Why God Gave Us The Law

You cannot single out the commandments which you think are important and say, “I’ll keep those, and the others I won’t.” You’ve got to keep every commandment all the time, or the law is of no benefit to you as a means of achieving righteousness. In fact, the natural mind of man can only think of one way of achieving righteousness, which is keeping a law. But then the Bible goes on to say that, in actual fact, nobody ever succeeds.

Then you might argue, “Well, why did God give the law of Moses?” And Paul says one of the results of the law is it shows us we’re sinners.

It doesn’t make us righteous, but it shows us we need to be saved. The law was actually never given by God to make anybody righteous. One of its main purposes was to show us we need to be saved. Another main purpose was to show us that we can’t save ourselves. And another purpose was to foreshadow and predict the Savior who would be able to save us.