To any normal human being, this second option is not much of an option because the penalty of sin, eternal separation from God, takes eternity to pay and thus will never be paid so we can come into God’s presence in heaven. Now God knew no man would be able to obey the Law perfectly, and God knew that man, if left to himself, would never get to heaven by trying to fulfill the Law himself.

If this is true, then why did God give us the Law? This can be answered by going back to our original passage in this section. Jesus said, "Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets, I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill." (Matt 5:17). How does Jesus fulfill the Law? Jesus fulfills the Law in three ways: first, Jesus fulfilled the Law by obeying it perfectly;²⁶ second, Jesus fulfilled the Law by fulfilling the hundreds of Old Testament prophecies about His coming, death, and resurrection;²⁷ and third, Jesus fulfilled the Law by fulfilling it for us.²⁸

How did Jesus fulfill the Law for us? Jesus fulfilled the Law for us by paying its penalty on the cross for us: death! Death is the penalty of sin and Jesus paid it for us. Paul writes in Romans, "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. . . . Him who was delivered up because of our transgressions, and was raised because of our justification." (Rom 6:23, 4:25, 5:8; Acts 17:31).

The purpose of the Law then was to show us our need of Jesus. Paul says in Galatians, "Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, that we may be justified by faith." (Gal 3:24). When we receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord we become one spirit with Him. This means that whatever is true for Jesus now is true for us. Jesus died on the cross. Therefore, being one spirit with Jesus means His death is now our death for our sins. This is God’s third option outside of our own efforts, Jesus’ death for our sins in our place.

We can pay the penalty of sin by dying physically first and then spending eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord, or we can let Jesus pay it for us in our place and then like Jesus, in God’s time, be raised from the dead in His likeness. If we pay it ourselves we will never be raised to life eternal, but if we let Jesus pay it for us then our resurrection will lead to life eternal. The Apostle Paul states, "For if we have become united within the likeness of His death, certainly we shall be also of His resurrection." (Rom 6:5).

What Jesus says, in Matthew 5:19 of the original passage discussed in this section, must be taken in the context of this explanation just discussed. To tell a person that he can be saved through his own efforts will make you least in the kingdom of heaven, but to direct Him to Christ’s fulfillment of the Law in his place by His death will make you great in the kingdom of heaven. Isaiah said, "To the Law and to the Testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn." (Isaiah 8:20). The Law states that, ". . . the wages of sin is death. . .," but the testimony states that, ". . . the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Rom 6:23, 1 Jn 5:9-13). Paul states, "But even though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we have preached to you, let him be accursed." (Gal 1:8). The Law came in so that we would see our need of Jesus so that Jesus could fulfill the Law in our place.

Paul gives a second reason for the Law. Being that Jesus’ death on the cross is our ticket to heaven and not the ceremonial works of the Law, Paul asks the question, "Why the Law then?." He then answers the question in the same passage, "It was added because of transgressions, having been ordained through angels by the hand of a mediator, until the seed should come to whom the promise had been made." (Gal 3:19). Even though the Law does not redeem man yet it does put restraint on the potential of what really lies in his heart.²⁹ People do not always do things because it is the desire of their heart but because it is the way they were taught.

God judges us by our heart, not by our actions. This is why obedience to the Law or religion cannot save man. Why do we stop at a red light? Because it is the right thing to do? Or because we do not want to pay the fine that will result from getting a ticket? Or better yet because we do not want to get killed? Our efforts of salvation are always carefully selective. We only make right what we want to make right and leave the rest of the garbage. Our efforts of salvation are always selective and incomplete.

We must remember that what resulted in the fall of Adam and Eve was there acting out of the reasoning of their souls rather than waiting on God’s Spirit through their spirits. God never intended for man to be motivated out of his soul anymore than He expects man to redeem himself through his soul. It was man acting out of his soul rather than his spirit that got him in trouble in the first place. God never wanted man to be motivated and controlled through his soul in the first place, yet man in his arrogance thinks now he can save himself through the same error, through his soul.

When Adam and Eve acted out of the desires of their soul and flesh, they became in bondage to their soul and flesh. This meant that the potential for the destruction of the human race was now released. Only the knowledge of God, the Law of God, and the fear of man restrains man from doing fully what is in his heart to do.

Our country was founded on Biblical principles, but today for the most part our country and other western cultures are rejecting the Bible as myth and outmoded for today’s society. Therefore, the children of the past few decades have not read or been raised on the knowledge of the Word of God as thoroughly as former generations.

What is stressed today is situation ethics. Situation ethics says, ". . . the morality of an act is a function of the state of the system at the time the act is performed."^21/39 Basically this is saying there is no absolute law that never changes. A law is only relevant according to the supposed circumstances from which it arose; but if circumstances change tomorrow, so can the law to meet the needs of tomorrow.

There is a certain amount of truth to this in the governing of a people such as in a traffic situation where one day there is no stop light, but the next year there is because the increase of traffic demanded it; but not when it comes to the Word of God. Jesus said in Matthew 24:35, "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words shall not pass away." The Word of God is eternally absolute. Its truths will remain true throughout eternity.

Even though knowing what the Bible says does not save a person, it does speak to his conscience and thus brings restraint to his lower nature because of his fear of God and the consequences of sin.³⁰ Did you understand what I just said? The Bible nor reading the Bible does not save man. Only the death and shed blood of Jesus Christ, which the Bible tells us about, saves us from our sins.

Part of the reason why morals as defined by the Bible are becoming so loose in our society today is because the Bible is no longer stressed as the absolute Word of God, man’s yardstick for knowing what is right or wrong (the meaning of cannon: "measuring stick"), and the most important part of a man’s education in the schools of our culture. Man no longer has a knowledge of Jesus’ Word as an absolute basis for law making to bring restraint against immorality in society or to even know what immorality is. In American society today, to base Your moral life on the Bible is considered immoral.

Jesus said in the Gospel of John, "The thief comes only to steal, and kill, and destroy; I came that they might have life, and might have it abundantly." (John 10:10). Joshua stated in the book of Joshua,

"This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success." (Joshua 1:8).

Whether a person is saved or not, if he violates God’s principles of life he will suffer the consequences. For example, governmental authority. As was said earlier, Paul states in the book of Romans that all authority is from God.³¹ Even though I am born again and saved through the blood of Jesus, explaining this to the police officer will not stop him from giving me a ticket for going through a red light nor keep the judge from collecting the fine. If we want to succeed in this life then it is wise to heed the instruction that Scripture gives concerning this life.

Earlier in this concept, if you remember, I made comment about things believers had in common and that there were other commands in the New Testament which fell under a different category.

If we are no longer under the Law of the letter then what are we under? Paul the Apostle states in Romans,

"But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter." (Rom 7:6).

In another passage Paul put it this way,

"Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God, who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life." (2 Cor 3:5-6).