„Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the Law till all is fulfilled” (Matthew 5:17-18)
The word ‘law’ (gr. nomos) has many meanings: usage, custom, law; divine
laws; a force or influence impelling to action; the Mosaic law; the books which
contain the law, the Pentateuch, the Old Testament scriptures in general.
It follows that God's Law is not
only God's commandments, and keeping God's Law is more than keeping the
commandments. Does the Bible say that? Let's check it.
There are many biblical verses that
talk about God's Law. Let me start with this:
The apostle Paul wrote about the relationship
between God's Law and sin:
„Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh
will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin” (Romans
3:20). Knowing Sin - One
of the functions of God's Law is to know what sin is. How it's working?
Example.
The speedometer in the car shows how
fast the car is going, but the speedometer has no effect on the speed of the
car, nor can it change the speed.
In Romans 3:20, Paul wrote that
God's Law is used to recognize sin. It is like an element of a system that
controls the course of a process, it is a sensor that detects changes. As long
as this process is running properly, this sensor is kind of dead and does not
trigger the system. There is no reason why this system should interfere with
the process flow. However, when a process disturbance occurs, the sensor
automatically signals a problem and informs about the need to take action to
restore the process to the right path. To perform this task, the system must
have knowledge of how the supervised process should proceed. This can be
imagined as knowledge of the ideal state of the process.
Such a control system must consist
of sensors and elements that can influence the course of the process. Let's
go back to the speedometer example, because one of its essential elements is
the driver's motivation, something that exists outside the speedometer. When
the driver is driving too fast, the speedometer merely informs him of this
fact. The driver can ignore this information or accept it and reduce speed. However,
the fact of slowing down doesn’t mean that his (or her) behavior is right,
because a just is one who wants justice, not one who just follows the rules. A just
driver is the one who wants to drive according to the rules.
„Blessed are those who hunger
and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled” (Matthew 5:6)
What does the Bible say about sin?
"Whoever commits sin also
commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness" (1 John 3:4). The Apostle
John explains that when sin appears, on this occasion it comes to breaking the
law. Breaking the Law, however, is the result of sin, and is not the sin
itself. It's just like the driver. The speedometer only informs him that he
is driving too fast, but the problem is not the speedometer reading, but driving
too fast. Moreover, the biggest problem is that this driver wants to go so
fast. Even if he slows down, but still has the will to drive faster, he is
committing a sin according to God's criteria, according to God's Law. He
doesn’t "hunger and thirst" for legal driving.
John at 1 John 3: 4 and Paul at
Romans 3:20 speak not so much of the entire Law as of the part of the Law that
is used to "discover" sins. God's Law is also the part of the
Bible that deals with the consequences of sin. God's Law not only tells
what sin is, it also presents
the consequences of sin. This is the second function of God's Law.
"The soul who sins shall die"
(Ezekiel 18:4). "For the wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23).
Death is the consequence of sin.
Does the Bible tell the truth? How,
then, should we understand God's saying: "The soul who sins shall die"
(Ezekiel 18:4)? Maybe this verse says that the sinner cannot get out of death?
What does the words 'the soul who sins' mean? Does it mean, for example,
'not every soul'? ["Not every soul who sins shall die"].
Maybe 'almost every soul'? ["Almost every soul who sins
shall die"]. I believe that the meaning of this statement is simple,
when a soul sins, it must die.
Is there anyone among us who has
never sinned? No, there is no one who has never sinned, the only exception is
Jesus Christ. And since each of us has sinned, each of us must die.
But what death, because the Bible tells us about several types of death.
The first type of death is the death
of the body, the type of sleep that will end in the resurrection day. That is
why the Bible calls this death a sleep.
The second type of death is eternal
death, and it awaits all who will not be saved. The Bible speaks of this death
as the second death.
If there were only these two kinds
of death, then Enoch and Elijah would be proof that God was wrong when he said
that "The soul who sins shall die" because Enoch and Elijah
didn’t die the first death, and neither will they ever die the second death.
There must therefore be one more type of death, such a death that took place in
the lives of Enoch and Elijah, that "the soul who sins" would
indeed die. And such a third type of death is actually described in the
Bible. The apostle Paul wrote about it.
