50. If You Think You Can Keep God's Law, You've Watered It Down

There are many people who say that as believers in Christ we are to keep God's law, including the Ten Commandments and many other Old Testament laws and commandments. In this podcast, I make a bold statement: God's law is not doable, and anybody who thinks they can actually keep God's law has watered it down to a point that may seem doable to them.  They have effectively changed God's law, making it into something that is not!

You see, the standard of God's law is not just that you "do your best" or "try hard" to keep it or parts of it, but rather than you keep it perfectly - and not just some laws, but all of it, in its entirety. You must keep it perfectly. So if you think you can actually keep the law, or even "do your best" to keep it, you've watered it down into something that it's not.

I encourage you to accept God's free gift of righteousness, that comes by grace, through faith, apart from His law, and give yourself over to His life in you, rather than making it about your own efforts.


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43. Jesus Is the Guarantee That We're Saved to the Uttermost

A few podcasts ago I talked about how our promises are no guarantee, but God's promise is. The oath that God made to Himself, written about in Hebrews 6, is where our hope lies. It's a hope we can cling to with certainty! Hebrews 7 brings up the oath again, after showing how the Law was "weak" and "unprofitable," and it could make nothing perfect, so therefore it was "annulled." Something better came along, based upon God's oath rather than being based upon the repeated sacrifices of the law or our works. This oath makes "Jesus guarantor of a better covenant." (Heb 7:22). There had formerly been a ministry of mortal priests, offering sacrifices day after day, which could never make anyone perfect. But through the one offering of Jesus, who lives forever, all our sins have been taken away and we have been perfected forever.


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42. The Power of an Endless Life: Jesus Perfects Us Forever

Under the Old Covenant, there was priest after priest after priest who continually offered sacrifice after sacrifice after sacrifice - all of which could never do a thing to make anyone perfect! The reason many priests were needed is because they were prevented by death from continuing on. So no perfection could come from the Levitical Priesthood.

One reason the New Covenant is different - and better - and in fact does away with the Old Covenant, is because the Priesthood is "according to the power of an endless life," referring of course to the life of Jesus.  While no one could be made perfect or right through the many sacrifices performed under the Old Covenant Levitical priesthood, through the one perfect sacrifice of Jesus we have been perfected forever.


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