The wrong case ebook

The Wrong Case

Same Law, Same Judge, New Association

Wilfredo Aguilar

Contents

1. Introduction: You Kept Losing
2. Part 1: The Five Exhibits
3. Chapter 1. Medium: Stone vs. Heart
4. Chapter 2. Method: Earning Credit vs. Receiving Credit
5. Chapter 3. Text: Old vs. New, Breath and Life
6. Chapter 4. Payment: Wages vs. Inheritance
7. Chapter 5. Place: Flesh vs. Breath
8. Part 2: Living in Case #2
9. Chapter 6. Mixed: Pursuing Righteousness and Calling It Grace
10. Chapter 7. The Case That Won’t Close: Standing in the Verdict
11. Chapter 8. Unchained and Shielded: Free in Mind
12. Conclusion: You Don’t Win Case #1, You Die to It
13. Appendix

Introduction: You Kept Losing

For most of my Christian life I aimed at the wrong target. I pursued righteousness. I studied harder, kept the structure, and tried again, and I called it grace. Then I read what Paul wrote in Romans 9:30-32. The Gentiles were not even chasing righteousness, and they received it by faith. Israel chased a law of righteousness and never arrived, because they went after it by works and not by faith. That is when my aim shifted, from the law of righteousness to the law of faith.

This book is about that shift, and the best way I know to picture it is one court with two cases.

In Case #1, the State has five exhibits against you: the law of God, the law of righteousness, the law of sin and death, the law of works, and the law in your members. The verdict is guilty, and it is legally correct. That is why you kept losing. You were standing in the wrong case, trying harder.

In Case #2, the same Judge hears a new case with five new exhibits: the law written on the heart, the law of faith, the law of the Breath and life, favor, and a new place to live, in the Breath. Your Lawyer does not retry Case #1. He changes your association, from in Adam to in Him. You do not win Case #1. You die to it (Romans 7:4), and there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1).

Notice what I am not saying. I am not saying the law is bad. Paul calls it holy, just and good (Romans 7:12), and he asks whether faith cancels the law and answers that it establishes it (Romans 3:31). It is the same law and the same Judge in both cases. What changes is your association: whether you stand in Adam, under law, or in Christ, and whether you are using the law as a way to be blessed.

A word to my Jewish readers, and to Christians who are zealous for the old. This book is not against Israel or against the Scriptures. Paul himself said he had committed no offense against the law of the Jews (Acts 25:8). My target is a practice: pursuing righteousness by works and calling it grace. Paul asked the believers in Galatia the same question I am asking: having begun in the Breath, are you now being made complete by the flesh (Galatians 3:3)?

Here is how this book is built. It has five pairs, and the center pair is the text: the old written code against the words of Jesus, which are Breath and life (John 6:63). That is why I invite you to put the New first, and to read it again and again. In my own experience, my understanding grew when I focused there. The full chart is in Appendix A.

Know this too: Case #1 will not simply give up. For over two years, since I focused on the New Testament, I have fought it daily. It keeps pressing the same exhibits. But I am not fighting to win Case #1. I am standing in the verdict of Case #2, and Case #1 will never announce that I am free. That freedom is something I stand in (Galatians 5:1), saved, free, and enjoying life in Christ.

One more thing. Information is not deliverance. You can study every exhibit and still stand in the wrong case, because the issue is not that you have not searched the Scriptures but that you have not come for life (John 5:39-40). So every chapter ends with a step of receiving, a prayer or a declaration, so that you do not just finish a chapter informed. You finish it free.

Let’s leave the wrong case.

Back to contents

Part 1: The Five Exhibits

The five exhibits come in pairs, and the pairs form a chiasm (A, B, C, B′, A′). The center is the text: Breath and life. Each chapter ends with a receiving step, a prayer or a declaration.

Chapter 1. Medium: Stone vs. Heart

The first pair is about where the law is written. In Case #1, the law of God is the first exhibit: the statute you broke. In Case #2, the law is written on the heart. It is the same law of God in both. What changes is the medium.

Start with the stone. Paul calls the old ministry a ministry of death, engraved in stones, and he still says it came with glory (2 Corinthians 3:7). A tablet of stone stands outside you. You can read it, measure yourself against it, and be accused by it. What it cannot do is move you from the inside. That is the picture in Romans 7. Paul delights in the law of God in his inner man (7:22), yet he says that to will is present with him but how to perform he does not find (7:18).

