James 2:10-11 For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all. For He who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” Now if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of God’s Law.
Pastor Kyle continues that the point of God’s Law is to have us realize that no one is righteous, no not even one. Romans 3:10-12 tells us, “There is none righteous, no, not one; there is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; they have together become unprofitable; there is none who does good, no, not one.” Nobody is eligible to get to Heaven without redeeming salvation from God. We are constantly trying to reconstruct salvation by works in order to earn our way into Heaven. We are called to obedience and good wood, but God’s Law isn’t to show others how good we are; it is to remind us to remember that only God can save us from the earned wages of sin unto eternal damnation in Hell.
In Matthew 5:21-22,27-28 Jesus tells us, “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.’ But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
Jesus interpreted the deeper definition and true meaning of the Law and the Ten Commandments in the “Sermon on the Mount” found in Matthew 5. The Ten Commandments are the first of 613 total commandments within God’s Law that God gave to Moses. Jesus increases the moral requirements of the Law to the original intent. Is God’s Law, given by God personally, obsolete or does it still apply. In Matthew 5:17 Jesus says, “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.”
Jesus fulfilled God’s Law, He didn’t abolish it. Anyone who would say that the Old Testament doesn’t apply anymore because of Jesus, has not read what Jesus said or what the New Testament says. Coveting, envy, hatred and lust are sins. We sin in Thought, Word, and Deed. Jesus said in Matthew 5:48 “Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.” No one measures up and we are not going to get into Heaven on our own works and righteousness. You and I are not worthy. Only Jesus Christ, the Son of God sent by the Father, can stand up to this righteousness. God’s Law points us to the One person who fulfilled the Law and was the only One able to do that. That is the whole point of the Gospel.
Revelation 5:7-10 says, Then He came and took the scroll out of the right hand of Him who sat on the throne. Worthy Is the Lamb. Now when He had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each having a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song, saying: “You are worthy to take the scroll, and to open its seals; for You were slain, and have redeemed us to God by Your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and have made us kings and priests to our God; and we shall reign on the earth.”
Only Jesus is worthy and, therefore, only Jesus can save us. Will you believe?
John 3:16-17, 36 “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”
Ephesians 2:1-8 “And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.”
1 John 5:11-13 “This is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.”
Galatians 4:4-6 But when [in God’s plan] the proper time had fully come, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the [regulations of the] Law, so that He might redeem and liberate those who were under the Law, that we [who believe] might be adopted as sons [as God’s children with all rights as fully-grown members of a family]. And because you [really] are [His] sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying out, “Abba! Father!”
In Christ, Brian
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