The Duty of God’s People – The Rule of Law: First Things (7)

The Duty of God’s People

The Rule of Law: First Things (7)

The rule of God’s Law entails three duties.

“Pay attention to all that I have said to you.…” Exodus 23:13

We are beginning to see that submitting to the rule of God’s Law is much to be preferred to submitting to any other law. The Ten Commandments, and the attending civil statutes which elaborate their meaning, are a foundation for becoming holy and learning to love God and our neighbor as God intends for us. As we learn to fear and love God, submitting to His Law will follow from thanksgiving and a desire to please and honor Him.

And this entails on our part three duties which we must embrace as the key components of our submission to the rule of God’s Law: learn the Law, obey the Law, and teach the Law to others (cf. Ezra 7:10).

The Law of God is encoded in written revelation consisting of commandments, statutes, precepts, and rules. The Prophets of the Old Testament, together with the teaching of Jesus Christ and His Apostles, enable us to understand how those laws are to function in our lives. We must be students of all the Word of God if we would understand the Law, and of the Law of God in particular if we are going to be able to make sense out of the rest of Scripture. We must read, meditate in, and study the Law, and all the counsel of God, if we would fulfill the first of our duties in submitting to it.

We must also work hard to obey the Law. We have been redeemed for good works, the works outlined for us in the Law of God (Eph. 2:8-10; 1 John 2:1-6). We cannot read and study the Law of God in isolation from the rest of Scripture; this is a certain route to misunderstanding and failures of obedience. Instead, by reading all the Scripture, reflecting backward and forward throughout the Word of God, as the Spirit leads (1 Cor. 2:12, 13), we will be able to understand how the Law applies to our daily lives, and how to access the power of God’s Spirit for obedience.

And then we must teach and encourage one another with the Law of God (Matt. 5:17-19). In this series we shall be considering the many benefits that accrue to those who submit to the rule of God’s Law. These are so many and so affirming that we should eagerly want others to learn them as well. We teach the Law truly when we teach it in the light of Jesus Christ (John 5:39): He fulfilled the Law for us; He bore the Law’s wrath in our place; He rose again to teach us the Law’s application in a Kingdom context, and to give us His Spirit to instruct and empower us; and He is at work within us, bringing His own character to life and light in and through us to the praise of the glory of God’s grace.

If we would submit to the rule of God’s Law, and thus enjoy all the benefits such submission affords, we must devote ourselves to learning, obeying, and teaching the Law of God for every aspect of our lives.

For a practical guide to the role of God’s Law in the life of faith, get The Ground for Christian Ethics by going to www.ailbe.org and click on our Bookstore, then Church Issues.

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In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T.M. Moore, editor of the Worldview Church. He serves as dean of the Centurions Program of the Wilberforce Forum and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of twenty books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are The Ailbe Psalter and The Ground for Christian Ethics (Waxed Tablet).

Scripture quotations in this article are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, (c) copyright 2001, 2007 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.