Then the heart. Hebrews 8:10 and 10:16 say that God puts his laws into their minds and writes them on their hearts. Romans 2:15 speaks of the work of the law written in their hearts. Paul says believers are a letter of Christ, written not with ink but with the Breath of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of the heart (2 Corinthians 3:3). And in Romans 2:29, real circumcision is of the heart, in the Breath, not in the letter.

That is why the chart writes Law [of the heart] with brackets. Paul never uses that exact phrase, but these verses carry the idea.

People in Case #1 keep standing in front of the stone and trying harder. They read the tablet, hold themselves to it, and wonder why nothing changes inside. The new covenant does not throw the law away. It writes it somewhere new.

Receiving step. Pray or say aloud: I have been standing in front of the stone. I ask you to write on my heart what I could not keep from the outside.

Back to contents

Chapter 2. Method: Earning Credit vs. Receiving Credit

The second pair is about how credit is given. In Case #1, the second exhibit is the law of righteousness: the perfect record you do not have. In Case #2, the law of faith, which I render as trust: you receive credit, you do not prove it.

Paul states it plainly in Romans 9:30-32. The Gentiles were not pursuing righteousness, and they obtained it, the righteousness that comes by faith. Israel pursued a law of righteousness and did not arrive at it, because they went after it as if it were by works, and they stumbled. In 10:3 he adds that they were going about to establish their own righteousness and did not submit to God’s.

Abraham shows the other method. If he was justified by works, he would have something to boast about, but not before God (Romans 4:2). Instead, he believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness (4:3). Then Paul gives the contrast: to the one who works, the wage is not counted as favor but as what is owed, but to the one who does not work and trusts the One who justifies, his trust is counted as righteousness (4:4-5). And Romans 3:27 asks where boasting is, and answers that it is shut out by the law of faith.

So righteousness itself is not the problem. The Gentiles got it. The problem is the method: earning your own credit versus receiving credit for Someone else’s work. Philippians 3:9 puts it in one line: not having my own righteousness from the law, but the righteousness through the trust of Christ.

The trap, which Chapter 6 will take up, is that the first method can be done in the language of grace.

Receiving step. Pray or say aloud: I stop trying to establish my own righteousness. I receive the credit for the work of Christ, and I thank you that it is counted to me.

Back to contents

Chapter 3. Text: Old vs. New, Breath and Life

This is the center of the book. The medium, the method, the payment and the place all turn on one thing: which text is speaking to you.

Start with what sin did. In Romans 7:8-13, Paul says sin took the commandment and used it. Sin found an opening in the commandment, deceived him, and killed him by it. Yet the commandment itself stayed holy, just and good. Sin did not write a new text. It borrowed God’s text and took the credit for its power. That is the law of sin and death (Romans 8:2): God’s good written code, in sin’s hands.

Now set it beside the other side of the same verse. Romans 8:2 names the law of the Breath of life in Christ Jesus, and says it made me free from the law of sin and death. It is text against text. Paul says the same in Romans 7:6: we now serve in newness of Breath and not in oldness of the letter. In 2 Corinthians 3:6 he says the letter kills and the Breath gives life.

We should not rush past the glory. Paul calls the old ministry a ministry of death and still says it came with glory (2 Corinthians 3:7). That is why it holds people so well. It really is glorious. But Paul says that glory was fading, and that what remains is far more glorious (3:11).

Then look at what Jesus said. In John 6:63 he says the words he speaks to us are Breath, and they are life. Paul writes “Breath of life.” Jesus says “Breath and life.” That is why this book writes the Case #2 headline as the law of the Breath [and] Life, with the bracket showing where the word comes from. It sets two pairs side by side: sin and death against Breath and life.

Here is the practical point. We now have the words of Christ written down in the New Testament. When you read them, you are not studying an exhibit from Case #1. You are hearing the text of Case #2. That is why I invite you to read the New first, and to read it again and again, so that the Breath and life in those words keep updating what you stand on. Reading is not the goal. Jesus said the Scriptures testify of him, and the problem is refusing to come to him for life (John 5:39-40).

Receiving step. Pray or say aloud: I have been reading the exhibits. Today I come to the One whose words are Breath and life. I stand in your words, not in the old code in sin’s hands.

Back to contents

Chapter 4. Payment: Wages vs. Inheritance

The fourth pair is about how you are paid. In Case #1, the law of works is your timecard: it shows you did not earn acquittal. In Case #2, the payment comes by favor, as an inheritance and not as wages.

