The Better Hope

If the promises of God are ever going to be realized, the keeping of the Mosaic Law is not the way. Basically, the law says, “Mess with me, and you’re toast.”

No one can live a perfect life (Romans 3:10-12), and that is the type of life the law demands from beginning to end. If you break one command, you’ve broken them all. “For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all” (James 2:10).

Therefore, if the promises of God, especially that of salvation is based upon the keeping of the commandments, no one will inherit them, not even one. And so what the law does is make faith irrelevant.

The problem with the law is that it only makes us guilty before a holy and righteous God and thus unable to enter into God’s promise of salvation. The law also keeps man tied up in knots, always worrying whether or not he has done enough.

The writer of Hebrews makes this observation, “For the law made nothing perfect, and now a better hope has taken its place. And that is how we draw near to God” (Hebrews 7:19).

The promises of God are not based upon the law, but upon faith.

As it applies to our salvation, the Apostle Paul said, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).

Paul also said, “Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all” (Romans 4:16).

The better hope; is our faith in Jesus Christ and His sacrifice for sins as promised by God, not in the keeping of the Law.