I was sitting in my grade 10 math class when one of my classmates asked me this question: “My mother told me this morning that if I don’t obey her, I am breaking one of the 10 commandments and I will go straight to hell. Is that true? Will I go to hell if I break any of the 10 commandments?” I wish I had today’s wisdom in answering this question. His mother was obviously very frustrated with him, and he was obviously very worried about the consequences!
For many years I believed that keeping the 10 commandments was God’s original way to heaven, and Jesus was just there because we failed at ‘keeping the law.’ As Jesus teaches in the beatitudes, it isn’t just ‘keeping the law in action’ but also in thought and in the heart. If you look at a woman lustfully, you have committed adultery. If you hate your brother, you have murdered him in your heart. It certainly seems an impossible task! Even the Israelites failed miserably at it. It was AS Moses was descending from the mountain with the actual 10 commandment tablets in his hands that Aaron was leading the people in making a golden calf and worshipping it. They didn’t even have the law for a day and already broke the most important commandment to ‘have no other God besides me.’ (Exodus 32)
But surprise, surprise, that is the very point of having the law. We CANNOT keep it. The whole point of having a list of rules and regulations is to point out our shortcomings and therefore, our very real need for ‘another way.’ “But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins, because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.” (Heb. 10:4) EVEN IF we could keep the law completely, it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. There is no Old Testament sacrifice for intentional sin. It is simply a covering until God’s real plan was to come—the true sacrificial lamb, Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God.
Jeremiah 31:33 “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time,” declares the LORD. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.”
Hebrews 8:7-12 ‘For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant [the law], no place would have been sought for another. But God found fault with the people and said: ‘The days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they did not remain faithful to my covenant, and I turned away from them, declares the Lord. This is the covenant I will establish with the people of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will they teach their neighbour, or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”
I encourage you to take a moment and read Hebrews 9 and 10 where God further explains that the first covenant had regulations and rules and needed an earthly sanctuary or temple. But the new covenant is written in Christ’s blood, and is perfect because of Christ’s death on the cross in our place, as the perfect sacrifice for our sin. It is overwhelming not because of its strict impossibility, (which falls short even if we could keep it all), but because of its rich grace and mercy extended by a loving God to each and every one of His creation.
It doesn’t matter who you are, or what you have done. Jesus is greater than the law and offers you His love and forgiveness through faith in Him. Praise be to God.
Our song for today is Resurrection Power by Chris Tomlin.