The Antidote To Progressive Revisionism In The Church

Religious leaders are always very good at legalism so they added 603 moral and legal codes (365 thou shalt not's and 248 thou shalt).

Jesus accentuated the 10 Commandments because they are the key to knowledge about salvation (see Isaiah 42:21; Luke 11:52). The Bible says that "Only in Him (Jesus) is found salvation; for of all the names in the world given to men, this is the only one by which we can be saved" (Acts 4:12 NKJV). Jesus said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me" (John 14:6 NKJV).

Without the Law, there can be no knowledge of sin:

"What then shall we say? That the Law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the Law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the Law had not said, "You shall not covet." But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the Law, sin lies dead. I was once alive apart from the Law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died." (Rom 7:7-9 ESV)

This is why it was necessary to display humanity's guilt and unrighteousness because of their sinfulness and ultimately point them to their need for God and His merciful grace found through Jesus Christ alone (Heb 8:5, 10:1; also Rom 1, 2, 3:20).

The Reason for the Law

"When the fullness of time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law" (Gal 4:4 NKJV).

The 10 Commandments are holy, but they do not have the power to save – only Jesus does. The Law was given to maintain Israel as a separate people through whom God would send the Messiah to reach the whole world. The Laws were used before the Cross to condemn and demonstrate that human beings inherently have the ability to sin habitually, which the human race continues to be very good at today. The 10 Commandments are what makes a person ready for salvation, but merely abiding by them cannot save a person.

Jesus said that He did not come to destroy (Gk: katalyo) or subvert the Law, but to fulfill (Gk: pleroo) it.

"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them." (Matt 5:17 ESV)

The word "fulfill" means to complete, finish, accomplish or expire. Jesus met all of the Law's requirements and standards and all future punishments for those who fall short. The Bible declares that "Christ is the end (Gk: telos) of the law," which means that Jesus is the termination or conclusion of it as a means of salvation (Rom 10:4 NKJV). He did not change the Law nor add to it (Matt 5:17-19).

Jesus fulfilled and satisfied the Law and all its demands as He lived by it for the sake of humanity, keeping it perfectly as the representative of all people before God, and then died for it, meeting its required punishment for sin. When Jesus said on the Cross, "It is finished" (Gk: teleo), He was proclaiming the fulfillment of the Law, and now all of its requirements, obligations and demands for all humanity were complete (John 19:30). A person rejects the finished work of Jesus when they make any attempt to go back and seek to be justified by or remain under the Law and "have fallen from grace" (Gal 5:4 NKJV).

The Law, in its entirety, still serves an essential role in giving advice and instruction in righteousness to the Born-Again Christian and offers examples of virtue and models of holiness (1 Cor 10:6; 1 Tim 3:16). The Law is incapable of producing salvation. Only Jesus can save and transform a person from the inside out (Rom 7:7-13, 8:30).

The Bible says, "whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction" (Rom 15:4 NKJV). The Law must be used as examples of righteousness for the Church but not as a binding system of works (Rom 13:8-10; James 2:8-11; 1 Tim 1:8).

The Law ceased to be a legalistic code and "ministry of death" that had to be enforced to the letter when Jesus transformed it into the "ministry of the Spirit…and life" when He died upon the Cross and became the propitiation for all sin, breaking the sting of death (2 Cor 3; 1 John 2:2). Although Jesus fulfilled and completed the Law, that does not mean the Born-Again Christian can now live any way and do anything they want without any moral standards.

All 613 laws were fulfilled in the life of Jesus (Heb 8:6; Gal 3). There are not two plans of God, one of grace and one of works, but there are two phases of the same plan of redemption: preparation and fulfillment. The unity of the Law and the work of Jesus fulfilled the Law in its entirety. Either Jesus fulfilled the Law, or He did not. God's love is unconditional, which means that good works or religious piety do not affect it.