Even when God’s Covenant children are disobedient, God is patient,
The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the guilty. Numbers 14:18 …God is patient… 2 Peter 3:9
But, as God explains, his patience will not last forever. Being slow to anger does not mean that God will never get angry. It does not mean that God’s patience will last forever. When God’s patience runs out, when he has allowed men to pursue evil to the end of their rope, God sends his prophets and preachers to remind and warn the people of both the Covenantal blessings for obedience and the curses for disobedience. Leviticus 26, Deuteronomy 28-29, Revelation 2:5
Nevertheless, the great Covenant promise of God remains.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:9
Leviticus 26:40 “‘If they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers, in their trespass which they trespassed against me; and also that because they walked contrary to me, 41 I also walked contrary to them, and brought them into the land of their enemies; if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled, and they then accept the punishment of their iniquity, 42 then I will remember my covenant with Jacob, my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham; and I will remember the land. 43 The land also will be left by them, and will enjoy its Sabbaths while it lies desolate without them; and they will accept the punishment of their iniquity because they rejected my ordinances, and their soul abhorred my statutes. 44 Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly and to break my covenant with them; for I am Yahweh their God. 45 But I will for their sake remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God. I am Yahweh.’”
46 These are the statutes, ordinances, and laws, which Yahweh made between him and the children of Israel in Mount Sinai by Moses.
Although this has been largely forgotten, according to the Bible the Law has three functions.
The first function of the Law is to show us our inability to keep the law. We all, in one way or another, have a distorted self-conception. Because we are adept at self-deception we think we are pretty good people. The Law of God destroys the myth that we can be good enough to come to God on the basis of our obedience. The Law points out our sins, the sins we rationalize away or overlook. Paul noted that it is impossible for us to be righteous. We cannot keep the Law of God. Honestly looking at the Law exposes our inability to be righteous. Philippians 3:9. As Augustine observed:
The law bids us – as we try to fulfill its requirements, and we become wreaked in our weakness under it – to know how to ask the help of grace. (The Fathers of the Church, Catholic University)
Most people live under the false impression that, no matter how they live their lives, they are good enough to earn their way into heaven. In fact, that is the presumption of every religion; if you live right you deserve paradise. But because the Law reveals that no one can earn their way into heaven by good works, people recoil at hearing the Law.
Although this is almost universally ignored in the church today, historically, the Law and Gospel were preached together in the weekly worship services. By pointing out our sin, hearing the requirements of the Law strips us of the false idea that we can be good enough to earn our way to God. Having been stripped of our false assurance we understand that our only hope is to be found in the Gospel; Christ’s offer of free grace represented in the Old Covenant by the sacrifice of the unblemished lamb. The Law is our tutor leading us to Christ. Galatians 3:24
I do not know when I am more perfectly happy than when I am weeping for sin at the foot of the cross… The fear of God is the death of every other fear; like a mighty lion it chases all other fears before it. (C.H. Spurgeon, sermon number 3273, ccel.org)
This dynamic is clearly seen in Nehemiah 8. As all of Israel was gathered for worship at the Water Gate, the Book of the Law was then placed on a lectern and read aloud to the nation. In hearing God’s Word, the people wept in despair. The hammer of the Law was crushing them. The Law exposed their sins and they grieved, fearing the sure punishment of God. After hearing the Law, as they wept, the priests taught the people how to prepare for the Day of Atonement, the day when the scapegoat would be driven into the wilderness taking away their sins. Because of the sacrifice of Christ, the Lamb of God, represented by the Old Covenant sacrificial lamb, the righteousness of Christ was imputed to the people. The priests announced, “Do not mourn or weep or grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.” Nehemiah 8:10
The law exposes our sin and shame so that in confession of our sins and shame we might find forgiveness and joy through Christ.
The second function of the Law is to restrain evil in the world. God is realistic. Because he knows that people will break the Law he designed a system that punishes lawbreakers so that people will either refrain from the evil that they devise or they will be punished to both experience the consequences of their behavior and protect the community. You would not want to live in a society where murderers, thieves, and other lawless people were not apprehended and brought to justice. You and your family could not be safe and the society would collapse — businesses would close, homes would be destroyed, cities would be abandoned. The civil code and the sure threat of punishment inhibits lawlessness, making civilization possible. Romans 13:1-7. This is why God will not be patient with Law- breakers and unbelieving nations indefinitely. He judges all people and all nations for their unrighteousness.
The Law is foundational, making civilization possible.
The third function of the Law reveals God’s Holy character. The Law shows us what the love of God looks like. Today it is popularly believed that “love is love”, meaning that love can be whatever today’s sexual anarchists want it to mean. Anything called love is valid and is to be celebrated. In stark contrast, the Scriptures teach that God is love. 1 John 4:8
What is the difference?
Realizing that we have been saved by grace alone because of the sacrificial death of Christ standing in our place, and understanding that we have been adopted as children into God’s family, we look in gratitude toward our Creator and Savior. And, in so doing, we come to understand that the Law is what the love of God looks like. The Christian is freed from the Law as a means of salvation. We no longer believe in ‘works righteousness.’ We cannot earn our way into God’s family. Instead we have been made a child of God by grace. Because we are created in God’s image, we come to realize that living out the Law fulfills our deepest longings. It is who we were made to be. It is how we were wired.
The Gospel is not a new law.
It is not a code of morals or ethics.
