Keeping the Law

Commentary for May 24, 2004 — The Law Must Be Kept

Question: What is your view of the law of Yahweh, has it been done away with? Which laws shall we keep?

Answer: You have no choice. You must keep ALL of the Laws of God — and you better keep them ALL perfectly, all the time, or you will suffer the most severe consequences — death, which is nonexistence.

Of course, you cannot keep ANY of the Laws of God perfectly. Through God’s grace, Christ Jesus was incarnated, lived a sinless and perfect life, died your death, was resurrected for you and CONTINUES to live, fulfill God’s Laws on your behalf, in addition to advocating for you, symbolically, to God the Father. By His actions Christ’s faith is yours, His deeds are yours, His righteousness is now yours.

Believing that you can “try” to keep God’s Law and that God will wink at the rest of your inability, or that Christ’s grace will “make up” for the rest, this is not what God requires.

If there is one small smidgen of anything that you do (even accepting Jesus Christ as your Savior) then that is works, not grace. Please understand this perfectly. You DID nothing; you CAN do nothing to be righteous. (You cannot be a little righteous, it means nothing). You must be totally righteous in God’s eyes. You are righteous through Christ Jesus.

What can you do then? Read and understand what God requires, which is to understand God’s grace in its fullest. If you abuse that grace, you will suffer for it and perhaps lose out on the Kingdom of God. However, you and all of humanity will be saved, which is God’s WILL (not his whim or wish, 1 Timothy 2:4).

If you want to go back to kindergarten, you are free to do so and sit in the little chairs, sing the little songs and play follow the leader and Simon Says. You are free to do so, but God would rather you become the MAN or WOMAN He wants you to, not needing anyone to tell you how to dress, what to eat, how to act, what to touch, what to watch, how to feel, or even when to worship and praise Him.

Grow up and help those around you by example, if not by teaching, to be the mature Child of God in whose image you are created to be. NO MORE GAMES!

Christ’s sacrifice was not a game. It was not an exercise merely to fulfill prophecy or to satisfy symbolism. It was the Son of God dying on a tree of crucifixion for YOU.

To repeat, if you want something to do — study, study, study God’s Word. You are completely free to grow. Love one another, which fulfills the Law. Christ’s commandments are to be followed, which supercede the just and good Law of Moses that Christ fulfilled in every way. (See John 14:21, 15:10; Romans 13:8–10; Galatians 5:22–25; 1 John 3:21-24, 4:20–5:3; 2 John 1:5–6.)

Christ summed up His Law: love God and love man (Matthew 22:34–40), which with God’s Holy Spirit yields fruit (Galatians 5:22–25). The Old Testament laws of Moses (given by angels, Acts 7:53 & Galatians 3:19) cannot help anyone either love God or love man. The Law gives a knowledge of sin (Romans 4:15–25, 5:13; 1 Timothy 1:9–10), not righteousness.

If you want further explanation of what God requires then read Dr. Martin’s book, The Essentials of New Testament Doctrine which will explain these teachings in detail from your Bible in an unambiguous way.

David Sielaff,
Director Associates for Scriptural Knowledge

The questioner’s response was that I was “mean spirited” in my answer to his question. What do you think?

David Sielaff
david@askelm.com

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