The Bible is filled with facts of who God is, what he has done, what man is, what man needs, and countless other topics. In short, the Bible gives us a theological understanding on topics that are on everyone’s minds: evil, sin, death, life, God, man, etc. But with that said, there are many people whose attitude is against theology. That is to say, many would be more pleased to hear anything but theology from the pulpit, for they feel like it doesn’t affect their lives. There are two things that we need to understand, though, if we find ourselves tempted to respond in a similar fashion. The first is that the Bible is a theological book. Therefore, if we are to avoid talking about and the study of theology, we are going to have to avoid discussing the content of the gospel. It would be difficult to provide an exposition of the first eight chapters of Romans, the first three of Ephesians, or countless other passages without discussing theology, for such is its very content. Second, one’s theology deeply affects how one lives. This is the point that many do not understand. They want to know how to live, but they fail to understand that only correct thinking about God will result in living correctly before him.
It is this second issue (the effect of theology on our lives) that I want us to see this morning as we look at the Law in its theological context. For I believe that if we understand this morning where the Law fits into biblical history, what its function is, and how we relate to it, then we will find our lives dramatically changed.
The Law was given to the Israelites after they were delivered from Egyptian slavery. God had provided a lamb for them, delivered them, crushed their enemies, and provided for them in the wilderness.
Before even giving the ten commandments, God says, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (Ex. 20:2). God had redeemed from bondage the very people to whom he was about to give the Law. This is crucial for our understanding of the function of the Law.
Many people look at the Law as that which we do to find ourselves righteous before God. Therefore, if we were to ask the common man on the street if he was going to heaven, he might say, “Yes, because though I haven’t done everything perfect, I have lived a pretty good life. I have done most of the Ten Commandments. I haven’t really stolen anything major, killed anyone, or committed adultery” – whether it be true or not.
But this individual would be missing two truths about God. The first is that God demands perfect righteousness. “Pretty good” doesn’t cut it. God demands perfect obedience if someone is to be found righteous before him. The second is that because man is born with a sinful nature, no one could have perfectly kept the Law, and God didn’t expect them to be able to do so. Therefore, if the Law was all we were given from God, then we would all be hopeless, condemned before God as sinful man – being as far as possible from perfect righteousness.
The people immediately break the Law that they are given. They had told Moses to tell God that they would obey everything he said (19:8, 24:7), but before Moses even comes down from the mountain, they are already worshipping other gods, crafting an idol of a golden calf.
And the covenant that God makes with them here provides no forgiveness of sins, for though they are told to sacrifice goats and bulls, we know from Hebrews 10:4 that the blood of goats and bulls can never bring forgiveness of sins. So right from the start, we already see the insufficiency of this covenant (of the Law) to provide forgiveness for man’s sins – which was needed immediately.
Also, the covenant with Moses did not provide individuals with a relationship from God. That is to say, under the Law the picture is not of every man communicating with God but of Moses communicating with God and then speaking to the people. In 20:19, the people say to Moses, “Speak to us yourself and we will listen; but let not God speak to us, lest we die.” And though it sounds like such a statement needs to be followed with a rebuke, such was life under the Mosaic covenant, under the Law.
Therefore, even from its beginning the Law is insufficient in providing forgiveness of sins, righteousness for people, and a relationship with God. It only served to show their sins more and to show the difference between their actions and that demanded by God.
I mean, if it fell short of all these things and couldn’t fix their sins, making them right before God, what good is it? “Why would God even waste his time?” we might be tempted to ask.
But let me get at this answer by asking another question. If I had a brain tumor and I didn’t know it, what good would a CAT scan do? Would it heal my cancer, make me feel better, or be sufficient for anything that I would ultimately need? No. Then what if I said, “What a waste of time, no matter what happens in my life, I am never going to get a CAT scan, because even if I had a cancerous tumor, the CAT scan couldn’t heal me”? You would quickly say, “Hey now, it may not heal you, but if it can show you that you need help and prod you towards looking for treatment to help remove the cancerous tumor, then it is worth quite a bit of good.”
Well, such is the case with the Law. People have made the mistake of thinking that the Law has to be that which makes us righteous before God because they think otherwise it would be worthless, and they know God would give nothing worthless. But this individual would be making the same mistake I would make in not seeing the value of a CATscan. The Law was in fact given to prod us toward looking for a solution for the problem that the Law exposed.