Romans 6:1-2 "What shall we
say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How
shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?"
Romans 6:11 "Likewise you
also, consider yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God
in Christ Jesus our Lord"
Paul didn’t write to those who died
the first death, he wrote to living people, people "alive to God"
and "dead to sin".
Paul wrote about himself:
Romans 7: 9 "I was alive
once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died
"
Paul didn’t write this after his
death (first death).
So what death these two verses speak
of? "The soul who sins shall die" (Ezekiel 18:4) and "For
the wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23)? Both of these verses speak
of death, but there is a difference between them. The Ezekiel verse speaks of
the consequences of sins committed personally by the sinner. The Romans
verse speaks of the consequences of sins not necessarily committed by the
sinner. Each of us feels the consequences of the sin committed by Adam and
Eve, because none of us live forever and we all shall face our first death,
except of course the righteous who will see the Lord's return and will be taken
to heaven alive. This is the second meaning of the apostle Paul's statement,
that the consequence of sin committed by Adam and Eve is our first death. The
first meaning is the same as the verse in Ezekiel, that is, whoever sins must
die (must receive his wedge for his sins). The meaning of these verses can also
be presented as follows: Whoever, during his life on earth, doesn’t die to
sin (the third death), that means he doesn’t start living for Jesus, he will
have to die the second death.
Our problem is not that we have to
die, but what kind of death we will die. The first death doesn’t
have a direct impact on salvation, that is, when someone died to sin (third
death), the possible first death of such a person will not deprive him of his
salvation. It really matters whether our wages will be the second or third
death. The second is eternal annihilation, and the third is eternal life.
And here we got to the third function of God's Law,
which is the
revelation of the plan of salvation, which is a great hope for
all sinners. God's Law tells us that no matter how much we are connected with
sin, it is a chance for us to eternal life, that is, to avoid the second death,
not death at all. God's Law not only tells us that although we are
sinners, we have a chance to be freed, but it shows us the path that
everyone who wants to be saved must follow. God's Law tells about what
must change in a person's life, and gives a way in which a person's
life can be changed.
Here are some biblical verses that
speak of the Second Death or Eternal Life. First, the Old Testament:
„But if a wicked man turns from
all his sins which he has committed, keeps all My statutes, and does what is
lawful and right, he shall surely live; he shall not die. None of the
transgressions which he has committed shall be remembered against him; because
of the righteousness which he has done, he shall live. Do I have any pleasure
at all that the wicked should die?” says the Lord God, “and not that he should
turn from his ways and live?” (Ezekiel 18:21-23)
This verse gives us the condition
that must be met for a sinner to be saved. "If a wicked man
turns from all his sins". What is turning from all
sins?
(Deuteronomy 10:12-13) “And now,
Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord
your God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him, to serve
the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul,
and to keep the commandments of the Lord and His statutes"
To fear the Lord, to walk in all
His ways, not ours, and, above all, to love God "with all
your heart and with all your soul" constitute obeying "the
commandments of the Lord and His statutes".
What does the New Testament say
about the relationship between salvation, or eternal life, and the Second
Death?
John 3:36 „He who believes in the
Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the
Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him”
John 5:24 “He who hears My
word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life,
and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life“
John 6:47 “He who believes
in Me has everlasting life “
1 John 5:12 “He who has the Son has
life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life“
Faith in Jesus gives you eternal
life, and unbelief in Jesus ends with a second death.
Listening to Jesus gives you eternal
life, failure to listen to Jesus ends with a second death.
And one more verse:
John 6:54 „Whoever eats My
flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him
up at the last day”
This verse is easier to understand
when it is read along with the rest of the verses that talk about eternal life.
Eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Jesus means listening to His words
and accepting them fully, not only with your mind, but above all with
your heart. It is the full assimilation of God's Word that makes a person
live the assimilated Word. This Word becomes an integral part of him, and
therefore "He who has the Son has life". Just as
the food we eat becomes part of our flesh over time, so God's Word, properly
received, becomes part of our spirit. This analogy has a deeper meaning
because the body needs food and drink to live. A man who doesn't eat or
drink dies. He also dies if he eats and drinks worthless or harmful things. Worthless
food is excreted and doesn’t contribute in the restoration of the body, and
this leads to death. Harmful food destroys the body, and this
leads to even faster death.
