14.12 Laboring to qualify (Labor of the Old Covenant)

Let us go back to the illustration. When the son received the wrong message from the messenger, he started to labor hard to save up the $5m – to qualify himself to build the orphanage.

This is the kind of labor under the Old Covenant. Israel had to keep the works of the law in order to qualify for righteousness and to attain to the blessings of Deuteronomy 28.

It is a labor that makes a person tired and weary because it draws upon the resources of man. You are constantly pushing yourself with the hope to be blessed, but blessings seem to evade you. You are busy with activities but there seems to be limited impact. You don’t seem to see much result. In fact, you are constantly pushing yourself to get a breakthrough. You are constantly trying to get to the next level, but you never seem to get there. Does this sound familiar?

This kind of labor produces a lot of zeal but in the flesh (self-ability). Those who are strong on the law tend to be confident in their performance. Paul was extremely zealous under the system of the law. He had all the credentials and performed well. He even persecuted the law-breakers – the Christians of his day. He went as far as to Damascus.

(Phil 3:4-9)
If anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I more so: 5 circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; concerning the law, a Pharisee; 6 concerning zeal, persecuting the church; concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless. 7 But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. 8 Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith;

But all his laboring under the law counted for nothing – when he came face to face with Jesus. The glory of Christ was so much greater than the glory of the law that he counted all his achievements under law as rubbish.

He realized that trying to attain to self-righteousness under the law is nothing compared to receiving the gift of righteousness by faith in Christ. He labored hard to persecute many Christians but there is no lasting benefit to anybody.

But from the moment he met Jesus and forsook the law, he embarked on a new kind of labor that shook the world. We will continue tomorrow.