From the TeachingtheWord Bible Knowledgebase

Part four of a series. Read part three.

Editor's Note: In recent decades ungodly forces have waged scores of battles attempting to remove displays of the Ten Commandments from courthouses and courtrooms, legislative buildings, and other public places. Some have been successful, others have been defeated.

But such disputes raise a deeper question: What is the true state of the courts, of society, and the church in relation to God's commandments? The answer is that few, even among professing Christians, recognize that God's Law is not limited to Ten Commandments. In Psalm 119 alone, the inspired writer refers to the entirety of the Word of God as His Law twenty-five times, and as His Commandments twenty-four times. Such references multiply throughout the pages of both the Old and New Testaments. Passages such as this one in Colossians are not mere exhortations, they are commands of God:

If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory. Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. Because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience, in which you yourselves once walked when you lived in them. (Colossians 3:1-7)

As we continue publishing the full text of Arthur Pink's Profiting From the Word, we next find him challenging God's people to think and live in a way that does not merely superficially revere Ten Commandments displayed on a courtroom wall, but reflects the heart of reverent obedience toward the entirety of God's commandments - Holy Scripture from beginning to end - which is the sanctified duty of every child of the King. - Dr. Paul Elliott

Sin entered this world by Adam's breaking of God's Law, and all his fallen children are begotten in his depraved likeness (Genesis 5:3). "Sin is the transgression of the law" (1 John 3:4). Sin is a species of high treason, spiritual anarchy. It is the repudiation of God's dominion, the setting aside of His authority, rebellion against His will. Sin is having our own way. Now salvation is deliverance from sin, from its guilt, from its power as well as its penalty. The same Spirit who convicts of the need of God's grace also convicts of the need of God's government to rule us. God's promise to His covenant people is, "I will put My laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God" (Hebrews 8:10).

A spirit of obedience is communicated to every regenerated soul. Said Christ, "If a man love Me, he will keep My words" (John 14:23). There is the test: "Hereby we do know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments" (1 John 2:3). None of us keeps them perfectly, yet every real Christian both desires and strives to do so. He says with Paul, "I delight in the law of God after the inward man" (Romans 7:22). He says with the Psalmist, "I have chosen the way of truth...Thy testimonies have I taken as an heritage for ever" (Psalm 119:30,111). And teaching which lowers God's authority, which ignores His commands, which affirms that the Christian is, in no sense, under the law, is of the Devil, no matter how oilymouthed [i.e., smooth-talking] his human instrument may be. Christ has redeemed His people from the curse of the Law and not from the command of it; He has saved them from the wrath of God, but not from His government. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart" never has been and never will be repealed.

1 Corinthians 9:21, expressly affirms that we are "under the law to Christ." "He that saith he abideth in Him ought himself also so to walk, even as He walked" (1 John 2:6). And how did Christ "walk"? In perfect obedience to God; in complete subjection to His Law, honoring and obeying it in thought and word and deed. He came not to destroy the Law, but to fulfill it (Matthew 5:17). And our love for Him is expressed, not in pleasing emotions or beautiful words, but in keeping His commandments (John 14:15), and the commandments of Christ are the commmandments of God (cf. Exodus 20:6). The earnest prayer of the real Christian is, "Make me to go in the path of Thy commandments; for therein do I delight" (Psalm 119:35).

Just so far as our reading and study of the Scripture is, by the Spirit's application, begetting within us a greater love and a deeper respect for, and a more punctual keeping of God's commandments, are we really profiting thereby.

Next: The Spiritual Profit of Firmer Trust in God's Sufficiency

pftw2_04

Copyright 1998-2024

TeachingtheWord Ministriesmmmmmwww.teachingtheword.org

All rights reserved. This article may be reproduced in its entirety only,
for non-commercial purposes, provided that this copyright notice is included.

We also suggest that you include a direct hyperlink to this article
for the convenience of your readers.