Q: What does the law of God require?
A: Personal, perfect, and perpetual obedience; that we love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength; and love our neighbor as ourselves. What God forbids should never be done and what God commands should always be done.
Matthew 22: 37-40 “And [Jesus] said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
It is not sinful to inquire “what is the standard we must meet in order to gain God’s approval?” As the rich young ruler in Luke 18:18 asked “Good teacher what must I do to inherit eternal life?” However, more often, in our sinful nature what we really seek is to justify ourselves, like the Lawyer in Luke 10:25. Whatever our motivation, the answer is the same, a perfectly Holy God requires perfect obedience, he can tolerate no less.
As the law is a reflection of God’s character, in his unapproachable holiness and perfection he cannot bear any transgression of his law without violating his holiness and justice, thus, perfection is the minimum requirement.
While many people propagate the notion that since Jesus perfectly kept the law, completed his work on the cross, and by faith, through grace, his righteousness is imputed to us, that we no longer have a requirement to keep the law. There is a constant struggle of ideologies between law and licentiousness, between legalism and grace, however, Jesus says in Matthew 5:17-20 “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. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Likewise, Paul in 1 Corinthians 9:20 says “Though not being myself under the law” but then clarifies in 9:21 “Not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ” and again, in Romans 6:1 “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” Just as God was magnified through Christ’s work on the cross, he continues to be magnified through the Holy Spirit’s work of sanctification in us. We who live in the Spirit are finally able to keep God’s law as it was truly intended, though in this life we will never attain perfection in our keeping of the law, our efforts in the Holy Spirit, through his work of sanctification, are finally able to please God as people with their minds set on the things of the Spirit. God is glorified by the joyful obedience of his people.
So, as people under the law of Christ, what does obedience look like? Deuteronomy 6:4-9 says "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” This is part of the Shema, that even today the Jews recite twice daily as part of their prayers. The Jews took this to mean literally binding the commands to their bodies, to their doorposts and city gates. The intention of this command however, is that our love for God should shape and dominate every part of our lives. In ancient Hebrew, there is no distinct word for “hear” and “obey”, “shema” is the term for both. Additionally, Paul says in Romans 13:8-10 “Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,’ and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.” and also 1 John 4:8 “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love” Our love for others should be shaped and dominated by God’s love for us, and should be a reflection of his character which he has commanded us to conform to.
In this life personal, perfect and perpetual obedience is not something we can attain, though by the Spirit’s work we do progress in our sanctification. Paul says in 1 Timothy 1:15-16 “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.” Paul says “I am the foremost”, not “I was the foremost”, Paul, in his writings, continually speaks of striving for the goal, and the ongoing pursuit of discipline in the life of a believer. As Martin Luther said in the first of his 95 theses “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said “Repent,” he intended that the entire life of believers should be repentance.”
We can react in one of two ways to the revelation that we will not achieve the requirement put before us. We can turn in dejected sorrow, relegated to a life of misery pursuing legalistic justification, or we can, as God intended, motivated by a Godly sorrow, turn in repentance and joy knowing that “he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” (Philippians 1:6)