A good friend

I have been studying Exodus, specifically the law portion this week. When we think of the Law from Exodus or the Law of God to His people, most times it is the 10 Commandments that pop in our mind. I wrote a few days ago about the fact, God wrote the 10 Commandments on the stone tablets as a show of His moral regulations since sin had turned our hearts to stone.

This picture and reality point to the truth that, in its full weight, the law condemns us. As Paul points out to Timothy in his first letter to him, only a righteous man can stand justified before God. And the only way to be a righteous man who is justified before God is to be a person who has kept the law of God perfectly. This means that every time we break the law, it condemns us as unrighteous and cast out from the presence of God. And if we are truthful with ourselves, we break many of the 10 Commandments daily. This is simply called sin. So the law of God stands as our condemnation and as the most visible sign that we as sinful humans have a need. Without the law of God before us, we would have no real clue that we have a need or even what that need is.

But becasue of the law of God, we know our need and we know also where to turn for our need. As I said the only person that can stand before God is the one who has kept His law perfectly. Jesus kept the law perfectly. And when Jesus then stood in our place, God transferred our law breaking unto Him and Jesus perfect righteousness onto us. Thanks to Jesus and His perfect life and substitutionary death, we can now stand before God as righteous and justified.

So after Christ, what is the law to us now? Since Jesus kept the law perfectly for us and God imputed that onto us, the law no longer is our condemnation. This means that after Christ now, the law has become our friend. First the law is our friend becasue it continually points to Jesus and His work for us. The second reason the law is our friend is that it now tells us how we can live to please God. After Christ, we all have a desire now to delight in God and find our only joy in our relationship with Him. This means that we now live life bent on pleasing God and finding our joy in His will. The law tells us what God's will is and how we can live to please God, obeying it. We still need Jesus daily and we still break the law of God daily, but it no longer condemns us but should lead us to repentance, which is another way it is our friend. The law of God should be grasped fondly and meditated on daily becasue it is now a good friend who leads us in a life of holiness towards God.