Many people read the Bible a bit selfishly…as if it were fundamentally all about us: our improvement, our life, our victory, our faith, our holiness, our godliness. We treat it like a disconnected series of timeless principles that will give us our best life now if we simply apply them. We read it as if it were a heaven-sent self-help manual including a divinely delivered “do not do” list. But by reading the Bible this way, we risk missing the whole point. Unless we stay focused on Jesus, even devout Bible reading can become fuel for our own self-absorbed self-improvement plans. God’s goal in speaking to us in the Bible is profound. We can say that all of God’s Word comes to us lined up under two key Words:  the Law and the Gospel.

The Law is given because we need to be reminded that there is something to be forgiven even when we are doing our best works and during our proudest achievements. The Gospel comes to tell us of God’s grace which says again and again that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

     The Law is God’s word of demand, and the gospel is God’s word of deliverance. The Law tells us what to do, while the Gospel tells us what God has done. The law can crush us, but not cure us. The Law can kill us, but not make us alive. The Law can defeat us, but not deliver us. The Law illuminates sin, but is powerless to eliminate sin. The Law points to righteousness, but can’t produce it. Nobody can live up to the Law, and nothing but the grace of God can take away our sin.” The Law is God’s first word, but the Gospel is God’s final word. The Law forces us to face our sin, but only the Gospel can forgive us our sin. The Law accuses us, while the Gospel acquits us. The Law exposes, but only the Gospel exonerates. The Law may curtail bad behavior, but only Grace can transform the heart of the behaver.

What if we keep the Ten Commandments, though? A low view of the Law makes us think that its standards are attainable, its goals reachable, its demands doable. A high view of the Law, however, demolishes all such confidence.  Only an inflexible picture of what God demands reveals the depth of our ongoing need for the Gospel.
     Only when we see that the way of God’s law is absolutely inflexible will we see that God’s grace is absolutely indispensable. A high view of the Law reminds us that God accepts us on the basis of Christ’s perfection, not our progress. A high view of the Law produces a high view of Grace. A low view of the law produces a low view of grace. God’s good Law reveals our desperation; God’s good Gospel reveals our deliverer. If “Law” was the final word of God– if the Bible were basically a book of instructions– we would be doomed. Jesus announced that He came not to abolish the Law but to fulfill it, and He did. The Bible is one long story of God meeting our rebellion with His rescue, our sin with His salvation, our guilt with His Grace. The overwhelming focus of the Bible is not the works of the redeemed but the work of the Redeemer. The primary message of the Bible is this: The law-maker became the law-keeper and died for me, the law-breaker!  Glory to God!   (adapted from CT Online)