Old Testament law and Christians.

I thought this Q & A was worth posting - from The Plain Truth weekly update newsletter:

Q. In the November 26 PTM Update you said, "The law fails to bring righteousness and holiness. Righteousness and holiness can only be imputed, by grace; produced by the indwelling of our Lord and Savior. No human or group of humans, no law or combination of laws, produces holiness. It never has and never will."

Could you expound on the value of the Old Testament law as David expressed it in Psalm 119, (and others). I feel like there must be a balance in our attitude toward it, not of course to procure or complete salvation but David seems to have a perspective that I would like to have. Thanks.

A. Before beginning, let me explain that my immediate response is not hostile, but designed to ask you for further input, and hopefully to inspire you to further thinking and study. What kind of "balance" about the OT law do you propose? When reading any passage in the Bible, Christians always "balance" their understanding of that passage with a Christ-centered perspective. All that we know of God, as Christians, all that we experience, is based in Christ. Anything that happened before the cross of Christ must be read in a Christ-centered perspective -- i.e.. the individuals and the values they espoused were before the cross, and while there is much prophetic material in the Old Testament that is Messianic (pointing toward Messiah), it does not diminish or modify Jesus. For those of us who live after the cross -- in our case almost 2,000 years after -- our reading of Scripture always keeps in mind the fact that religion, with its traditions, legalisms, ceremonies, rituals and practices may have taken us off the path of a Christ-centered perspective -- so we too are looking for an authentic Christ-centered view of Scripture.

What did David mean about the law? He meant what all those in the old covenant understood -- that the law was the foundation of their relationship with God. What does the cross of Christ, and his victorious resurrection teach Christians? That Jesus is the basis of our relationship with God, and he gave us new commandments -- commandments which he will live in our lives if we accept him.

What good is the law of the old covenant? Does it save us? No, Jesus saves us. Jesus alone, without any help from the law -- the law of the old covenant, of the new covenant -- any law. What good is the law? The law leads us to Christ. The law shows us that we are dead meat/road kill -- without Christ. The law -- any law -- shows us that we are imperfect, that we are unable to be good enough for God on the basis of our own internal character and ability to perform. The law thus leads us to the place that we yield to Jesus, who does for us what we can never do for ourselves.

Is the law of the old covenant a "balance" in the life of a Christian? No, authentic Christianity is based on faith alone, grace alone and Christ alone. The law of the old covenant -- all of it -- is irrelevant for Christians. We live by faith in Jesus, who died and gave himself for us, that we might be in him, because of the blood of the new covenant. The New Testament tells us the life that Jesus will produce in us as we yield to him -- it will be a moral life, but it will not be produced because of morals. Morals don't produce Jesus -- it's the other way around. Jesus produces morals.One can be a good moral atheist, Buddhist or Moslem -- "better" morally than some professing Christians -- but not "have" Jesus. If we are in Jesus, and he is in us, then we will be moral -- law-abiding -- but we will be that way because of him, not because of our own efforts in building character.

Christianity is all about Jesus -- whereas religion, including any counterfeit of authentic Christianity, is all about the individual and how hard he/she works to please God.