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The Bible Says
-- by Rev. A. B. Simpson Dr. A. B. Simpson was still alive and in active ministry, during the early years of my life. He was a highly trained Presbyterian Minister who was greatly used of God. Not only was he a successful pastor, serving the same large church during his entire career; he wrote many books and songs; edited a weekly magazine; and formed the largest missionary organization the world has ever known. Why was God able to use this man in such a remarkable way? Because he chose to make Jesus his one and only theme.Nearly two thousand years ago the great Apostle Paul arrived at the same decision and cinched it with this profound statement: ”For I determined not to know anything among you, brethren, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified” (II Corinthians 2:2). Paul grew up in a devout Jewish family who believed in strict adherence to the Law of Moses. Now God had called him to minister to the non-Jewish world, whose moral and religious standards were as loose as those of our present-day world. Consider what would have happened had he ceased to preach redemption through Christ, and had decided to change the world through reformation, politics or higher education? Suppose he had been successful and was able to raise the moral standards of the entire world? What then? All the people on earth would still be lost and bound for a lost eternity! God’s New Testament plan was clearly set forth in the life and public ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ. On one occasion a wealthy young man came to Jesus with the important question, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” (Mark 10:17). Jesus said to him, “You are a Jew, you should know the answer, keep the Commandments.” The man said, “I have always done that, what more can I do?” Jesus said in effect, “You have not kept the Commandments. If you loved your poor neighbors as you love yourself, you would share some of your money with them. Don’t tell me you are keeping the Ten Commandments!” That young man had two serious problems.
He based his salvation on the keeping of the law, and he wasn’t keeping the law. He was not alone in this: the only man who ever kept the law perfectly is the Lord Jesus Christ and He was the divine Son of God (See Acts 15:10).
Throughout the ages, men have wanted to do something in order to win favor with God, but men are not fitted for Heaven by a “do or don’t” religion. In Acts 15 some of the leaders of the early church were still hung up on this problem. They thought Gentiles must first become Jews, in order to be saved. Peter then declared that the Jewish religion never worked in the first place, and all we need is simple faith in Christ.
“So the apostles and elders came together to consider the matter. And when there had been much dispute, Peter rose up and said to them: ‘Men and brethren, you know that a good while ago God chose among us, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. So God who knows the heart, acknowledged them; by giving them the Holy Spirit just as He did to us, and made no distinction between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith. “Now therefore, why do you test God by putting a yoke, (the law) on the neck of the disciples which neither we nor our fathers were able to bear?’ “But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved in the same manner as they. (Acts 15:6-12 NJKB). Emphasis added.
We now have the Ten Commandments conspicuously displayed on our front lawn. They are not there as a means of salvation, but as a reminder that those commandments constitute a direct message from the heart of God to the entire human race “ . . . Two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God.”(Ex. 31:18). They represent the high moral standards God has a right to expect in the lives of every single human being. It would have been man’s nature to live on this high plane had he not abandoned the perfect life with which he was created and thus received a sinful nature. Because of God’s great love for man, He gave His own beloved Son to replace the first Adam who sinned with a second Adam without sin (I Peter 2:22), and permitted Him to die in our stead on the Cross of Calvary. In the New Jerusalem all will keep the law of God because man’s perfect nature will then be restored (Rev. 22:3). God knew that sinful man could not keep His perfect law, but he gave the Ten Commandments to prove to man how sinful the human heart is and man’s tremendous need of a Savior (Galatians 3:24).
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