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Do Christians Have to Keep the Law?
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By Randy Maxwell

Photo: Bill Davenport
The question caught me by surprise. Not because I hadn’t been asked before, but rather because of the setting and the intensity of the questioner. The setting was our company Christmas party—not exactly the venue you’d normally expect for a theological discussion. But the woman was insistent and earnest as she took my arm.

“Is it enough to believe in Christ for salvation, or do we have to keep the law?” The way she said “have to” reminded me of a child turning up his or her nose at a plate of brussel sprouts, asparagus, or lima beans.

Lima beans are yucky (at least to me)! And to many Christians, God’s law has a similar lack of appeal. We’re no longer under law,” they say. “We’re under grace.” To them, the law represents bondage, legalism, and a slap in the face of Grace, which every Christian knows is the basis of salvation.

So what is the answer to my Christmas banquet questioner? Do New Testament Christians have to keep the law? My answer is No. We don’t have to; we get to!

A different perspective

The injustices, tragedies, and obscenities that take place in our world exist because of sin, which the Bible defines as “the breaking, violating of God’s law by transgression or neglect; being unrestrained and unregulated by His commands and His will."1 God’s kingdom—the kingdom we live to advance here on earth, and the kingdom we will one day inherit2—is established on the law of love, which is the law of God Himself.3 Why, then, should lovers of God despise the very law that makes heaven, heaven? If we despise the law, we find ourselves unwittingly despising God, because the law is an expression of His character and is the foundation of His kingdom.

Satan has ever tempted humans to believe that freedom can be enjoyed only apart from law—that obedience to God’s law is restrictive and stifling. But we know the opposite is true. There can be no true freedom without law. Witness Iraq immediately after Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party regime fell in Baghdad. What happened? In the power vacuum that ensued, the newly “freed” people went on a binge of looting, thievery, and vandalism that shocked the world. The sudden lack of law produced chaos and destruction, not freedom.

Jesus and the law

I must confess to being puzzled by those who say Jesus came to abolish the law. Puzzled because of Jesus’ own words: “Think not that I am come to abolish the Law, or the Prophets: I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them.”4

Some very sincere Christians emphasize that having “a relationship with Christ” is all that’s necessary for salvation. I believe this too. However, it’s important that we understand what this “relationship” involves. Jesus Himself explained what it meant to be in relationship with Him.

· If you love Me, keep My commandments.5
· He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me.6
· You are my friends if you do what I command..7
· Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.8

Jesus was making it clear that to love Him is to obey Him. If we claim to have a relationship with Christ, we will keep His commandments. 

In their bestselling book, Experiencing God, Henry Blackaby and Claude King write:

“God has given His commands so you may prosper and live life to its fullest measure. If you love Him, you will obey Him! If you do not obey Him, you do not really love Him (see John 14:24).”9

Paul and the law

There’s no question that we are no longer “under the law,” as Paul states in Galatians. But this can’t mean the law has been done away with because Paul himself says: “Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law.”10 And again Paul says: “So then the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good.”11 Paul would be contradicting himself and Jesus if he meant the law was no longer in effect.

Paul’s point is that nobody is justified or saved by trying to keep the law. First, we can’t keep the law. And even if we could, our nature is still sinful. Keeping the law doesn’t save us. Abiding in Christ does. That’s our job: to stay connected to Him. Christ’s job is to make us into new creatures who no longer rebel against His law, but turn to embrace it. Look at Paul’s transformation. The very people and name he hated as Saul before the Damascus-road incident, he loved and gave his life for after encountering Jesus. What changed? The Christians? The name of Christ? No. Saul changed. And he became as passionate a defender of Christ as he had been a persecutor of Him.

Similarly, when we receive Jesus and His gift of salvation, the law doesn’t change; we do. What was once a burden and legalistic misery because we were trying to save ourselves, becomes a delight.

How does this happen? As with salvation, God takes the initiative to reprogram our hearts and minds so that we want to walk according to His precepts.12

Believing is just the beginning

Believing in Jesus for salvation is only the beginning of what it means to be a child of God. Once you receive the gift of eternal life, the saving life of Christ goes to work in you “energizing and creating in you the power and desire—both to will and to work for His good pleasure and satisfaction and delight.”13 In this way, you are enabled—not through your own strength, but through His—to “walk as Jesus did.”14 Then God’s love is truly made complete in you.15

It’s not a legalistic finger of accusation wagging in our faces saying, “Obey or perish!” It’s the nail-scarred hand of Jesus, extended in invitation, saying, “Follow Me. I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”  

We don’t have to keep the law to be saved. We get to keep it. Only to the enemies of God is His law “yucky!”16 To His children, those who have been saved by His grace and long to breathe the atmosphere of love His law defines, God’s “commandments are not burdensome.”17 

We don’t obey in order to earn salvation. A life of obedience to God’s law is how saved people live! Every commandment is a promise for abundant life, and we share that abundance as we abide in and follow Jesus.

Is God’s law like a plate of lima beans? To those who don’t love Him. But for those who do—those who’ve been saved by His grace—His law is “sweeter than honey, than honey from the comb.”18

Randy Maxwell writes from Nampa, Idaho.
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What’s your understanding of the Christian’s relationship to the Ten Commandments? 

The Law of God

The great principles of God’s law are embodied in the Ten Commandments and exemplified in the life of Christ. They express God’s love, will, and purposes concerning human conduct and relationships and are binding upon all people in every age. Through the agency of the Holy Spirit they point out sin and awaken a sense of need for a Savior. Salvation is all of grace and not of works, but its fruitage is obedience to the Commandments. (Exodus 20:1-17; Matthew 22:36-40; 5:17-20; Romans 8:3, 4; Psalm 19:7-14.)
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11 John. 3:4, Amplified.  
2Matthew 25:34. 
3Matthew 22:37-40; Romans 13:10. 
4Matthew 5:17. 
5John 14:15. 
6John 14:21. 
7John 15:14.
8Mark 3:35.
9Henry T. Blackaby and Claude V. King, Experiencing God (Nashville, Tenn.: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1994), 22.
10Romans 3:31. 
11Romans 7:12.
12Hebrews 8:10. 
13Philippians 2:13, Amplified. 
141 John 2:6. 
151 John 2:5. 
16Romans 8:7. 
171 John 5:3. 
18Psalm 19:10.

   


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