “old man” was, from birth, consigned to disobedience (again, Rom 11:32), and was utterly unable to keep the commandments. And every person descended from the first Adam however many times removed—prior to the birth of the man Jesus whose father was the Theos of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and not the first Adam—was born in bondage to the prince of this world. This is why Jesus told the Pharisees that none of them kept the law (John 7:19): none of them could keep the law, for they were all still bondservants of Satan. Only when a person is born-of-Spirit [i.e., receives a second birth that is not of this world] can the person escape disobedience. Only when a person is born of the last Adam (1 Cor 15:45) can this person be truly free to keep the commandments. But if Satan can cause this person to return to disobedience, then this son of God, like the angels that followed Satan into rebellion against God, will perish in the lake of fire; for inside of time, even Satan will perish (Ezek 28:18-19). And no person will escape from this physical realm until Jesus gives life to the person as the Father gave life to the person (John 5:21). Both must give life, for all judgment has been given to the Son.