Moses or Jesus?

John 1:17

For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

The law was given by God to Moses for God’s people. The law was given in decrees, commands, instructions, and statues. The law showed the character of God and the way the people of God were to relate to Him and how they were to relate to each other and how they were to relate to the world. It showed the people of God how they were to live.

Having heard from the Lord amidst the fire, smoke, and thunder, Moses went down from the mountain and shared all the law with the people. The law was written down so that it was visible and available to all.

We tend to think of the law in terms of the Ten Commandments only. In fact, it was comprised of regulations for worship, instructions on legal matters, principles for society, edicts for sexual conduct and much more.

The law was not based on relationship but on obedience. The Law was not negotiable. God expected unconditional obedience. Those who obeyed were blessed and those who disobeyed were punished. In the book of Leviticus, the penalties for breaking the law are laid out and they are not pretty.

The law is much more than just a set of restrictions – it gives guidance about the destructiveness of sin and it highlights habits leading to contentment and joy.

The purpose of the law was to reveal to God’s people their inability to perfectly follow the law. It was to lead them to their need for a savior.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is knowing we are not perfectly following the law and to look to Jesus as our Savior.

The people of God got prideful and thought, because God had chosen them as His people and given them the law, that it was through knowing the law and following the law that they were made right with God. The problem is that no human can keep the law of God perfectly and that was what it took for the law to make you right with God.

In James 2:10-11 we are told that if we keep all the law but one part, we have broken the law and are law breakers.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is acknowledging that when we break one small part of the law, we have broken the law and are law breakers.

The law outlined a system of sacrifices. These sacrifices were what maintained a right standing with God. These sacrifices did not have the power to remove the penalty, they could only temporarily cover the sin.

These sacrifices were only a shadow of the superior sacrifice Jesus made when He came to the earth and redeemed us through His death on the cross.

In the John 1:17, it says that grace and truth came through Jesus.

Grace came when Jesus fulfilled the law by perfectly obeying the law, then giving us that fulfillment when we surrender our lives to Him as our Savior and Lord.

Truth came when Jesus shed His blood and gave His life to remove our sins and their penalty.

In Jesus’ death on the cross, Jesus set aside the first way and paved a new way by providing the perfect, ultimate sacrifice for sin for all. People are made holy through faith in Jesus and His sacrifice and resurrection.

Hebrews 10:1-4

The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming – not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. Otherwise, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshippers would have been cleansed once for all, and would longer have felt the guilt for their sins. But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins. It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

Just as the law cannot make a person righteous, the sacrificing of animals cannot take away a person’s sins.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is depending solely on the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross to free us from our sin.

The law and the sacrificial system point to the truth that only through Jesus can we experience forgiveness of sin and the reality of being righteous.

The law brings death.

The grace of Jesus brings life.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is choosing life through the grace of Jesus.

Through Jesus, Not the Law, Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,

                                                    Joe