Start with wages. Paul says that to the one who works, the pay is counted as what is owed, not as a favor (Romans 4:4). And he gives the wage that sin pays: death (Romans 6:23). The law of works is not cruel. It is fair. It pays what the work earned.

Then the gift. The second half of Romans 6:23 says the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus. Romans 5:21 sets two reigns side by side: sin reigned in death, and favor reigns through righteousness to eternal life. Romans 6:14 gives the jurisdiction line: sin will not have dominion over you, because you are not under law but under favor.

That is why this book writes [Law of] Favor with brackets. Paul says under law and under favor. He does not write law of favor. The two are counterparts: each is a power a person lives under.

An inheritance works differently from wages. You do not earn it by work. You receive it because of a relationship and because someone died. Romans 8:17 says that if we are children, we are heirs, heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ. Hebrews 9:16-17 explains the legal mechanism: a will takes effect only when the one who made it has died. So the death of the Testator is what turns wages into inheritance.

Many people are still trying to turn their inheritance back into wages. They treat what was given as something to be earned by good performance, and then wonder why they feel they are always behind. Case #1 keeps the timecard open. Case #2 closes it by a death.

Receiving step. Pray or say aloud: I put down the timecard. I receive what the Testator left to me, as a child and an heir.

Back to contents

Chapter 5. Place: Flesh vs. Breath

The fifth pair is about where you stand. In Case #1, the law in my members is the place where you cannot win. In Case #2, the law of the Breath in Christ Jesus is a new place to live.

Paul describes the first place in Romans 7:23: he sees another law in his members, fighting against the law of his mind and bringing him into captivity to the law of sin. In 7:25, with the flesh he serves the law of sin. The law is named by where it operates, in the members, in the flesh.

Then he names the second place. Romans 8:2 says the law of the Breath of life in Christ Jesus has made him free. And in 8:9 he says to believers: you are not in the flesh but in the Breath, if the Breath of God dwells in you. Romans 8:1 gives the verdict that goes with the address: no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus.

This is the pair where association matters most. Case #1 does not end because you won it. Romans 7:1-4 says the law has authority over a person only as long as he lives, and that you died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you could belong to another. The court is the same, and the Judge is the same. What changed is your association: you are no longer in Adam under law, you are in Christ.

Paul’s own pairing for the law in the members is the law of my mind (7:23). This book frames the fifth pair as place, flesh against Breath, because Romans 8:8-9 draws that line so clearly, and keeps the law of my mind as the inner man who agrees with God (7:22).

Receiving step. Pray or say aloud: I am not in the flesh. I am in the Breath, in Christ Jesus. I live at this address.

Back to contents

Part 2: Living in Case #2

Chapter 6. Mixed: Pursuing Righteousness and Calling It Grace

This is the chapter about what held me back. It was not rebellion, and it was not ignorance of grace. It was a mix. I was pursuing the law of righteousness and using the word grace for it.

Paul says a mix does not make grace stronger. It cancels it. Romans 11:6 says that if it is by favor, it is no longer by works, otherwise favor is no longer favor. Galatians 5:4 says that those who seek to be justified by the law have been cut off from Christ and have fallen from favor. In Galatians 3:3 he asks believers who began in the Breath whether they are now being completed by the flesh. In Galatians 1:6-7 he calls it a different gospel.

Jesus said it in pictures. In Luke 5:36-39, no one sews a piece of new cloth on an old garment, and no one pours new wine into old wineskins. The new does not patch the old. Mixed together, one of them is lost.

Paul lived this. In Philippians 3:4-8 he lists his credentials: circumcised on the eighth day, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Pharisee, zealous, blameless under the law. He counts them as loss next to knowing Christ. In verse 9 he says why: not having his own righteousness from the law, but the one through the trust of Christ. He did not stop being a Jew, and he did not stop honoring the Scriptures. What he stopped doing was trusting those things to stand before God.

Here is how the mix hides. You pursue righteousness by effort, study and structure, and you use the vocabulary of grace. You think you are in Case #2, but you are living in Case #1. Nothing looks wrong from the outside. The sign is inside: you are tired, you are watching the timecard, and you never quite feel free.

Receiving step. Pray or say aloud: I give up the mix. I stop calling my own effort grace. I receive righteousness by trust, and I stand in favor.

