A Better Hope Introduced

Many people reason like this: “The law—condemnation—was given by Moses; however, through Christ we now have a better hope. He came with grace—forgiveness—and from now on God sees us through Jesus as if we had never sinned. Moses came with the requirements of the law, but Jesus removed these, since He fulfilled the law Himself so that we would not have to.”

This reasoning is quite false. The better hope is quite obviously that now we can attain unto more than before. The weakness of the law was that it could not lead anyone to perfection. So the better hope must be that now we can become perfect. This is why the apostle wrote, “Let us go on to perfection.” Heb. 6:1.

Paul said that he did only one thing, and that was to follow hard after perfection. Phil. 3:12. He didn’t do this in ignorance; the knowledge of Christ had given him this hope, the knowledge of Him in whom God condemned sin in the flesh, thus doing what the law could not do because it was weak through the flesh. The intention was not that we should be released from the requirements of the law, but that these righteous requirements of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk according to the Spirit. Rom. 8:3-4.