MARGIE LITTELL
Adventism claims that the law pre-dated creation, that it existed in heaven and established the standard of behavior that the angels themselves had to obey. They even claim that the law is the “transcript” of God’s character and reveals God to us. Further, they claim that when we accept Jesus, he then essentially turns us around and gives us His power to keep that law.
Deuteronomy 4 and 5, though, explain that God gave the law for the first time at Sinai. Why did He give it then?
The reason is a simple, and Paul explains it in Galatians 3:24–25:
The Law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the Law.
In other words, the law acts as a yardstick that measures all our efforts to be good. Yet no matter how hard we try, we always come up short of reaching this impossible goal that Jesus Himself declared:
You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect (Matthew 5:48).
We learn more about Jesus’s impossible standards of righteousness in Matthew 5. In order to be perfectly righteous, Jesus said that one must go so far as selling everything one owns—even cutting off body parts, if necessary, to become perfect like God is perfect. In fact, the perfection that Jesus defined had to surpass the Pharisees’ righteousness.
We simply cannot attain the standard of righteousness that God demands.
When Jesus had finished detailing how demanding the standard of righteous perfection is, it was clear that nothing we can do is enough to earn our own salvation. We simply cannot attain the standard of righteousness that God demands.
Jesus’s declaration of the sacrifices demanded for perfection revealed that something MORE was needed. No one can meet the requirements of the law, much less of God Himself. In fact, the law leaves us all condemned. It reveals that we have dark and sinful hearts, and even when we try to act good, inside we are not good. What are we to do?
We see in John’s gospel that the Jews had the same question:
Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?”Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent” (John 6:28–29).
With this one sentence Jesus revealed that there is only ONE thing God asks us to do in order to please Him: believe in His Son. The finished work of the Lord Jesus is the only way to find righteousness, and when we believe in Him, we are doing the work of God. Believing Him is our only hope. The law reveals our wickedness; belief in Jesus is our life.
God’s “more glorious” solution for our perfection was to justify us, to declare us righteous by Christ’s work on our behalf instead of by our own efforts to make ourselves righteous.
Whether we like it or not, our salvation has nothing to do with us struggling to keep the law and its 10 Commandments and the 500-plus rules which accompany each of these 10 Commandments.
On the contrary, our salvation is only based on what Jesus did for us at the cross:
- He accepted our defeat in unsuccessfully trying to manufacture our own righteousness by keeping the Law.
- He rescued us and accepted our sin and our inability to keep the law, a task which was leading to our death (Romans 2:17-24 and Ezekiel 20).
- He paid the death penalty this law demands for us (2 Corinthians 3).
- He became our sin so we could become His righteousness (2 Corinthians 5:21).
I like how Peter expresses it. Peter, remember, tried to do an impossible task and walk on water to reach Jesus. It was this Peter who failed to reach the boat on his own but fell into the waves and cried out, “Lord! Save me!”, who wrote these words:
His divine power has given us EVERYTHING we need for a godly life through our knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and goodness (2 Peter 1:3).
It is a terrible thing to tell Jesus He did not do enough for us and that we have to help Him save us by keeping the law in order to manufacture (or insure) our own self-made righteousness. Read 2 Corinthians 12; in it you will find this promise that Jesus made to everyone who believes in Him:
But He (Jesus) said to me, “My grace is suffice for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.”
Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest upon me.
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