Some identify God`s absolute moral obligation to all men with the “natural” law. This idea is certainly on the right track if placed in an alliance context. God created us to be holy like Him and to live in relationship with God and with one another, according to the created order He established. Therefore, everyone must love God, value human life (see Genesis 9:6), and live according to what God commanded and established in creation, such as the proper use of our sexuality and the establishment of marriage and family. To violate the order created by God is to rebel against God Himself, to become idolatrous, and to submit to God`s righteous damnation. For this reason, Paul can invoke what all men know about creation and their conscience, but unfortunately suppress and reject it as the reason for their condemnation (Rom 1:18-32; cf. 2:12-13). These verses again emphasize the universality of sin, so strongly stated in verses 10-12. Paul makes three points: In other words, many Bible teachers will argue that the covenant with Moses (made with Israel on Mount Sinai) is fundamentally different from the covenant with Abraham (made in the past) and the New Covenant (on Calvary) under which we live.

The difference, they say, is this: in the Abrahamic Covenant and the New Covenant, salvation is promised, which can be freely received by faith, apart from the works of the law. But under the covenant with Moses, salvation (or God`s blessing) is not offered freely to the faith, but as a reward for the works of the Law. Since only perfect works can merit the salvation of a perfectly holy God, and no one can achieve it, the law simply makes us aware of our sin and misery and expresses our condemnation. This is probably the most popular view of Mosaic law in the Church today, and it is false. This makes Moses a legalistic Pharisee, turns the Torah into the very heresy Paul condemned in Galatia, and (worst of all) makes God his own enemy by commanding people to deserve His blessing (and thus exalt themselves) instead of resting in His universal mercy (and thus exalting Him). Texts like Galatians 5:3 and James 2:8-13 point in this direction. Holding or breaking any part of the law presupposes compliance with or violation of the entire law. Or, as the writer of Hebrews argues, the covenant with Moses is an integrated whole based on the priesthood (Hebrews 7:11) and with a change of priesthood (Psalm 110; Heb 7) there is necessarily a whole change of covenant, not just parts (Hebrews 7:12; 8:7-13). Furthermore, Paul can say that before he was a Christian he was under the Mosaic law, but now, in Christ, he is under the new covenant (1 Corinthians 9:21). Paul sees covenants as whole packages, the elders having reached their fulfillment in Christ. “Responsible” is a legal term found only here in the New Testament.

This means that we are guilty and punishable. It is not that we are accountable to a human tribunal, but to God Himself! He knows all the bad thoughts we have had. He knows all the secret sins we have committed. All things are open and exposed before Him (Hebrews 4:13). We have all broken His sacred law, not just a few times, but thousands and thousands of times. How can we expect all charges to be dropped? Biblically speaking, love is fundamentally tied to God`s law. In Matthew 22, when Jesus was tested by a jurist about the greatest commandment, Jesus said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.

And a second is like this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. All the law and the prophets depend on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:37–40). Jesus did not argue that these two commandments are more important than the Ten Commandments, but that they are a summary of the Ten. The first four God-facing commandments teach us to love God, and the last six commandments toward our neighbor teach us to love our neighbor. Please help me see God`s laws as David did. Not heavy, beautiful, perfect, invigorating. Although you felt like a gun was pointed at your head and controlled your life through the terror of breaking a commandment, now, as a believer, you can hate sin and seek obedience because you love your father. There is a world of difference between the child who gets good grades because he wants his father to love him and the child who gets good grades because he loves his father.

Have you ever noticed how prone you are to apologize and blame others? This is especially evident when driving. The driver who passed me is crazy. The grandmother in front of me, who stops traffic by driving slowly, is a road hazard. But me? Hey, I`m just driving right! This raises the question of some people, if we are no longer punished, why can`t we just sin as much as we want? Thus, the law exposes our sin. We see ourselves as we really are. And after seeing the problem, we will look for the solution – which is that we can be declared righteous in God`s sight by the death of the Lord Jesus, by faith in what Jesus has done for us. However, this does not mean that the Mosaic law can be ignored, for it is authoritative scripture (2 Timothy 3:15-17). In fact, the New Testament teaches both the replacement and fulfillment of the covenant with Moses with the new one. On the one hand, in the New Covenant, the old is replaced by the law of Christ (1 Corinthians 9:20-21). Instead of relying on the covenant with Moses, we rely on Christ (Galatians 2:19-20). 3:4-14), and we recognize God`s will in Christ and apostolic instruction (Galatians 6:2; 1 Corinthians 7:19; 9:21).