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<\/strong>There is a lot of discussion among Christians about morality and obedience to God’s law, and grace, faith, and works. These are very important subjects. Let’s learn what the Bible says about them.<\/p>\nFor by grace you have been saved through faith, and that is not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.<\/em>\u00a0 Ephesians 2:8, 9<\/p>\n Many Christians understand these verses to mean that we are not obligated to keep God’s law – the Ten Commandments – because we are saved by His grace and we don’t need to (and shouldn’t try to) earn or work our way to heaven.<\/p>\n For sin shall not have dominion over you: for you are not under the law, but under grace.\u00a0<\/em> Romans 6:14<\/p>\n This is another verse that is often understood to mean that we don’t have to keep the Ten Commandments. But, what does the very next verse say?<\/p>\n What then? Shall we sin, since we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid.\u00a0<\/em> Romans 6:15<\/p>\n Paul says we shouldn’t sin. How does the Bible define sin?<\/p>\n Whoever commits sin is transgressing the law; for sin is the transgression of the law.<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a01 John 3:4<\/p>\n When we combine the teachings in these verses we learn that God’s grace delivers us from the curse of the law – our death sentence- but not from the obligation to obey that law. Grace is not a license to disobey; rather, it provides a release from condemnation. We are freed from death, which is the final result of sin, but not from obedience to the law.<\/p>\n Truly, I say to you, He that hears my word, and believes on Him that sent me, has everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death to life.<\/em>\u00a0 John 5:24<\/p>\n For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.<\/em>\u00a0 Romans 6:23<\/p>\n Some Christians feel that they only need to have faith in Jesus. \u00a0They base that idea on this verse:<\/p>\n And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved and your house.<\/em>\u00a0 Acts 16:31<\/p>\n But . . .<\/p>\n You believe that there is one God; you do well: the devils also believe and tremble. But will you know, oh vain man, that faith without works is dead?<\/em> James 2:19, 20<\/p>\n Works is whatever we do and say – how we live – as a result of our faith. We do what God wants – good<\/span> works – because we believe and love Him.<\/p>\n By this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says, I know Him, and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a01 John 2:3, 4<\/p>\n If you love me, keep my commandments.<\/em>\u00a0 John 14:15<\/p>\n But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was.<\/em>\u00a0 James 1:22-24<\/p>\n God’s law, the Ten Commandments, is our standard to live by. It is like a mirror, showing us our defects. It doesn’t correct those defects; it only points them out to us.<\/p>\n But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.\u00a0<\/em> James 1:25<\/p>\n In some ways the law is also like an owner’s instruction manual; it tells us how God designed us to live – what we should and shouldn’t do to get the most out of the life He has given us.<\/p>\n Many Christians do recognize the importance of the Ten Commandments as a standard for morality. They feel an obligation to obey God; but their actual practice has an interesting twist to it. They are very conscientious in keeping nine of the ten; but the longest one, the one that has the most specifications, the one that starts with the word Remember<\/u><\/strong> is usually ignored or forgotten or modified. Here is the 4th commandment the way God gave it to us:<\/p>\n Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor the stranger who is within your gates.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0For in six days the LORD made the heavens, the earth, and the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.<\/em>\u00a0 Exodus 20:8-11<\/p>\n Remembering to keep the 7th day, Saturday, as God’s holy Sabbath day is as much a part of His law as the other commands against murder, adultery, etc.<\/p>\n For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0For He who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” Now if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.<\/em>\u00a0 James 2:10-11<\/p>\n Protestants, as a result of the Reformation, claim to have rejected the authority and traditions of the Roman Catholic Church to follow “the Bible and the Bible only”; yet, they have retained one very significant doctrine: Sunday sacredness. The Catholic Church is not hesitant to state that it transferred the sacredness of Saturday to Sunday. Notice the following statements from Catholic sources:<\/p>\n From a Catholic catechism:<\/p>\n “Question: Which is the Sabbath day?<\/p>\n “Answer: Saturday is the Sabbath day.<\/p>\n “Question: Why do we observe Sunday instead of Saturday?<\/p>\n “Answer: We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic church transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday.” (1)<\/p>\n From another catechism:<\/p>\n “Question: Have you any other way of proving that the Church has power to institute festivals of precept?<\/p>\n “Answer: Had she not such power, she could not have done that in which all modern religionists agree with her–she could not have substituted the observance of Sunday the first day of the week, for the observance of Saturday the seventh day, a change for which there is no Scriptural authority.” (2)<\/p>\n There is no statement from God anywhere in the Bible that says the first day of the week is holy instead of the seventh day; so, who is a Christian obeying when he keeps Sunday holy?<\/p>\n And in vain they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.<\/em> Matthew 15:9<\/p>\n When God put Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, He gave them a very specific command:<\/p>\n And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “From every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die.”<\/em> Genesis 2:16-17<\/p>\n Later, Satan came along and told them it didn’t matter what they did; he claimed that they would actually be greatly benefitted if they disobeyed God’s command. (see Genesis 3:1-5) Did God approve of what they did when they obeyed someone else??<\/p>\n God gave us the Sabbath as a sign that He is our God.<\/p>\n Hallow My Sabbaths, and they will be a sign between Me and you, that you may know that I am the LORD your God. \u00a0Ezekiel 20:20<\/em><\/p>\n Who is your God??<\/strong><\/p>\n Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness?<\/em>\u00a0 Romans 6:16<\/p>\n If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on My holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy day of the LORD honorable, and shall honor Him, not doing your own ways, nor finding your own pleasure, nor speaking your own words; then you will delight yourself in the LORD, and I will cause you to ride on the high places of the earth, and feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father. The mouth of the LORD has spoken.<\/em>\u00a0 Isaiah 58:13-14<\/p>\n We are stepping outside of God’s will when we treat with disrespect what He has made holy and try to make something holy that He has not blessed.<\/p>\n Blessed are those who do His commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.<\/em>\u00a0 Revelation 22:14<\/p>\n Endnotes 2. Stephen Keenan, A Doctrinal Catechism (New York: P. J. Kennedy & Sons, third American edition, revised, n.d.), p. 174<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There is a lot of discussion among Christians about morality and obedience to God’s law, and grace, faith, and works. These are very important subjects. Let’s learn what the Bible says about them. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that is not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not … <\/p>\n
\n1. Peter Geiermann, The Convert’s Catechism of Catholic Doctrine (St. Louis: B. Herder Book Co., 1957 edition), p. 50<\/p>\n