1 John 3:16


"By this we perceive the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren."

Wednesday 6 January 2010

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS: Not a Vain Thing for You

“And he said to them, set your hearts to all the words which I testify among you this day, which you shall command your children to observe to do, all the words of this law. For it is not a vain thing for you; because it is your life: and through this thing you shall prolong your days in the land, where you go over Jordan to possess it.” Deuteronomy 32:46-47

Whatever the intention of God for giving the Law, it is obvious that it was never meant to be a vain thing (Deuteronomy 32:47) to the Israelites and all believers in God (Deuteronomy 31:9-13). “Vain” here means “empty or worthless without substance.” In many nations, cultures, tribes, religions, there are various regulatory principles meant to guide and give hope to those that practice them. Yet none have been able to attain to that initial hope. Instead we have ended up frustrated while attempting to strengthen ourselves to help God to achieve the requirements of the Law through religions, cultures and traditions. Many have tried and failed.

No human was able to live up to God’s expectations after the fall, and the glory of God was further away from man, because of his ignorance of the worth and substance of the Law (Romans 3:23). The substance of the Law is Christ. It was the neglect of it that accounted for the chaotic nature of the nation and of human lives without him. Christ the substance of the Law means that he gave and kept the Law for us to enter his rest by faith.

When a group of sabbatarians perished in a southern African country, a journalist interviewed many Christians challenging them to recite the Ten Commandments, which many could not. He asked, “If you can not recite the commandments, how can you remember to keep them?” He responded that Jesus Christ has summarily kept and delivered only one law for us: “You shall Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it, you shall love your neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”(Matthew 22:37-39).

Jesus had earlier said to his listeners on the mount, “… do think that I have come to destroy the law and the prophets. I have not come to destroy but to fulfil.” (Matthew 5:17). This verse is variously translated in other versions: “I didn’t come to set aside but to make them come true.”; “Don’t suppose for a minute that I have come to demolish the Scripture…either God’s Law or prophets. I’m not here to demolish but to complete. I am going to put all together, pull it all together in a vast panorama.” (The Message). Christ has fulfilled all the requirements of the Ten Commandments, including other statutes, and ordinances. Note that as it was in the Garden of Eden when man left the ordinance of God continued sin was inevitable. Therefore, nations, tribes, religions have to understand this, and return to Christ so that life can be easier according to God’s design and destination for them.

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