God's Law is not only a collection
of do's and don'ts, but most of all a collection of all sorts of information
about the ideal state of what God has created. It is a picture of what the Kingdom
of Heaven looks like, the world, in which God fully reveals His presence. The
world in it all God's creatures live in perfect harmony with their Creator.
God's Law speaks of the spiritual fitting of the created world
with God. It is about living in the presence of our Creator. God's Law makes it
clear that we must conform to God, not God to us. God doesn’t change,
God is the same all the time. However, we can change, and we change, unfortunately
too often for the worse.
And this is the fourth function of God's Law, a
description of God's reality, a description of the conditions
that must be met for God's creatures to live together with its Creator.
Leviticus 18:5 “You shall
therefore keep My statutes and My judgments, which if a man does, he
shall live by them: I am the Lord”
God's Law is the Law of Life or
Death. Life because it talks about how to live forever, and death
because it talks about when eternal life is impossible and God's creature
must die eternal death.
Let me give you an example.
There are some universal laws in the
world we live in. I am talking about material reality, not spiritual reality.
Some of these laws are the laws of physics, such as the laws of gravity and the
interaction of electric charges. Our material world has certain physical
qualities, and when we put these qualities and laws together, we get a picture
of our world. We live in this world and are subject to these laws, and the
properties of this world affect our lives. If our world were perfect, all its
elements would fit together perfectly, and we would also be perfectly suited to
this world.
Can you not bear the consequences of
your decisions when you make them without considering the effects of these
laws? Is it possible to jump from a tall building without consequences? Can you
enter a hot forge, big furnace in a smelter and survive? Can you stay
underwater without an air cylinder for two hours, and still be alive? You can
live in this world as long as you are fit, adapted to the conditions and laws
of this world. I'm talking about a material reality, not a spiritual one. A
person who, even unknowingly, ignores the necessity of this fitting, risks loss
of health and life.
Your fitting with the kingdom of
heaven is primarily about spiritual matters. Every aspect of your spiritual
life matters, and you cannot ignore any of them.
Revelation 21:27 „But there shall
by no means enter it [New
Jerusalem, Kingdom of Heaven] anything that defiles, or causes
an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s Book of
Life”
Is God talking about the fact that no
one who is attached to sin can enter His Kingdom? Not only nobody who
commits bad deeds and refuses to turn away from them, but most of all nobody
who has impure thoughts, who has wrong feelings like hatred or jealousy.
Adam and Eve's sin caused us to
inherit this mismatch with Heaven, and to get there, this state must be
changed. That is why Jesus said:
„Therefore you shall be perfect,
just as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48)
To be perfect means to be perfectly
fitted to Heaven. Jesus never asks us for something that is impossible. The
problem with our perfection is not that we cannot be perfect, but that we
should not focus on being perfect. The apostle Paul showed us the right way:
2 Corinthians 3:18 „But we all,
with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being
transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of
the Lord”
Jesus said „be perfect”. He
said it doesn't matter what is your past, what sins you have committed, or how
much are you attached to sin. „Come to Me, ALL you who labor
and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28). He wants
to give us rest, that is, to free us from sin. „And you shall know the
truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32). Jesus
doesn’t free us from sins so that we can continue to sin. How many times did
Jesus say to those he helped, "Go and sin no more?".
Helping us is not a problem for Jesus, we have a problem with
accepting this help. Many people are interested in being freed from the
consequences of sin, but they don’t want to change their lives to stop sinning.
Why?
Perhaps one of the reasons is that
we are not fully aware of what sin is and what its consequences are. Adam and
Eve were unaware that their innocent-looking deed would lead to the death of
Jesus. They were not aware of all the consequences of their actions, but when
they got to know them, it was their love for God that made them turn away from
all that is bad. Thus they fulfilled the condition of being spiritually fitted
to God's Kingdom, set out at Ezekiel 18: 21-22
But if a wicked man turns from
all his sins which he has committed, keeps all My statutes, and does
what is lawful and right, he shall surely live; he shall not die. None of the
transgressions which he has committed shall be remembered against him; because
of the righteousness which he has done, he shall live
Adam and Eve's mismatch, with the
conditions of God's kingdom, became apparent immediately after sin. The first
sin caused Adam and Eve to fear God, and when they heard that God was
approaching them, they hid. It was a new, unpleasant and unknown feeling for
them.