Back to contents

Chapter 7. The Case That Won’t Close: Standing in the Verdict

Here is something nobody told me: Case #1 will not simply give up. Since I focused on the New Testament, I have fought it daily for over two years. It keeps pressing the same exhibits, and it does not announce that I am free.

Scripture treats this as real. Revelation 12:10 calls the devil the accuser of the brothers, who accuses them before God day and night. So we should not be surprised when the old case keeps being argued.

But look at how Paul answers. Romans 8:33-34 asks who will bring a charge against God’s chosen ones, and answers that it is God who justifies. Who condemns? Christ died, and was raised, and is at God’s right hand, interceding for us. The verdict was given by the same Judge. Colossians 2:14 says the handwriting against us was wiped out and nailed to the cross. First John 3:20 says that if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart.

So the fight is not to win Case #1. You are not trying to beat it. You are standing in the verdict of Case #2. Galatians 5:1 says to stand fast in the freedom with which Christ has made us free. Ephesians 6:13 says that having done everything, stand. First Timothy 6:12 calls it the good fight of faith, and faith here means holding what has already been given.

Here is what changed for me. Standing improves as knowledge is updated. Romans 12:2 says to be changed by the renewing of the mind. Each time I saw another piece, I had something more to stand on. This is why I read the New again and again. The pieces were in different places, and every time they came together, the accuser had less to argue.

Paul’s answer to the accuser is association, not performance. You are in Christ Jesus, and there is no condemnation there (Romans 8:1). The case is not winning for you because you improved. It is closed in you because He died.

Receiving step. Say aloud, as often as you need: The verdict is given. I am not condemned, because I am in Christ Jesus. I stand.

Back to contents

Chapter 8. Unchained and Shielded: Free in Mind

The verdict on the chart says unchained and shielded. I chose those words because they describe being free in the mind, and the Greek word that holds all of it is sozo.

Sozo is translated saved, healed, delivered and made whole. Luke 8 shows it in one scene. The man who had been bound and driven is found sitting at Jesus’ feet, clothed and in his right mind (8:35). The people who saw it tell how the man who had been possessed was healed, and the word is sozo (8:36). Chains off, mind restored, sitting at his feet. That is the picture.

The legal side has the same shape. Romans 8:2 says the law of the Breath of life in Christ Jesus has made me free. Romans 8:1 says there is no condemnation. And the shield is that nothing can reverse it. Romans 8:31-39 asks who can be against us and who can separate us from the love of Christ, and answers that nothing can. Ephesians 6:16 calls faith a shield. Unchained means the old exhibits no longer hold you. Shielded means the case cannot be reopened against you.

There is a warning in this book’s own method. You can study every pair on the chart, the medium, the method, the text, the payment and the place, and still sit in Case #1. In John 5:39-40, Jesus says the Scriptures testify of him and then says they will not come to him to have life. Information is not deliverance. You can master the exhibits and never leave.

So the invitation is not to understand more. It is to come, and to stand in what is already given, and to let the renewing of the mind catch up.

Free in the mind does not mean the thoughts never come. It means they no longer rule. The accuser can speak. You answer from the verdict.

Receiving step. Say aloud: I am unchained and shielded. I am saved, healed and delivered. I sit at your feet, in my right mind.

Back to contents

Conclusion: You Don’t Win Case #1, You Die to It

This book has a simple conclusion. You do not win Case #1. You die to it.

Romans 7:4 says that you died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another. Romans 8:1 says there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. The case was not closed because it was wrong. It was right, and the law is holy, just and good (Romans 7:12). It was closed because of your association: you are no longer in Adam under law. You are in Christ.

The five pairs show it from five sides. The medium: from stone to heart. The method: from earning credit to receiving it. The text: from the old written code in sin’s hands to the words of Christ, Breath and life. The payment: from wages to inheritance. The place: from the flesh to the Breath. Same law, same Judge, a new association.

And here is how to keep standing. Put the New first. The five books of the Law have a structure, and so do the five books of the Gospels and Acts: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Acts. Read the second set daily, and read it again and again. Do not read it to earn a blessing. Read it because the words of Christ are Breath and life (John 6:63), and the knowledge keeps updating what you stand on.

If you meet the old case again tomorrow, you now know what to say. Not that you tried harder, but that you are in Christ, and the verdict stands.

