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Is God's Law Important?
By by Alan J. Reinach, Esq.
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| Photo: Paul Anderson |
American Christianity has long emphasized the grace of God to the almost complete exclusion of the law of God. Here’s how the logic goes: we are saved through the atoning life, death and resurrection of Christ, when we accept Christ by faith. Since our works do not save us, they are non essential. Obedience to God’s law may be desirable, but it is not necessary. Thus, the law of God becomes an appendage, a bit like the human appendix, whose usefulness is in doubt.
Earlier this year, "Christianity Today" published an article defending the doctrine of substitutionary atonement against various innovations. Don’t worry if you’re not familiar with this term. It simply means that Christ is our substitute, and gave His life as an atoning sacrifice for our sin. Christ satisfied the claims of a broken law, lived a sinless life of perfect obedience to God, and was therefore qualified to die in our place.
It didn’t take long for the light bulb to explode in my brain. The dots began to fall into place. For generations, the churches have taught that Christian believers are not under obligation to obey God’s law. We are “under grace,” it is said, and the “law of God has been nailed to the cross.” Eventually, it was inevitable that this teaching would lead to the rejection of the doctrine that Christ had to die to satisfy the claims of a broken law. If the law can be done away, then why did Christ have to die in the first place? Surely, a law that could be done away with would not require the death of Christ! He must have died for some other reason. His death was needed to show us what God is like, and why we should love and worship Him, but obedience? That’s old fashioned. We can go our own way, do it my way, and still be saved.
One Without the Other?
Do you see? If we take the law of God out of the gospel, there is no gospel left! It is not the law AND the gospel, it is the law IN the gospel. What do I mean? Simply this: in the new covenant, God promises to write His law in our hearts and in our minds. When we respond to the grace of Christ, and invite Him into our hearts, we are born again, justified by faith, and live a new life of faith. This is the gospel. There is no artificial division between law and grace. The grace of Christ takes the law of God that is outside of us, condemning us, and tells us that because Christ has satisfied the claims of the broken law for us, we are forgiven, accepted into the family of God. The law is now written in our hearts, giving us a new life in Christ.
What does it mean for the law to be in our hearts? It means that we have new attitudes, new motives, new desires, new values. We value integrity above ill gotten gains; marital intimacy more than the thrill of the chase, worship of the Creator above the pursuit of mammon.
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Alan Reinach, President, North American Religious Liberty Association -- West
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