Why did Adam and Eve not fear
God until they sinned? Sin changed something about them and they began to feel
the presence of the Creator differently. They believed Satan and thus they
revealed a distrust to God. What could be called 'conditional trust' has
emerged. And when their lack of unconditional and complete trust in God
had been revealed, fear arose. Nobody is afraid of someone who he knows and
trusts.
What is the reason for
"conditional trust" in God? What is the reason for fright, dread of
God? “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts
out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has
not been made perfect in love”(1 John 4:18). The
apostle John explains that such fright shows a lack of perfection
that can only be achieved by having love for God.
What does it mean to love God?
Love is a word whose meaning has been distorted. Just because you like
something doesn't mean you love it. Just because you feel certain pleasant
emotions doesn’t mean that they are the result of love. The proof of your love
for someone is that you want to spend time with him, talk to him, that is, talk
to him and listen to him. The proof that you love someone is what you are
willing to do for that person. Finally, the greatest proof that you love
someone is that you are ready to give your life for that person. Jesus
said:
(Matthew 10:37) He who loves
father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son
or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me
The fact that you love God is
evidenced by the decisions you make when you have to choose between love for
God and love for people, even those closest to you.
(Luke 14:26) If anyone comes to
Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and
sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple
Life shows that for many people love
for God is not more important not only than love for people, but also than love
for various things of this world. So what is the condition that must be met so
that those who are in God's presence do not feel fright, dread and fear, but
only respect, regard and adoration for God? This condition is, according to the
words of the apostle John, perfection achieved through love of God. This is why
Jesus, when asked about the most important commandment, said: „You shall
love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all
your mind.’ (…) [and] ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew
22:37-39).
Now, an important question. Since
Adam and Eve, before sin, had no fright, does this mean that they loved God?
[Yes/No]
I think we can answer that question
that yes, Adam and Eve loved God. But with what kind of love?
The truth about love is revealed
only when there is a choice, when a person can do something wrong and must make
a decision whether to do it or not to do it. The lives of Adam and Eve were
naturally in harmony with God and His Law. They didn't know what it meant to do
something against God's will, and they didn't feel the need to do something
against God's will. Only the meeting with Satan gave them a real opportunity to
make the wrong decision. And then the truth about how they loved God came to
light.
The apostle Peter once had a similar
possibility. First, he swore that he loved his Lord so much that he was ready
to lay down his life for Him. „Peter said to Him, “Lord, why can I not
follow You now? I will lay down my life for Your sake” (John 13:37).
Peter believed that he loved Jesus with 'agape' love, and the same night he
faced the test of his love three times. He could confirm the fact of having an
'agape' love for Jesus, but he made a decision that showed that he loved
himself the most. This doesn’t mean that he didn’t love his Lord, but that he
loved Jesus less than his own pride. Jesus was not really the most important
person for Peter at this time. It was the same with Adam and Eve.
And it is the same with us. We like
to talk about love for God, but do our words prove that we really love God with
the same love that Jesus loves us?
Jesus said: „Therefore whoever
confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in
heaven. But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My
Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 10:32-33). Peter at the Last Supper
didn’t believe that he would deny his Lord. And yet he did it.
The denial of Jesus is not only a
situation, when a person says that he is not a disciple of Jesus, as Peter did.
Ellen White wrote: „He who would confess Christ must have Christ abiding in
him. He cannot communicate that which he has not received. The disciples might
speak fluently on doctrines, they might repeat the words of Christ Himself; but
unless they possessed Christlike meekness and love, they were not
confessing Him. A spirit contrary to the spirit of Christ would deny Him,
whatever the profession. Men may deny Christ by evilspeaking, by foolish
talking, by words that are untruthful or unkind. They may deny Him by shunning
life’s burdens, by the pursuit of sinful pleasure. They may deny Him by conforming
to the world, by uncourteous behavior, by the love of their own opinions, by
justifying self, by cherishing doubt, borrowing trouble, and dwelling in
darkness. In all these ways they declare that Christ is not in them”
(DA 357.2). We deny Christ when we fail to keep the standards that Jesus has
revealed to us by His life.
