 The Online Voice of Biblical Christianity
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If someone came to you and asked, “How may I obtain eternal life,” how
would you answer? Jesus told such a person, “If
thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.” Three of the
Gospel accounts agree that His answer points the Seeker in the direction
of the Commandments, and promised, “Do this and
you shall live.”
Do you understand and obey the Commandments? Many Christians today don’t
even know the Commandments. Some people think that the Law does not
pertain to the “New Testament Christian.” They say that Jesus taught we
need only love God and our neighbor thus doing away with the Law.
The Law is not – and never has been – an enemy to Christ or His mission.
Rather it is the “...Schoolmaster that
brings us to Christ.”
Although some may feel the Gospel offers no room for
Commandment-keeping, the opposite is true.
The place that the Law of YHVH has had to assume in the life of the
modern believer is appalling. We have received our “diplomas” from
sinful, greedy men who have bypassed the Schoolmaster. We do not respect
the Law of God because we did not come through the Law. We do not know
what our God expects from us because we are unfamiliar with what He
plainly asked of His people in the past.
The Law is not an enemy to the true Christian; it is an enemy to those
who wish to do their own will. It has value and is due a level of
respect that it does not receive in modern congregations. When we turn
our backs on the Holy Commandments of God and say they are no longer
applicable, useful, or binding, we act as foolish as an educated man,
fully graduated, who now despises the teachers who taught him,
Out of the hundreds listed, how many Laws of God do you know? Granted,
that may be an unfair question. It might be like asking a graduate to
copy by memory the periodic table from his chemistry class; but, can you
even recall the Ten Commandments?
Many modern Christians do not even read the Old Testament, thinking its
words irrelevant. I submit that we need not be straight-A students of
the Law to respect it, but I find it hard to believe that we possess a
foundational faith if we cannot even pass a basic exam of the
fundamentals. There may not be a misgiving about our education if we
cannot remember the atomic number of uranium, but our education will be
held in doubt if we cannot recite our ABC’s.
If you cannot pass the basic exam that Jesus gave this rich young ruler,
you must surmise that your education has suffered gaps, come from the
wrong source, or was altogether faulty. Perhaps you dropped out early,
took a shortcut or cheated the system.
Maybe you were “socially promoted” by unscrupulous teachers. You
may have never have even enrolled, but it is certain that you didn’t
graduate with honors if you cannot pass the exam.
Look at the curriculum again. Do you obey the Law in your everyday life,
or do you count on “grace” to cover for you? Have you done your duty, or
are you depending on the love of God to overlook your shortcomings? Do
you love your neighbor as much as you love yourself? Do you love the
Lord with all your heart, soul, mind and strength? Was the Law ever your
Schoolmaster, or did you come to graduate another way?
Are you ready? Here is your exam, “What is
written in the law? How readest thou?”
Excerpted and condensed from The Questions of Jesus by
Don Harris
Don Harris:
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