What Is the Point of God’s Law?

I went to see the dentist recently. I’d been putting it off for a long time mainly because I had no pain. The experience was not encouraging.

My dentist took some X rays and then held them up to the light. “Mmmm . . . Oh dear! . . . Nasty. There’s a lot of decay underneath these fillings,” he said. “I’ve no pain,” I insisted. But he didn’t seem impressed. “You’re going to need some pretty major work,” he said. “And the sooner, the better.”

Many people go through life with no sense of pain over their spiritual condition. They make the false assumption that things are well with them and that, having lived generally respectable lives, they are in good spiritual shape. But God’s Law is like an X ray to the soul. It shows us that we are people who find it difficult to let God be God, and that it is natural for us to love ourselves more than other people.

The first reason you need Jesus Christ is not that you’ll have a richer, fuller, and more satisfying life. It is that you are a sinner by nature and by practice. The X ray of God’s Law shows it.

The Law is a good thing, just as X rays are good, even if they bring us bad news. I didn’t like the bad news at the dentist, but I was grateful to know about the problem before it got worse. If you don’t know there’s a problem, you won’t pursue the remedy.

The Law is like a teacher to bring us to Christ (see Galatians 3:24 NLT). When you learn what the Law has to teach, you will come to Jesus Christ.

Laying Track for the Train

The Old Testament story makes it clear that God’s people were not able to keep His Law. The Law tells us what to do, but it doesn’t give us the power to do it.

“The Law tells us how God wants us to live. Christ makes that life possible.”

Later in the Bible story, God promised a new covenant in which He would not only tell us what to do, but give us the power to move in that direction. “I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws” (Ezekiel 36:27).

God’s Law is like the rails for a train. The rails give direction, but the train will not go anywhere unless there is power in the engine. It is the special work of the Holy Spirit to give God’s people power to move in the direction that is laid out in God’s Law.

Turning Commands Into Promises

There’s a great story about a man serving time in prison because he was a thief.1 Stealing had been his lifestyle, until the long arm of the law caught him. During his time in prison, he heard the good news of Jesus Christ and was wonderfully converted.

When the time came for his release, the man knew that he would face a new struggle. Most of his old friends were thieves, and it would not be easy to break the patterns of his old way of life.

On the first Sunday of his new freedom, he slipped into a church building. The Ten Commandments were inscribed on a plaque at the front, and his eyes were immediately drawn to the words of the command that seemed to condemn him. “You shall not steal.”

That’s the last thing that I need, he thought to himself. I know my weakness. I know my failure, and I know the battle I’m going to have.

As the service progressed, he kept looking at the plaque. As he reread the words, they seemed to take on a new meaning. Previously he had read them in the tone of a command: “You shall not steal!” But now, it seemed that God was speaking these words to him as a promise: “You shall not steal.”

He was a new person in Christ, and God was promising that the Holy Spirit would make it possible for him to overcome the habit of stealing.

God’s promise is that when you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit will come and reside in your life. His power will make the difference between a battle in which you are destined for defeat, and a battle in which there will be ultimate victory. The Law tells us how God wants us to live. Christ makes that life possible.