Therefore, when we read Galatians, we read of Paul correcting a group of people who thought the Law was able to provide righteousness. They were saying that obedience to the Law in the area of circumcision was necessary for one to attain righteousness before God. Paul, however, says that such was never the Law’s intent. God did not intend to give us the Law that it might make us righteous and forgive our sins (Gal. 2:15-16). But then he answers the question they have, writing, “Why the Law then?” in 3:19 and answering in 3:24, “Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ.”
But the Israelites should have seen this before Paul’s letter to the Galatians was ever written. They should have been looking for another covenant. For not only should the insufficiency of the first keyed into their minds that there should be another (Hebrews 8:7), but also God promised that there was another covenant to come.
Though the first provided no individual knowledge of God and no forgiveness of sins, God says through the prophet Jeremiah, “‘Behold the days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,’ declares the Lord. ‘But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,’ declares the Lord, ‘I will put My law within them, and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. And they shall not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know Me, for the least of them to the greatest of them,’ declares the Lord, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more (Jer. 31:31-34).’”
Do you see then the sufficiency of the New Covenant over the one that we read of in these chapters in Exodus? Under the New Covenant, “they will all know Me,” declares the Lord, and “I will forgive their iniquity” – there is forgiveness of sins.
But how would this New Covenant come? Who would issue it? The answer is that …
Hebrews 8:6-7 tells us that he is the mediator of the New Covenant, and multiple passages in the New Testament tell us (either exactly verbally or otherwise) that Jesus is the end to which the Law pointed. Paul writes in Romans 10:4, “For Christ is the goal/end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.” And he writes in Colossians 2:16-17, “Therefore, let no one act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day – things which are a shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ” (emphasis added).
Therefore, Jesus actually fulfills the perfect righteousness demanded by the Law on our behalf. This is the reality for the believer as Paul writes, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For what the Law could not do, weak as though it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit” (Rom. 8:1-4 – emphasis added). And he endures the curse that our disobedience to the Law demanded. Thus, Paul writes to the Galatians, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us – for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree’ – in order that in Christ the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith” (Gal. 3:13-14).
Therefore, for those who have placed their faith in Christ, he has paid the penalty for our sin and his righteousness has been transferred to us (1 Cor. 5:21). Thus, we fulfill the Law in the sense that Christ did on our behalf and his righteousness is given to us.
As Christ fulfills the Law, he mediates for us the New Covenant through his blood (Matt. 26:26-28), again overshadowing the Law as the Old Covenant had been ratified with the blood of a bull (Exodus 24:6-8).
We are not in a position of being shown our shortcomings by the Law and knowing we fall short of God’s requirements, but in a position where we know that we are seen as perfectly righteous before God because of the work of his Son on our behalf.
I say this because many people who are believers still live in a seemingly eternal attempt to do this and that to find themselves righteous before Christ. And as such, they are choosing to put themselves under bondage where they don’t belong. The case for us, however, is that we are free from the bondage of the Law, for we are in Christ. We are free to live obediently to the commands of God because we want to show our love for him and desire to obey his every command without walking around with the weight of thinking we must obey all his commands in order to merit his view of us as righteousness.
This may sound like a slight difference, for in both cases we are wanting to obey God. However, I think John Piper displays the difference well in the following analogy. He writes, “Suppose that you are on trial in a courtroom for a capital offense. Your life hangs in the balance. A guilty verdict will mean death, and a not-guilty verdict will mean freedom and life. And suppose the judge says to you: ‘There are two ways we can deal with this. I can acquit you right now, decisively and irrevocably, and release you so that you can go and live a free and joyful and loving life that shows you really are not a rebellious, crime-loving lawbreaker, though you have been. Or I can postpone the trial and the verdict for several years and assign you a parole officer to watch you all that time, and let you go out and prove yourself to the court by your life, and then have the trial after that, and base the verdict on whether your behavior was satisfactory or not.” Then he asks, “Does the difference between these two options sound like nitpicking.”
The way in which you will find yourself free to enjoy God and live obediently before him – instead of living a defeated, burdened life, trying to reach something that is unattainable – is by the reality that, by faith, Christ’s righteousness before God is credited to us, and that he has paid our penalty for our sin on the cross. We like to hear what we are supposed to do (and that is good), but it is this theological truth that will enable us to do it.
Therefore, this morning realize the work of Christ on your behalf and enjoy and love God, being free to obey him by knowing and delighting in him more than all else. “It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery” (Gal. 5:1).
Standing by his grace and righteousness, Amen.