Not even those who are circumcised keep the law …
Summary: Keeping the law is simple, but that doesn’t mean it is easy.
Keeping the law is like drawing a line in the sand. You say, “Don’t cross that line,” and as long as someone doesn’t cross the line, they are keeping the law. It sounds simple.
Of course, there are a few more details needed if you want to be taken seriously as a lawgiver.
If a law is to be taken seriously, there must be consequences for breaking the law. If you cross the line, then something bad happens to you. To make this happen, you also must have the muscle to enforce the law and its consequences.
For example, the State of Washington recently enacted a law that made it illegal for police to go after criminals.
Yep.
Oddly, when people discovered that the cops were no longer allowed to chase the lawbreakers, the number of people breaking the law increased. Even normally law-abiding citizens who didn’t think of themselves as “law breakers” found themselves breaking the speed limits on the freeways.
Three years later, the Washington State legislature changed direction and reversed the law that restricted the police from doing their job. Slowly people are beginning to obey again.
Who could have foreseen this?
When it comes to God’s laws, it sometimes seems like there is no one around to enforce them. Bad Guys seem to win and the Good Guys seem to suffer (Job 21:7, Jeremiah 12:1). Why is that?
There are several keys to staying out of trouble with the law.
- First, we need to know the law.
- Second, we have to understand the law and the authority of the lawgiver.
- Third, we have to obey the law.
People who know God understand that his authority extends beyond the physical realm. We understand that there are eternal consequences for disobeying God’s law.
Living under Jewish laws required knowing hundreds of different laws that had to be obeyed if a person wanted to please God and avoid eternal punishment. However, as James wrote in his letter:
“For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.” (James 2:10)
No one can keep the whole law. This is why Jesus was born a man and died on the cross. To save us from our own shortcomings before a perfect God. After all, not even those who are circumcised keep the law.
Application: Live for Jesus.
Food for Thought: If keeping the law is impossible, why do people claim that we have to obey the law to be saved?
If keeping the law is impossible, why do people claim that we have to obey the law to be saved?
Because it’s easier to believe do’s and do not’s than it is to believe grace.
There’s the saying “if it’s sounds too good to be true, then it probably is” God’s grace and that’s all that saves us? We just believe Jesus and we’re set for eternity? It’s easier to believe grace plus do x, y, z and you’re saved.
Hi Angela,
You make a really great point! God’s grace does sound almost too good to be true. 🙂
Thank God its not!
I’ve never met or known of anyone that has claimed outright we have to obey the law to be saved. Not saying that there aren’t any, just I am unaware of them. So, I can’t really answer that question. And I can’t understand, knowing what I know of the law, God’s Grace, Christ’s sacrifice, and the Holy Spirit, why anyone would choose the law. What I have experienced more are those that look for obedience to the law as a “sign” of “true love and faith” in Christ. People often quote John 14:15
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”
Taking just that verse, one might feel a spin of condemnation on the love of God and the love of Christ.
I’m going to share something that is rather personal, but I feel led to share. My parent divorced when I was very young, and my father remarried. Almost immediately, we small kids, were expected to express love for our stepmother. When we didn’t say it, or do things to “show it”, there was a “questioning” of our love. A condemnation for not feeling what we didn’t feel.
I often look back on that experience and think that our words and deeds were not out of love, but the appearance of love. That had we been given the grace to truly love, the words and deeds would have genuinely followed.
I most certainly agree that when we accept Christ as Lord of our life, we cannot continue to sin. But it is the Holy Spirit living within us that convicts us of our sin, not to condemn us, but to help us turn from it, to grow stronger in our faith, and to live lives that are pleasing to God. The law reveals our sin, and the need for atonement. Christ has provided our atonement, and the Holy Spirit, through God’s Word and in our hearts, reveals our sin to us, so that we can willingly turn from it. That God knows that are hearts do not understand the love of God, but that He will show us His love and teach us how to express it to Him.
The full passage from John 14 explains this:
John 14:15–26
15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, 17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.
18 “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 21 Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” 22 Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?” 23 Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. 24 Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me.
25 “These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. 26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.
Thank you, Chris.
I think your story illustrates your point rather well. As you know, there are many kinds of love. The thing about agapé love that I find challenging is the unconditional giving whether deserved or not. Even in times of emotional conflict agapé shines through with a light that gives even when the giving hurts.
If keeping the law is impossible, why do people claim that we have to obey the law to be saved?
Control:
Ignorance has historically allowed a select few, self proclaimed righteous people to gain control of large numbers of people manipulated by guilt placed on them. Men have created laws, which they proclaim are the standards which they then require others live in obedience to as an outward demonstration of their righteousness. The Jews came up with 613 of these commandments, laws which religious leaders required be met to achieve righteousness.
God has given mankind ten commands which reveal life as it ought to be. These also reveal that life is not as it should be. And if we’re honest, He is showing us that we are not capable of meeting these 10 commandments.
Jesus teaches, the 10 Commandments will not make us perfect people. Instead, the 10 Commandments make us more aware of our sin. They make us aware that forgiveness is needed.
In Luke 19:10, after the tax collector Zacchaeus made good on his wrongfulness, Jesus stated, “For the Son of Man, He Himself came to seek and save the lost.”
Romans 5:1-2, 1 Timothy 6:3-5
True freedom comes as we study and apply Gods revelations to all mankind as recorded in His Word, the Bible, beginning with receiving the Son of God, Jesus Christ as or Savior, constant companion and Teacher.
Ron,
“Ignorance has historically allowed a select few, self proclaimed righteous people to gain control of large numbers of people manipulated by guilt placed on them. ”
What a powerful sentence! So true. Thank you!
Good comments by all. A well covered topic at this point. Sometimes I think people would prefer to check a box and then live as they want to instead of doing the real work that involves a change of heart (or accepting God’s Lordship as He changes our hearts). It is a way to attempt to stay in control (as R2T2 pointed out).
Thanks Rich!
Great point! Checking a box is always easier than deep emotional engagement.