Devotional #114

Question 114. But can those who are converted to God perfectly keep these commandments?

Answer: No: but even the holiest men, while in this life, have only a small beginning of this obedience (a); yet so, that with a sincere resolution they begin to live, not only according to some, but all the commandments of God (b).

(a) 1 John 1:8-10: If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
Romans 7:14-15: For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.
Ecclesiastes 7:20: Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.
1 Corinthians 13:9: For we know in part and we prophesy in part.

(b) Romans 7:22: For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being.
Psalm 1:2: but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.
James 2:10: For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it.

For your personal relfection:
Some years ago somone entered the Amsterdam museum and slashed Rembrandt’s famous painting, The Night Watch.  Only a portion was slashed.  However, the whole painting was damaged by this one, “limited,” action.  So it is with God’s Law.  It is a unity.  To neglect or fail in one area does “damage” to the whole.  Why?  Because to act contrary to God’s will in any part of my life is to begin to depart from God – and this is sin.  Left to ourselves we often seek our own remedy – religion, self-justification.
The religious drive within humanity is deeply rooted.  Atheistic, nihilistic, existential philosophies have not eradicated the religious impluse.  Nor has capitalistic, socialistic or communistic political philosophies.  John Lenon can “imagine” all he wants a world with no religion.  Yet, there remains within our collective remembrance a memory, an intution, that the story as we now know it was not the story as it was written.  And, responding to this memory we create gods in our image and religious structures and systems designed to assuage and assure us that we are “good” people.  But we are not.  God’s Law reveals the completely foreign quality of true goodness within humanity.  Many centures later, Jesus, the herald of “love” explicity demanded perfection from humanity (Matthew 5.48) knowing full well that the demand of both the Law and His command was beyond us.  He sought (seeks) to free us from the futilty of earning our salvation, a lifetime of “trying” and measuring ourselves against one another, or, an arbitrary standard.  Instead, Jesus offers His perfect life for ours – a “glorious exchange.”
What value do the 10 Commandments have for us today?
Why would Jesus demand perfection from us?
What is the interaction between Law and Gospel?