It is not a creed to be accepted.
It is not a system of religion to be adhered to.
It is not good advice to be followed.
The Gospel is the Divinely given message concerning the Son of God, Jesus Christ our Lord.
(H.A. Ironside, Lectures on the Epistle to the Romans, Solidchristianbooks)
To put this another way, as to the first function of the Law, every single Christian became a Christian in the same way, justified, freed from the death penalty that their sin deserved. Freed through the perfect obedience of Christ. We all stood before God condemned, unable to offer anything to redeem ourselves. We were shown that our best works are like filthy rags. Isaiah 64:6. Our faith is an undeserved gift. We have no grounds for boasting. Ephesians 2:9. We were all in the same boat and it was sinking before God imputed the righteousness of Christ to our account. This is called Justification.
However, the third function of the Law is a different story. While Justification is exactly the same for every Christian, Sanctification by the Holy Spirit, the process of being freed from the power of sin, being transformed into Christ’s image, and taking on the traits of the family, God’s family, that we have been adopted into, varies from Christian to Christian. Sanctification is a halting and struggling process as we all wrestle to varying degrees and with varying success with our old sinful nature and old habits, as we unlearn and discard destructive thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors and imitate the ways of Christ. Ephesians 5:1
Now what is salvation? Some people think that it means being saved from going down to hell. That is the result of salvation; but salvation means being saved from the power of sin, and being saved from the tendency to sin, as well as being saved from the punishment of sin. (C.H. Spurgeon, Spurgeon’s Sermons Volume 46)
In Christ we have been provided the double cure. By God’s unsearchable grace we are saved from the wrath of God’s judgment by Christ’s sacrifice for us; the wrath of The Day of the Lord. And now, the Holy Spirit works in our lives to remake and restore us in Sanctification, as we cling to our Rock and Savior. In the words of the hymn, Rock of Ages, written by Augustus Toplady in 1763:
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee;
Let the water and the blood,
From Thy riven side which flowed,
Be of sin the double cure,
Save from wrath and make me pure.
The picture of the long-awaited Lamb of God first shown to us in the sacrifice in Genesis 3:21 and described in detail in Leviticus has been fulfilled in Christ. His once-or-all-time, sacrifice on our behalf, Revelation 13:8, is the only means of our Justification.
Christ explained to his disciples that after He went to heaven God would send the Holy Spirit to live within His followers: And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you for ever. John 14:16
And according to the Apostle Peter, that is exactly what happened in fulfillment of the Day of Pentecost. God poured out His Spirit on all flesh, Acts 2:17, the means of our Sanctification.
So salvation is more than having your sins forgiven, it is more than Justification. Salvation is also includes Sanctification. Through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit you are putting on the new self, created for righteousness and holiness in the truth. Ephesians 2:24. Our lives, our old destructive habits, the sins that we cling to, those things that could never give us satisfaction begin to change, losing their appeal.
There are many forces in the world today that are trying to divide people and drive people apart on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, politics, religion, education, economics, and much, much more. The last thing that Satan wants is for the people of the nations to unite under the banner of Christ. Satan strives to keep people divided by hostilities, suspicion, jealousy, and recrimination. In contrast, God paints a beautiful picture — people serving the true God shoulder to shoulder. Zephaniah 3:9. Paul asks the nations to:
Remember that at that time you were separate from Christ and excluded from citizenship in Israel. Foreigners to the Covenants of the Promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who were once far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ… [He] has made the two groups one having destroyed the dividing wall of hostility… He put to death their hostility… We are no longer foreigners and strangers, but instead are fellow citizens within the household. Ephesians 1:12-19
Christ has granted citizenship to the people of all nations. Christians, regardless of nation, or race, or ethnicity, are no longer strangers. The hostility of all artificial divisions is now melting away in Christ. Christians are in one household, one family, fellow citizens with Christ. We who were once strangers now love each other in Christ as brothers and sisters. 1 John 3:14-16. We are devoted to each other. Romans 12:10. We consider how to encourage each other in kindness, love, and good works. Hebrews 10:24
Not only will God unite the peoples of all the scattered nations into His Kingdom, He will remove their shame from them. The shame they experienced for all of their sinful, prideful, idolatrous deeds will be removed.
Where once there was shame for the wicked deeds done in darkness, Ephesians 5:11, God has granted forgiveness through Christ. Not only are our sins forgiven, as far as the east is from the west, so far are our sins removed from us, Psalm 103:12, and not only are we a new creation, 2 Corinthians 5:17, no longer captive to our old sins, habits and attitudes, but God has also removed our shame — the shame we feel for our former sins, failings, deeds, attitudes, shortcomings, and rebellion.
In that day you will feel no shame
Because of all your deeds
By which you have rebelled against Me;
For then I will remove from your midst
Your proud, exulting ones,
And you will never again be haughty
On My holy mountain. Zephaniah 3:11
Shame is a grace of God that leads to true repentance. When we proudly and shamelessly walk in our sins it is by the grace of God when He wakes us up through rebuke, discipline, abandonment, Romans 1:24, and at times mocking, to help us see the utter wickedness of the sins we, in deceit, embrace. The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord taunts them. Psalm 2:4
Our sins have been atoned for. We have been given new hearts. We are freed from shame. We have been enfolded into a loving and accepting community of believers who have been forgiven, made new, and freed from shameful sins.