How Does God's Law Apply to Me? (Crucial Questions)

by R.C. Sproul

Christianity and Judaism assert that there is an absolute standard. What is right and what is wrong is not a matter of relativity. Instead, the ultimate standard is the character of God, and this character is manifested in His law.

The mirror of the law of God is bad news, but until we look at ourselves in it, we will never understand the goodness of the good news.

If the only reason we obey the law is out of fear of punishment or dread of the consequences, and not because our hearts are inclined to please God, we are no better in the sight of God than the person who, with reckless abandon, violates His standards and His law.

We as believers are to imitate Jesus’ zeal for pleasing the Father. And there is no better place to learn what is pleasing to God and what He wants His people to do than by looking in His law.

work for the well-being of all human life.

the four elements that belong to God exclusively, according to Calvin, are adoration, trust, invocation, and thanksgiving.

worship means ascribing to Him the honor and glory due His name.

idolatry takes place when any attribute of God is stripped from His glory, and we replace the biblical God with a god that we create in our own image.

The true God is the God who reveals Himself in sacred Scripture.

One way this lack of gratitude manifests itself is when we murmur and complain about our situation in this world.

The heart of the matter of the second commandment is basically the same as that of the first commandment: we are to honor God as He is, not making any substitute that would direct or deflect our attention and worship away from Him.

By implication, the second commandment is also a prohibition against superstition. Idolatry and superstition often go hand in hand because people begin to impart the power of magic to elements of the created order. The Old Testament law clearly shows how important it is to God that His people not be involved in superstition.

the command means that God’s name is sacred and not to be treated in a cavalier or trivial manner, but rather in a careful and guarded way.

when we swear by things that are less than God, we attribute to those things the very power of God Himself.

Oaths are to be taken in the name of God if they are to be legitimate because the swearing of lawful vows and oaths is in itself an act of worship.

Another idiom in the Bible is the phrase “It is written.” It does not refer simply to a statement that appears in print somewhere. Rather, to the Jew, the phrase meant that something had been written in a specific place—namely, in the Scriptures. For an Old Testament Jew to say, “It is written,” was the equivalent of a Christian’s saying, “The Bible says.”

The deepest sense of the sixth commandment means that we should do everything in our power to protect, preserve, maintain, and honor the lives of our neighbors.

Because human beings are made in God’s image, regard for the sanctity of human life must be chief in our minds. Before we pick up a gun to shoot someone, use an electric chair to execute someone, or pick up a scalpel to destroy an emerging human being, we had better know that we are right to do so.