“See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. If you obey the commandments of the LORD your God that I command you today, by loving the LORD your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the LORD your God will bless you” (Deuteronomy 30:15-16).
Moses was 120 years old when he stood before Israel and spoke those words. The Israelites had just entered the land of Moab, and excitement was running high. They were on the verge of Canaan’s verdant border, and Moses knew he would not be allowed to join them. So, to help them prepare for life in Canaan, he delivered his last great sermon. In this text we see his central theme—obeying the law determined whether they would live or die. “Therefore, choose life,” he urged them (vs. 17).
Israel was given a magnificent covenant by God with laws like no other nation had with their gods, for their God was like no other (Dt. 4:7-8). Choosing life meant “loving the LORD your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days…” Israel heard these words and agreed to choose life by obeying.
Did they put away the idols they had hidden in their tents? Apparently not, for 30 years later when Joshua was 110 year old and nearing death (Joshua 24), he told them to serve the Lord and put away the gods their fathers had worshiped. They said, “Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord…” Joshua was not encouraging. “You are not able to serve the Lord,” he said, “for he is a holy God” (vs. 19).
Joshua was right; they abandoned worship of the Lord with their idols. Israel’s sad history demonstrated over and over that idolatry never left Israel until they were sent off into captivity.
They were to choose life and blessing through their obedience of the law, and they completely failed. Why did they fail? We cannot blame God and say there was a problem with the law, which is “holy, just, and good” (Romans 7:12). Shall we conclude that as a people, Israelites were congenitally stiff-necked and prone to idolatry, so their sin was inevitable? God chose them knowing what they would do with His law and covenant. What then was God’s higher purpose in giving a law that He knew would be broken, when He promised to bless them for their obedience?
Why the law?
We move forward to the New Testament, to those unruly barbarians in Asia Minor, the Galatians. Paul brought them the gospel, and they eagerly received and believed. In Paul’s letter to the Galatians, he calls them foolish for seeking righteousness and blessings by observing the laws of Moses. This must have been very confusing to those new Christians who were taught by the Judaizers that they would be blessed by keeping the laws of Moses. Didn’t Scripture say they would please God with their obedience? Paul tells them,
For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them” (Galatians 3:10).
The law has a negative relationship to true righteousness, not a positive one. All those (not just some) who sincerely attempt to keep Moses’ law are under a curse because they will be unable to keep all of them commands perfectly. How can such a law give life to us if we are inevitably condemned by it? Does this include striving our hardest to keep the Sabbath and not keeping it perfectly? Paul tells the Romans,
“The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me” (7:10-11).
The commandment to which he referred, that he failed to keep, was one of the 10, “Thou shalt not covet.” Because of his sinful nature reacting to the command, the good law became an instrument of death. For us also, by choosing life through the commandments of Moses, we will find ourselves in the same predicament. It may not seem fair for God to command us to obey His law, then condemn us when we fail to be perfect. Paul anticipates our frustration, and asks,
“Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law” (Galatians 3:21).
The law doesn’t contradict the promises of God because it was never intended to give us life. In fact, there is no law in existence that could bring us life and righteousness before God. The law has a negative function, to even drive us to despair of ourselves, to drive us to the One who is Life embodied:
“But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe” (Galatians 3:22).
The law says, cursed is everyone who doesn’t continue to keep every part of the law perfectly. That is harsh by design, to demonstrate that everyone in the entire world, Jew and Gentile, is imprisoned by the law, under sin. All of us need to be sprung free from that prison. But as law-breakers, we need an alien righteousness that we cannot find by law-keeping.
The law was given as a harsh guardian until Christ came to redeem us from the curse of the law. He took our sin upon Himself and became sin for us; He was the Cursed One. When we trust in His sacrifice for us with faith, His righteous living and dying become ours, as though we had righteously lived and died also.
Often Christians have confused law and gospel, thinking that once we follow Christ, the law has a liberating function. This thinking is especially true of Adventists, who heavily emphasize law keeping, by God’s help of course, as the means to freedom from sin. That is the reverse of what Paul is saying here:
“So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith” (Galatians 3:24-26).
When we cling to the law, expecting our obedience to liberate us from our sins, we are not acting in faith. The law was designed to be a guardian, a fierce, demanding jailer and disciplinarian over us. The Jailer ruled us until faith was revealed. When Christ is revealed to us, we trust in His finished work and righteousness to bring us to God, as perfect and loved forever. Now that faith has come, we are no longer under that guardian, the law for we are sons, not prisoners or slaves (Gal. 3:25-26). We don’t need a jailer.
If we are not under the law, how then do we live out the righteousness that we already possess in Christ? “Walk in the Spirit,” says Paul, and you will not gratify the desires of your sinful nature (5:16). If we are led by the Spirit, we are not under the law (vs. 18). If we don’t have Moses laws, then how do we know how to live and behave?
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law” (Galatians 5:22-23).
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