Psalm 130:3 

“If you, LORD, kept a record of sins, Lord, who could stand?”

Romans 3:23 

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

What place do the Ten Commandments have in our lives today? After all, in the Old Testament, we read that God gave Moses the law and insisted that His people follow it to the letter. They couldn’t, of course, which is why God allowed sacrifices to cleanse them of sin. Later in the New Testament, it almost seems like Paul dismisses God’s old rules. So why did God give the law in the first place?

There are two answers to that question. The first reason God gave the law is to show His standard. God is Holy – He is without sin – and to be with Him, we must be spotless too. So what does it mean to be spotless? God shows us that in the Ten Commandments – they are the standard of perfection. Jesus taught us how to apply these commandments DEEPLY in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7. God cares what we do – His standard should always be our aim!

The second reason God gave the law, however, was to demonstrate how futile our efforts are to reach the perfection it requires – His standard is our aim, but we’ll never get there on this side of heaven. The law is like a mirror, which means that it shows us the truth. It can’t cleanse us, but it can reveal our imperfections. God gave the law so that we can see just how much we need a Savior.

Read Matthew 5:21-30. What did Jesus reveal about God’s standard?