God then gave the law, known as the Ten Commandments. This gives us what God required of man on the earth. If the children of Israel could have kept God’s holy law, then they could have earned the earthly blessing He had in store for them through their own obedience. But they could not keep it. They had broken the first commandment, as well as some of the others, before Moses ever came down from the mountain. They had made a golden calf and started to worship it. How hopeless was their case unless God intervened in grace! But God did intervene, for if they had been under pure law, it would have brought certain condemnation; and so He put them under a mixture of law and grace by instituting the sacrifices.
The dispensation, or period, during which man was under law lasted about fifteen hundred years. Man was given a long test, but it only proved beyond question that he was utterly helpless to keep God’s holy law. We are not only sinners but helpless sinners. We could never obtain blessing through law-keeping. The law could not justify the guilty, but could only condemn him; and since all are guilty, since all are law-breakers, the law must pronounce every man “guilty before God” (Rom. 3:19).
How good to be able to turn from such a sad picture to the cross of Christ. There all God’s holy claims against sin were fully met, and now God can come out in the fullness of grace. Instead of condemning the sinner who believes, He justifies him from all things (Acts 13:39). What matchless grace! Dear reader, are you justified?
The Law Today
Perhaps we should remark here that the law has its place even today. It cannot give life to a dead sinner (Galatians 3:21), nor is it the rule of life for a Christian (Romans 6:14). It is like God’s looking-glass and it often convinces men of their guilt. It showed Paul his guiltiness, for he says, “I had not known sin but by the law” (Rom. 7:7). When Paul read, “Thou shalt not covet,” (ch. 20:17) he saw that he was not only a sinner but a helpless sinner. He could not stop coveting, for it was his nature to do so. He needed life which the law could not give, but he found life — new life — in Christ. Christ bore the curse of the broken law and has brought us out of that place of condemnation altogether. We are dead to the law by the body of Christ, and the law has no claim upon a dead man (Romans 7:1-4). We are now “in Christ” in a position of liberty where we serve in love (Galatians 5:6). “We love Him, because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19).
There is then, as we remarked, a valid use of the law even today (1 Timothy 1:8-13), and we may use it freely to show a sinner his guilt before God. But let us be careful not to tell him to keep it for salvation, for he cannot. “They that are in the flesh cannot please God” (Rom. 8:8). Nor let us give it to Christians as a rule of life, for our “rule” is much higher than the Ten Commandments. Our rule is a person — it is Christ. He is the Object and Rule of the Christian’s life, and in Him we have life, motive, strength, and everything we need. He is our all in all and the nearer we are to Him the more we feel the constraint of His love.
Further Meditation
1. How can the law be properly used today?
2. The Lord Jesus and the Pharisees both referred to the law when they spoke. However, they used it very differently. Can you describe the use that each of them made of it?
3. If you want to dig deeper into this essential subject, you might want to read Jewish Bondage and Christian Freedom by J. L. Harris. It isn’t particularly easy reading, but it does provide excellent and needed truth.