Subscribe to Ailbe Newsletters
Sign up to receive our email newsletters and read columns about revival, renewal, and awakening built upon prayer, sharing, and mutual edification.
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.’”
The Law of God has its source in the unchanging and eternal Yahweh, God of heaven and earth. He is the God of holiness and love. We should expect, therefore, that, like Him Who gave it, God’s Law would be eternal and unchanging as well, and designed to guide human beings in the paths of holiness and love.
Yahweh is also a personal Deity, existing in three Persons – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In the eternal Godhead the Persons of the Deity enjoy perfect glory and mutual love. It is reasonable to expect, therefore, that the Law issuing from such counsel will be intended for the same. Through obedience to the eternal and unchanging Law, God’s people learn the ways of love and are enabled to live within the context of His glory.
Yahweh is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – the God of magnificent and precious promises which He holds out to His people as the way to partake of His very essence (Ex. 3.6; Gen. 12.1-3; 2 Pet. 1.4). The Law is thus not in conflict with the promises (Gal. 3.15-8; cf. Rom. 4.13-25). It was given as a means to aid Israel in moving toward that which God intended for them in loving Him and their neighbors. As Jesus Christ fulfills the Law, and all the Prophets (Matt. 5.17-19), so also He is the fulfillment of all the promises of God as well (2 Cor. 1.20). Thus the Law and the promises are embodied in Jesus Christ, and all the blessings and glory of each are realized only through Him.
Jesus is the embodiment of the eternal, unchanging, and personal God, Yahweh, Who gave His Law to His people. He is also the embodiment of the love of God which that Law encodes. By following Jesus in the path marked out by God’s Law, believers confirm their discipleship and find the full and abundant life of love and glory which is the upward prize of God for them in Jesus Christ (1 Jn. 2.1-6; Phil. 3.14).
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.