like as we are tempted, and yet our blessed Saviour was, and is, without sin. Not only was He tempted and re frained from transgression, but He has paid the price of the judgment of God upon the sins of us all. Peter says, “Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto right eousness . . .” Set before us are the Ten Command ments, God’s perfect standards — they must be faced squarely! Our Lord has taken each Commandment, except one, and has set it on an even higher moral plane as recorded in the Gospels. Our blessed Saviour expects no less, of Us who are living under Grace than was expected of the Children of Israel who lived under the Law. The law of God is not obsolescent or out of date. There is good cause for its existence today. First, it provides man with God’s per fect standard of righteousness. Second, it exposes and identifies sin in our lives. Third, it reveals the divine holiness of Almighty God. The Law is a mirror of truth given that we might see ourselves as we real ly are. Recently I was talking with an artist who kindly showed me some of his sketches. He came to one which I recognized as a self-portrait. He de lightedly said, “Do you know you’re one of the first people to recognize me. My wife says it doesn’t look like me a bit!” I asked, “Tell me how you made the self portrait?” He smiled and said, “Well, I sat down one day and looked into a mirror and painted what I saw and can’t understand why my wife doesn’t think it looks like me.” I ven ture to say that when we look at ourselves in a mirror, we see ourselves as we think or want others to see us. Our imperfections are not readily dis- cernable. No one would buy a mirror at which he couldn’t smile politely and see himself as he wants or expects oth ers to see him. But the mirror of God’s law only, and rightly, reveals to us the stain, the vileness, the guilt, and the bent of our own lives to sinning. One of the best definitions of this is the majestic statement, “Sin is any 4
Beacon of Truth (continued) This magnanimous document totaled 26,911 words. Yes, truly, that which is most significant and important is set down in but few words. While there are some 35,000 laws on the statute books of our land, none, individually or put together collective ly, are as all-inclusive and encompass ing as is God’s Decalogue given in Ex odus the 20th chapter, and repeated for the Children of Israel in the Book of Deuteronomy. In my early days of Christian testimony, I remember hear ing one well-known evangelist speak ing on the subject of the Ten Command ments. Because of some of my own pre-conceived ideas and interests, I thought to myself — this man is trying to get Christians to live under the Law, he is not teaching salvation by Grace. This is a legal means of reconciliation which is impossible, of course. Yet, while written to the Children of Israel as they launched their journey through the wilderness, we must realize that the Ten Commandments are cer tainly a part of the “all Scripture” which God has given to us. In Romans 3:20 we read, “. . . by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified . . .” Reading two verses further we come face to face with the succinct state ment on man’s hopeless condition for, “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God!” When the Lord Jesus Christ was here on earth, at the start of His ministry, He made it very plain that He had not come to abolish the Decalogue. In Matthew 5:17 He declared, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law or prophets; I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.” How does one fulfil the law? It is done in one of two ways: either we keep the law entirely blameless, or we must pay the price of judgment for failure to keep it. All of us fall into the second catagory, for we have all sinned. Jesus Christ did both of these things in fulfillment. First of all, He kept the law blamelessly, impeccably—there was no sin in Him whatsoever. The Bible says He was tempted in all points
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