The Law

Sin is a transgression of God’s law (1 John 3:4), and sin also is wrapped up in our natures (Ps. 51:5, Jer. 17:9). So, it’s the law that brings to light what sin really is. The law is like putting on a pair of glasses so we can clearly see what’s really around us, or using a mirror to see what we really look like. It brings clarity and conviction to our lives and our characters while at the same time telling us about God’s character and what’s important to Him.

The Ten Commandments (Exod. 20:3–17) were written by God’s own finger. Jesus echoed their importance: “ ‘ “And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” There is no other commandment greater than these’ ” (Mark 12:30, 31, NKJV). He added: “ ‘On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets’ ” (Matt. 22:40, NKJV).

God’s words to the Israelites at Mount Sinai and to us today (Heb. 1:1, 2) tell us that the law is all about relationships. God gave the law as a safeguard to protect our relationship with Him and with others. However, Satan has distorted the beauty of God’s law so that some see it as a burden. Legalism rather than love and freedom is often attached to the law, even though the Bible tells us, “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome” (1 John 5:3, NKJV).

1. On a scale of one to five, how precious is the Living Word (and the law, as a part of it) to me?
2. When I keep God’s law, is it restricting me or strengthening me? How can I better understand the law if I think it is restricting me?
3. What might happen if God’s law of love for Him and others was brought into the center of my life, my family, and my church? What might change in my life and my relationships?

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Additional Reading: Selected Quotes from Ellen G. White

The Word of God includes the Scriptures of the Old Testament as well as of the New. One is not complete without the other. Christ declared that the truths of the Old Testament are as valuable as those of the New. Christ was as much man’s Redeemer in the beginning of the world as He is today. Before He clothed His divinity with humanity and came to our world, the gospel message was given by Adam, Seth, Enoch, Methuselah, and Noah. Abraham in Canaan and Lot in Sodom bore the message, and from generation to generation faithful messengers proclaimed the Coming One. . . .
Of Christ’s life and death and intercession, which prophets had foretold, the apostles were to go forth as witnesses. Christ in His humiliation, in His purity and holiness, in His matchless love, was to be their theme. And in order to preach the gospel in its fullness, they must present the Saviour not only as revealed in His life and teachings, but as foretold by the prophets of the Old Testament and as symbolized by the sacrificial service. . . .
In every age there is a new development of truth, a message of God to the people of that generation. The old truths are all essential; new truth is not independent of the old, but an unfolding of it. It is only as the old truths are understood that we can comprehend the new. When Christ desired to open to His disciples the truth of His resurrection, He began “at Moses and all the prophets,” and “expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:27). But it is the light which shines in the fresh unfolding of truth that glorifies the old. He who rejects or neglects the new does not really possess the old. For him it loses its vital power and becomes but a lifeless form.
There are those who profess to believe and to teach the truths of the Old Testament, while they reject the New. But in refusing to receive the teachings of Christ, they show that they do not believe that which patriarchs and prophets have spoken. . . .
In rejecting the Old, they virtually reject the New; for both are parts of an inseparable whole. No man can rightly present the law of God without the gospel, or the gospel without the law. The law is the gospel embodied, and the gospel is the law unfolded. The law is the root, the gospel is the fragrant blossom and fruit which it bears.
The Old Testament sheds light upon the New, and the New upon the Old. Each is a revelation of the glory of God in Christ. Both present truths that will continually reveal new depths of meaning to the earnest seeker.—Lift Him Up, p. 306.

You cannot atone for your past sins; you cannot change your heart and make yourself holy. But God promises to do all this for you through Christ. You believe that promise. You confess your sins and give yourself to God. You will to serve Him. Just as surely as you do this, God will fulfill His word to you. If you believe the promise—believe that you are forgiven and cleansed—God supplies the fact; you are made whole, just as Christ gave the paralytic power to walk when the man believed that he was healed. It is so if you believe it. Do not wait to feel that you are made whole, but say, “I believe it; it is so, not because I feel it, but because God has promised.”—Steps to Christ, p. 51.