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Deuteronomy 5.6, 7
6 “‘I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. 7 You shall have no other gods before Me.’”
In the prologue to the first commandment, God identifies Himself as sole Giver of the commandments, statutes, precepts, and rules that follow. The Law thus has its origins in the eternal being and counsel of the one true God, and this has profound implications for the nature and use of the Law.
Most especially, it is important to bear in mind that God is love (1 Jn. 4.8); thus, we should expect that the Law of God would be motivated by love and intended to promote love as an expression of the very being and character of God. To read the Law of God in any way other than as a code intended to guide human beings in the ways of love is to misjudge the intentions of the Divine Lawgiver, to misunderstand the meaning of His Law, and to misapply the Law in the day to day business of human life.
The Law comes to the redeemed of the Lord from an eternal and personal Being, Yahweh, the great I Am. He is holy and unchanging; hence, we should expect that whatever He might ordain in the way of moral instruction for His people would be of the same character. The Law of God is unchanging, as is God Who gave it; it is therefore also eternal. It continues as a standard to be used in bringing to expression the character and purposes of God in human society.
Consequently, the Law of God is the absolute and final standard for human moral conduct. The works of the Law are written on the heart of every human being (Rom. 2.14, 15), who bears the image and likeness of God. Thus, by living in conformity to the teaching of the divine Law, any human being may expect to find the fullness of God’s purpose for life. Holy Scripture is the narrative of the tremendous lengths God Himself has gone to enable humankind to realize the full and abundant life for which they have been created. Incapable, because of sin, of directing their hearts to the selfless love of God and neighbor, encoded in His Law, God worked through the life, death, and resurrection of His own Son, Jesus Christ, to provide all who believe in Him the new heart and new mind they need, under the tutelage of the indwelling Spirit of God, so that they might be able to understand and obey His Law.
T. M. Moore
The Law of God is the soil which, fertilized by the rest of God’s Word and watered by His Spirit, brings forth the fruit of Christian life. If you’d like to understand this process better, and how to make best use of the Law in your walk with and work for the Lord, order the book, The Ground for Christian Ethics, from our online store.
Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.