It ought to occur to any Christian, that there is an inherent contradiction between believing on Jesus Christ, and also teaching not to keep His law, as though that were a sin and unjustified with Christ. Some Christians do teach it is a sin to even try to keep His law.
How can keeping and doing the law of God possibly be a sin? Isn't keeping the law perfectly what made Jesus the acceptable sacrifice to God and propitiation for the sins of the whole world?
How then can Paul be teaching against doing the works of the law, as though it were a sin to do so. And yet he preaches Jesus Christ as Saviour of all the world, by keeping the law righteously unto death? That would accuse Jesus of being the biggest of sinners, and saving men from keeping the law of God. And that is what some Christians preach, that He saves us from our sinning by saving us from God's law and keeping it.
And so we see in the Bible, how it's not the works of the law themselves that are sinful, but rather only keeping the law outwardly, while being inwardly filthy without the faith and love of God in the heart. (Titus 3:5) Jesus comes to purify the heart first, that our keeping of His law may be judged by God as doing His righteousness.
Christians are called upon by God to fulfill His law righteously, by first being purified and sanctified inwardly through the circumcision of Christ's Spirit.
For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinners in the flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
We don't fulfill the righteousness of the law by not keeping and transgressing it. The 'righteousness of the law' is not to justify us by not keeping the law. We don't fulfill the righteousness of Jesus Christ through faith, by transgressing His own law. God did not send His law first, and then send His own Son to keep it and then do away with it. Jesus did not keep the law of God perfectly, so that He could kill it on the cross.
Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.
Nothing Jesus said could be any clearer in response to them that hate the law of the Lord, and love doing unrighteousness rather than doing the righteousness of God, to the Jew first and now the Christian. Jesus does not come to destroy His own law.
Having sent His Son in the flesh, God now commands all men to repent in the spirit and in the flesh (2 Cor 7:1), to now be inwardly pure as Jesus was while doing the things of His law as He did. He commanded His people the same in the OT to circumcise the foreskin of our hearts, but the law alone in stone was weak to accomplish it. It shows that keeping the law outwardly alone can purify the life, but does not purify the heart. (Heb 9:13-14)
God does not command anyone not to keep His own law. He does not judge any man guilty in works by doing His own law, as though His law were sinful.
Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.
The only Christians that teach keeping the law is sinful, is because they don't want their own works to be judged as unrighteous transgression of it. They don't want and objective righteous law to judge their works, nor to be accountable in works with God nor man. They want God to do away with His law entirely by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross. They even teach the law of God is dead, like those of the world who have said God is dead.
Neither in the OT nor the NT is any man excused from keeping God's law, and certainly not justified by transgressing it.
He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses: Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?
The only difference between Christians and Jews, is that we are now justified by doing the works of the law from a pure heart of Christ.
Many were judged blameless in the law of God beginning with Abraham and concluding with Jesus, but Jesus was the only man acceptable to God and justified to be the propitiation for the sins of the whole world. He is justified to be the Lamb of God for the whole world, precisely because He did ket the law from His youth up, and with a pure heart uncorrupted by the lust of the world.
That is now what Jesus comes to do for them that would keep the law of God righteously, and be justified freely by Him through faith in Jesus.
Another difference in keeping the law of God in the NT as opposed to the Old, is that now we do the law of Christ written by His apostles, rather than the law of Christ written by Moses.
And the greatest difference between the law that of Moses and the law of Christ, is that the law of Christ is now both inward and outward in works. It's the law of the Spirit that we can now obey and first be pure within, that we may also walk after the Spirit with pure works of God's righteousness.
Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also.
Neither Jesus nor His prophets nor His apostles ever commands any man to not keep the law of God. That is a ridiculous proposition taught by some Christians, that rebel against being 'bound' by commandment of God to keep and do His law and righteousness.
Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision.
The risen Lord and God of Israel sits on His throne in utter derision of any Christian gospel, that declares keeping His law is a sin, and that the works of His law are sinful and have nothing to do with being justified by Him.
The One who kept the law in all points to become the Lamb of God for all men, cannot possibly be telling all men not to keep His law in any point.
The Bible says the opposite, that we ought to keep His law in all points, and so walk as He walked on earth.
If ye fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well: But if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors. For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.