Any denial of God is a sin and a
breach of God's Law, because it spoils and destroys your relationship with God.
God is the only Source of life, and anyone who consciously cuts himself off
from this One Source dies, receiving payment for what he has done. This is how
God revealed his Law to people from the very beginning. "And the Lord
God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat;
but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the
day that you eat of it you shall surely die" (Genesis
2:16-17). God didn’t say that immediately after eating the fruit, Adam and Eve
would fall to the ground dead, but He said that eating the fruit would start a
process that ends with death. God said, "you shall surely die".
How many commandments did God give
Adam and Eve? One. God didn’t have to reveal His law to Adam and Eve in the
form in which He did it on Mount Sinai, in form of Decalogue. He didn't have to
tell them that they shouldn't steal because there was no way to break that
commandment. What was the point of talking about the prohibition of adultery
when there were only Adam and Eve in the world? God revealed His Law to the
first people in a way, that was appropriate to the situation and circumstances,
and at the same time He revealed the essence of ‘Living in accordance with the
Law’. God gave people a specific commandment that pointed to the core of
God's law: obedience as a result of love for God. The first
commandment was: "Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but
of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day
that you eat of it you shall surely die". The point of this commandment
was not prohibition of picking fruit from one particular tree, but obedience.
In this first commandment, God presented the consequences of disobedience, or
sin: “you shall surely die”, what is the same as "For
the wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23).
Living in harmony with God's law is
about obeying God, obeying from the heart's need, built on loving God, not
obeying the commands and prohibitions. Keeping the commandments is the
result of a good relationship with God, that relationship that enables
man to receive all blessings from God, including life itself, is the result of love
for God.
To live according to God's law is to
live completely in line with God's reality, it is a life devoid of
everything that is inconsistent with God's character. It is a life devoid of
all that cannot exist where God is.
God doesn’t encourage us to live
according to His Law, with the prospect of being in a perfect environment,
where all our real needs will be met. He also doesn’t scare us with the
consequences of bad decisions. He allows us to get to know Him so that,
seeing His love for us, each of us can: either love Him and feel
the true joy of living in His presence; or reject that love and
feel freight in His presence. God feels the greatest joy when He sees how
people love Him and because of this love obey Him; when He sees
people, who live helping others to know God. These people, without thinking
about themselves, do something that makes them feel such joy that nothing can match.
Only one desire for such people is to give. They forget that once their
greatest desire was to take.
This world is based on principles
contrary to God's Law. This world is doing everything to arouse in us "the
lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life".
This world is doing everything to keep our lives focused on taking, not giving.
This world does everything to develop in us selfishness and destroy in
us love. This world tries, in various ways, to give us some substitutes of
true love, it shows us some possibilities that give us the impression
that we are good Christians. However, there is something that helps us to open
our eyes to the truth about ourselves.
It is enough to start looking at
Jesus, how He lived, what He did, what He wanted. How often did Jesus think
about himself? Never. How often do we think about ourselves?
How often did Jesus think about more
than just meeting his most basic needs? He often did not even pay attention to
the fact that he had not eaten anything for a long time, or that he had slept
too little.
Jesus said of himself: "Foxes
have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to
lay His head" (Matthew 8:20).
Where is the line between satisfying
the most basic needs and succumbing to "the lusts of the flesh, eyes
and heart"?
Perhaps we cross that line every
time, when we find excuses why we "should" succumb to temptation.
Perhaps we cross that line every
time, when we explain to ourselves that we need this "something" and
that without this "something" our life will be too difficult.
We may even be tempted, when we,
under the guise of preaching the gospel, realize our plans, and at the same
time we are neglecting the ways of preaching the gospel that are available
to us.
Do people, who watch us, see the
same, what people who watch Jesus see?
What was Jesus' life like? He
preached the gospel with all his life. Everything He did, He did for the Father
and for the people he wanted to save. There was never the slightest trace of
selfishness in His life.
Such a life is a life according to
God's law. A life completely devoid of selfishness, but full of God's love.
Such a life is possible only when man truly loves God.
Do we really love Jesus?
