(Article for publication week of 9-5-AD 2013)
"O how I love Thy law! It is my meditation all the the day" (Psalm 119:97).
The Psalmist expresses the delight of every true believer. The believer in Christ can never be an antinomian, but can truly say he loves the law of God. This is the heart's delight of believers under both Covenants for we find the Apostle Paul expressing the same love for the law of God in Romas 7:22 where he says, "for I delight in the law of God after the inward man."
A Christian does not love God's law because of any hope of saving himself by his own keeping of it. A thousand times no! A saved person knows he is always coming short of what God's law requires, and he knows that his very best is tainted by sin, and he knows that God's law requires perfect and perpetual obedience, and this he is not able to perform. If it were left to us to save ourselves by keeping the Ten Commandments we would be damned and doomed forever. But even though a converted man knows he cannot save himself by law keeping, he still loves the law of God and it is his rule of life. Thank the Lord we are not under the law's condemnation, nor are we under the law for our justification (Romans 6:14).
A believer loves the laws of God first of all because he sees the perfections of a Thrice Holy God in His moral law. As we read in Romans 7: 12 "the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just , and good."
The believer understands the law of God was given by God as reflection of His Own Holy Character. The Ten Commandments tell us what God requires as far as our duty to Himself, and our fellow man.
Secondly, a believer loves the law of God for by it he knows what is sin. We read in I John 3:4, "sin is the transgression of the law." A believer knows he may not make up his own standard, or accept the world's standards, but he must abide by God's holy standard. Sin is not the transgression of any man's pet peeves, nor the transgression of what is socially acceptable, nor the trnagression of what is politically correct, but it is the transgression of the moral law of God. Those who reject God's law end up calling evil good, and good evil as we see in our nation, and sadly in the professing church.
Thirdly, the believer loves the law of God because it was written in his heart in regeneration (Jeremiah 31:33; Hebrews 8:10). When a a poor sinner is born from above (John3: 1-8), he is a different person. He begins to hate what he once loved, and begins to love what he once hated. Regeneration, the new birth makes a person a new creature who loves God and His Laws and His Ways. Thus the believer is saved from the dominion of sin and now desires to obey God. Though sin still remains in a believer (Roman 7:20), it is not the controlling power of his life and he does not live in sin (I John 3:9).
Fourthly, the believer loves the law of God because he knows he is in right relation to it. By the obedience of Christ, the believer in Christ is constituted by God in right relation to His Holy Law (Romans 5:19). Our Lord Jesus Christ kept the law of God perfectly, and His obedience is accounted for righteousness to all who believe in Christ (Romans 4). Not only that, but Christ paid the penalty for all of the believer's law- breaking. Every sin that a believer has ever committed, and all the sin a believer ever will commit was charged to Christ and He paid the price on Calvary's cross. Therefore, the believer is in right relation to the law of God.
So you see, a saved person will not be lawless, but he will love the law of God, and be meditating upon it. God bless you all my dear readers.
No comments:
Post a Comment