Saved by the Keeping of the Law
Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. Matt. 5:17We must never forget that we are saved by the keeping of the law. No one will ever be with the Father without perfect righteousness. Scripture tells us that without holiness no one shall see God. This is a standard that will never be lowered. When the scripture uses holiness in this sense, it means perfection. If you are guilty of any of the law then you are guilty of all of it. God’s moral law is not arbitrary, it flows from His unchangeable nature and will never be altered. Anyone who expects to see God must be able to stand in perfect righteousness.
The problem is that we have all sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God. But Christ did what we could not. He kept the law perfectly. It is because of this He is able to die in our place. Had he not kept the law He would have had to die for His own sins. But He kept the law, then died to take upon Himself our condemnation which the Law requires. Let us never forget that we are saved by the keeping of the law; Christ keeping it in our place and imputing His righteousness to us.
We must not despise the law of God as some are prone to do. We are no longer under the condemnation of the law, and our salvation is not in any way related to our keeping of the law. But we are still under the law in the sense that to violate it is sin, and grieves the heart of God. To despise the law is to despise the very nature of God from which it proceeds.
Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the wicked, Nor standeth in the way of sinners, Nor sitteth in the seat of scoffers: But his delight is in the law of Jehovah; And on his law doth he meditate day and night. Psalm 1:1-2
-Doug Eaton-
posted by Doug E. @ 4:17 PM
8 comments
8 Comments:
Christ is our righteousness! Amen!
Jeremiah 23:6
Mark
it amazes me how Jesus chose to come live among us sinners, to put up with the every single day inconveniences (getting hungry, being sick, etc.), and to die the cruelest death. how i am awed each time i think about it!
Thanks for checking out my blog..always happy to meet a brother on the 'other' coast. I'm reading a book called Scandalous Freedom by Steve Brown.....talks a lot about what freedom looks like..if you get it, you must read the whole thing ..ok?
I agree with much of what you say. Thanks for the article.
I have a homepage http://home.pacific.net.hk/~sywu, and I hope you would check it out.
As for the laws/commandments of GOD, I have written a very short webpage to enable one to learn it in an hour or so, http://balder.prohosting.com/sywu/true.htm
Wu Siu Yan from Hong Kong
This is an excellent article on the Imputed Righteousness of Christ!
I agree with bluecollar!!!
Didn't it say he Fulfilled the law? And if that is the case, then He is our new "Law." He is the path we walk. I cannot abandon myself to a set of rules, but I can abandon myself to Christ Jesus! Praise His Name!
Hey Sarah,
Thanks for stopping by, I understand your statement, but we must realize that we are actually still under the moral law in one sense. If we were not it would not be possible to sin, because there would be no law for us to break. I guess I do not fully understand what you mean when you say Christ is our new law.
Kirkegaard and some of the other existentialist used to say that sin is not breaking a rule, instead it is betraying a relationship (specifically with God), which is actually true. But how do you betray a relationship if there are no rules or principle. The minute someone begins to talk about how a relationship is betrayed, they have started talking law.
I probably said all that for nothing because you probably already understand this. The error may simply be mine, in the way I worded my post. But I want to make sure that I am perfectly clear that my points on the law in this context have nothing to do with our salvation. We are saved by Christ keeping the law, not us.
God bless,
Doug
I recently was asked if I thought a person was saved by keeping the law, to which I replied in the negative. Immediately then, I began to qualify what I said with something about how Christians normally desire to keep the law after they become saved, or something of that nature. It seems to me that my second response stems from a little nagging thought inside of me that somehow salvation does have something to do with law keeping. The tendency to think that comes up from time to time, and must be guarded against.
But now the thought you have proposed is one that I have have heard just once before, and it is a good one to think of, especially if we are struggling with little thoughts that we can somehow keep the law and please God with respect to our salvation.
Rob
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