Day 2425 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.
Proverbs 7:3 NIV
I wanted to circle back to my post from the day before yesterday. We talked about how Christ is the culmination of the law. He bore our imperfections and our rebellion upon Himself when He hung on the cross. He is the final sacrifice that covers our iniquity. But I felt like I need to make something clear. He is the culmination of the law, but that doesn’t mean we should just ignore it. That’s a very dangerous but albeit common mindset in modern religion.
There are actually a few different subsections of Biblical law. There are cultural laws like what food is considered clean or unclean to eat. There are the ceremonial laws about the proper order of events for the ancient festivals that the Israelites celebrated. There are rules about different sacrifices and how they’re to be prepared and what is to be included with them. Those are the laws that are summed up and covered in Christ’s final sacrifice.
Christ is the beginning of a new covenant that is still based upon God’s holiness and definition of right and wrong. The old covenant may be finished in Christ, but that doesn’t give us the right to toss out the rest of God’s law. The commandments are still very much a part of our faith and they will always be requirements for anyone who chooses to call themselves a Christian. They are expressions of God’s sovereignty and holiness and they’re there to help guide us in what is right according to His moral standards.
The issue is that we take things too far in our world today. We see that the Bible says that Christ is the end of the law and we get it in our minds that we’re free to run wild. We think that His freedom from the law means that we don’t even have to consider it anymore. But that couldn’t be further from the case. In fact, Christ Himself talks about which commandments are the most important. His teachings always point to God’s definition of right and wrong and help us learn how we’re called to live.
I really wanted to make sure we all understand this distinction because it’s absolutely crucial, especially when you consider our society’s desire to live in sin. Just because we don’t have to worry about what foods we eat or make sure that we’ve set up our tents just right for the Festival of Booths doesn’t mean that it’s okay to murder, steal, or covet. God didn’t just let us off the hook when He sent Christ. He did so to make sure that we understand just how seriously we should take His law.
We are not free from God’s expectations, and we shouldn’t want to be. They help us distinguish between right and wrong. They help us learn and grow and mature into the holy people that He created us to be. They lead us down the narrow path that leads to life. So we can’t afford to look at Christ’s salvation as our ticket to run wild and live as if God doesn’t care what we do anymore. That will simply never be the case.
God’s law is meant to stay with us. That’s what this verse is saying. Write His commands on your heart so that they will always be there to guide you in what is right according to His moral standard. Morality will always be a crucial part of our faith because God will never compromise His holiness for anything. We have to stop looking for little loopholes that will allow us to sin a little bit because we think it’s fun or exciting. This isn’t all fun and games folks!
The bottom line is that Christ paid our debt and set us free. But as another well-known verse says, do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh. So make no mistake, God’s law still stands and you better believe that His moral standard will always be the bar that we’re called to aim for.
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