Helper

All of the Bible was written 'for' us, but not all of the Bible is written 'to' us.

What we call the Bible is a collection of 66 books written over a period of 1500 years. It was organized into its present form during the Council of Carthage in AD 397. The Bible has many other names such as the Scriptures, the Good Book, the Holy Canon and the Word of God. It can be described a historical record of God's covenantal dealings with mankind through the ratification of five major covenants between God and 1) Noah, 2) Abraham, 3) Moses, 4) David and 5) Jesus.

Much confusion results when we take verses out of their historical context and apply them to ourselves in the present day. For example, what we know as "the Law" (10 commandments + hundreds of other rules) was given to Moses and was something God employed as a part of His covenant specifically with Moses and the covenant people who at that time was only the Israelites.

God employed these rules because He hadn't yet filled them with His Holy Spirit (Greek "paraclete" = Helper). Because God hadn't yet filled His people with Himself, they needed what Scripture calls a "tutor" - much in the same way our children need rules until they "come of age" and can start making wise choices on their own. The Bible also says that the Law was only a "shadow of things to come" (Col. 2:17; Heb. 10:1) and not the reality of what we now have - the "Helper" who now lives inside of us as a result of the Father's new covenant with His Son Jesus.

While reading about older covenants may be helpful in that they help us more fully understand the reality of what we now have under the New Covenant, in no way are we apply those "obsolete" (Heb. 8:13) rules to the freedom we now have in Christ. For further reading, see the entire book of Galatians.

This is what the apostle Paul means when he exhorts us to "live by the Spirit" and not under the Law. For the Christian, to use rules is equivalent to putting training wheels back on our bicycle or like a mother telling her 40 year old son not to run out onto a freeway.

To the degree we feel the need to keep making & enforcing rules is the exact degree to which we are not trusting what Jesus has done for us - or the Spirit He has given us.

"It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." - Galatians 5:1