How To Obey the Ten Commandments

Galatians 3:13 - "Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us, for it is written, 'Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree."

This is an amazing verse. Here we see that Jesus bore the curse that comes on us for disobedience to the law. He was made a curse for us, and that has set us free from the (spiritually) legal consequences of our sin. Praise God - that is great news!

A Concept That's Pulled Out Of Context

Sadly, this message of the broken curse is used out of context way to often. A lot of people hear that verse like this: "Christ has redeemed me from the law!"

Then they'll cite Matthew 22:37-39 (the two greatest commandments), and they'll make this extraordinary claim: "The law doesn't mean anything to us anymore. Jesus redeemed us from the law, and now all we have to do is love God and love each other."

Is this what it means to live under grace? Does the New Testament allow us to "live as we please", as long as we love God and other people? Of course not! In the worlds of the Apostle Paul - "God forbid!" 

Jesus did not redeem us from the Law - look at Galatians 3:13 again!

"Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law..."

Even though He offered us a way to escape the penalty of disobedience...the rules are still there!

Fulfilling The Law

Jesus didn't come to remove the commands from our lives. He said exactly that in Matthew 5:17, "Don't think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill."

His mission wasn't to set us free from the commands, because the commands weren't the problem in the first place!

Romans 7:12 - "Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good."

Psalm 19:7 - "The law of the Lord is perfect..."

Let me say this again, the commandments were never our problem!

Jesus didn't come and die to give us a way out of the Ten Commandments. And anyone who uses His sacrifice in that way is still guilty before God. No, He came to give us a way to fulfill, or to keep those commandments!

We're saved by grace through faith. Romans 3:20 makes it clear that "no flesh will be justified in His sight" by trying to keep the Law. So it is true that the Ten Commandments don't have a cause/effect relationship to our salvation. We can't earn our forgiveness and salvation by the law. That's why Ephesians makes it clear, "By grace you have been saved through faith, not of works..." So salvation is by faith alone.

But look at what Romans 3:31 (NIrV) says, "Well then, if we emphasize faith, does this mean that we can forget about the law? Of course not! In fact, only when we have faith do we truly fulfill the law."

Faith is not unrelated to works. Paul says here that faith is what empowers us to obey the law. This agrees with the book of James that clearly tells us, faith leads to obedience. That seems confusing at first: what could be the connection between faith and obedience? 

The answer to that is simple: Grace!

Grace comes when you believe God's Word, and then it empowers you to obey that word. Romans 6:14 describes a life that is truly lived by grace through faith: "For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law, but under grace."

Real Grace

Let me say this again: the commandments weren't bad - they weren't the problem. The problem was our attempted obedience in the flesh, and the curse that came when we inevitably broke those commandments. But Grace has redeemed us from every part that struggle!

We've already talked in depth about what real grace is - so I don't want to spend a lot of time on it. But we can't start a discussion about the "big ten", without remembering God's grace. Grace is not a "get out of jail free card"...although it does get you out of jail...for free! But let's make sure to define that jail correctly.

The prison you and I were trapped in was not obedience to the commandments. It was our failure to obey them - which is what we call sin. No matter how hard we tried, our flesh could never follow God's rules, and that kept us bound. We knew what was right...and we even started out with the desire to do what was right. But our flesh gave way to sin, and the commandments were broken.

But then we believed the Gospel, and we received God's Grace!

First: Grace forgave us of all our sins...and continues this forgiveness to this day!

Second: Grace began to teach us and change us from the inside.

And then: Grace started giving us the power to do what we really wanted all along, to obey God's good commands.

Without God's grace, there's no point teaching His commandments.
But with His grace, we can live up to Hebrews 12:28, "...let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably..."

We can't obey the law on our own. If we could, then we would've already. If we could keep the commandments of God by our own strength, then we could've saved ourselves. And if this were possible, then there would be no need for Jesus to come and die for us. Surely Jesus would've preferred just to tell us to "try harder" -  if that's all it took.
But we can't - because our flesh will never submit to God's commands. The only answer is to live your life by the spirit.

Romans 8:2-5 backs this up:
"For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit."
Did you see that? When we live our life in the Spirit - by grace through faith - then we are empowered to fulfill the righteous requirements of the law!

The is the key to learning about the Ten Commandments. As a Christian hearing these commands, you need to keep this in mind:
You're not listening to burdens that you have to bear...
     ...You're hearing promises about who you are by faith!
You're not hearing restrictions of what you can and can't do..
     ...You're hearing the freedom to do what you couldn't before!

As a believer...it's now in your nature to fulfill the Law! You just need to receive that freedom by faith.