Back to contents

Appendix

A. The Chart in Full

Case #1: The State vs. You (in Adam, under law)

1. LAW OF GOD (Romans 7:22, 25)
2. LAW OF RIGHTEOUSNESS (Romans 9:31)
3. LAW OF SIN AND DEATH (Romans 8:2)
4. LAW OF WORKS (Romans 3:27; 6:14)
5. LAW [OF THE FLESH] (the law in my members) (Romans 7:23, 25)

Case #2: The Father vs. Death (in Christ)

1. LAW [OF THE HEART] (Romans 2:29; 2 Corinthians 3:3)
2. LAW OF FAITH (trust) (Romans 3:27)
3. LAW OF THE BREATH [AND] LIFE (Romans 8:2; cf. John 6:63)
4. [LAW OF] FAVOR (Romans 5:21; 6:14)
5. LAW [OF THE BREATH] (in Anointed Jesus) (Romans 8:2, 9)

Brackets mark a word implied by Paul’s contrast or taken from Jesus’ wording in John 6:63, not written in the Greek of that verse.

B. Where Paul Writes “Law” and Where It Is Implied

Where Paul writes the word law, the chart uses his words. Where the word is implied, the chart uses brackets.

Verse	What Paul writes	Chart item	Status
Romans 3:27	law of works; law of faith	Case #1 #4; Case #2 #2	Paul’s words
Romans 7:21	“I find then a law” that evil is present with me	Not on the chart	A possible further law
Romans 7:22, 25	law of God	Case #1 #1	Paul’s words
Romans 7:23	law in my members; law of my mind; law of sin	Case #1 #5	Law in my members is Paul’s words; “of the flesh” is bracketed
Romans 8:2	law of the Breath of life in Christ Jesus; law of sin and death	Case #2 #3; Case #1 #3	Paul’s words; [and] comes from John 6:63
Romans 9:31	law of righteousness	Case #1 #2	Paul’s words
Romans 2:29; 2 Corinthians 3:3	heart, in the Breath, not in the letter	Case #2 #1	Implied; bracketed
Romans 5:21; 6:14	favor reigns; under law and under favor	Case #2 #4	Implied; bracketed
Romans 8:9	in the Breath	Case #2 #5	Implied; bracketed

Note on pair 5: in Romans 7:23 Paul sets the law in my members against the law of my mind. This book frames the fifth pair as place, flesh against Breath (Romans 8:9), and keeps the law of my mind as Paul’s own opposite for the law in my members.

C. The Chiasm

• A. Medium (stone vs. heart)
• B. Method (earning vs. receiving credit)
• C. Text (old vs. new, Breath and life)
• B′. Payment (wages vs. inheritance)
• A′. Place (flesh vs. Breath)

Read the chiasm from the outside in. A matches A′ (where the law is written, and where it operates). B matches B′ (earning against receiving). C stands alone at the center: the text. This is the arrangement of this book, not a pattern Paul placed in Romans.

Position	Represents	Case #1	Case #2
A	Medium	Law of God	Law [of the heart]
B	Method	Law of Righteousness	Law of Faith
C	Text	Law of Sin and Death	Law of the Breath [and] Life
B′	Payment	Law of Works	[Law of] Favor
A′	Place	Law [of the flesh]	Law [of the Breath]

D. The Daily Reading Plan

Reading	Passages	Purpose
Daily Court Case	Romans 1-3	Case #1: the law and its verdict
Daily Court Case	Romans 4	The two witnesses
Daily Court Case	Romans 5-8	Case #2: favor, the Breath and no condemnation
Daily Court Case	Romans 9-11	The Judge’s chambers
Daily chapters	John 1, John 15, John 17	The Logos, abiding in Christ, the High Priest prayer
Daily books	Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts	The five books set against the five books of the Law

How to use it: read one passage, mark it done, and when you finish Acts, start again at Matthew. Repetition is the point.

E. Word Notes

Greek	Basic sense	Where it matters here
nomos	law; a rule or a governing principle	Romans 3:27; 7:21-25; 8:2; 9:31. Paul uses it for the written code and for a ruling principle
pneuma	breath, wind, spirit	Rendered Breath in this book. John 3:8 uses the same word for wind and for Breath
charis	favor, grace, a gift freely given	Romans 5:21; 6:14. Rendered favor
sozo	save, heal, deliver, make whole	Luke 8:36; Mark 5:34; Romans 10:9
pistis	faith, trust	Romans 3:27; 4:5. Rendered trust in the law of faith
hypo	under (a place of authority)	Romans 6:14: under law, under favor
katakrima	condemnation: the sentence that follows a verdict	Romans 8:1

Back to contents