Ten Laws

KEY VERSE: “Ye shall walk in all the ways which the Lord your God hath commanded you, that ye may live, and that it may be well with you, and that ye may prolong your days in the land which ye shall possess.” —Deuteronomy 5:33

SELECTED SCRIPTURE: Deuteronomy 5:6-8, 11-21

THE Law given to the nation of Israel at Mount Sinai and summarized in the Ten Commandments was not given to any other nation or people. The Lord through the Prophet Amos said, “You only have I known of all the families of the earth.” (Amos 3:2) The Israelites were to have certain special and exclusive blessings, including life, if they kept the Law perfectly, but if they failed to keep it, certain penalties and continuance under sentence of death were to result. Since the Law was a measure of a perfect man’s ability and since no Israelite nor any other human was perfect, none could keep the divine law; none of them could reap the blessings promised—all the Jews suffered from the penalties of the Law. The Apostle Paul wrote, “By the deeds of the Law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight.”—Rom. 3:20

Jesus, although a member of the human race, was perfect. He did not inherit sin nor its condemnation, but was born holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners. (Heb. 7:26) Because of this perfection, Jesus was able to do what no other human being was able to accomplish. He was able to keep the Law fully and completely in its every detail. Having fulfilled the Law, the Scriptures tell us that he nailed it to his cross. The scripture reads, “Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances.”—Eph. 2:15; Col. 2:14,15

The expression of the principles of God’s law, which were embodied in the Law Covenant, will never be abolished because these principles are right and just and holy. A Pharisee, who was a lawyer, asked Jesus which was the great commandment of the Law, and “Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”—Matt. 22:36-40

We believe it is obvious that if these two laws are carried out to their fullest, the other nuances of the Law automatically fall into place.

Christians—footstep followers of Jesus—have never been under the Law given at Mount Sinai. They are received into God’s family under a different covenant. Their covenant arrangement is the Sarah feature of the Abrahamic Covenant. The essence of this covenant is expressed in Psalm 50:5. “Gather my saints together unto me,” saith Jehovah, “those who have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.” Jesus, during the three and one-half years of his ministry, had the privilege of responding to this call to sacrifice. He agreed to sacrifice his earthly life and all its rights in the doing of the Father’s will even unto death. It was his faithfulness in this that gained for him glory, honor, and immortality—the divine nature—in the first resurrection.

During this Gospel Age a little flock has responded to the call to sacrifice and to walk in the footsteps of Jesus. These have entered into the same covenant of sacrifice and with the same hope of reward if faithful. It is incumbent upon these, as it was with Jesus, that they keep the spirit of the Law. Jesus was perfect and he was able to keep not only the spirit of the Law but also the letter. But the footstep followers of Jesus are required to keep the spirit of the Law only, the imperfections and weaknesses of the flesh being covered by the robe of Christ’s righteousness. The Apostle Paul describes this gracious arrangement: “For what the Law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin [a sin offering], condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”—Rom. 8:3,4

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