Works or Faith?

How many laws or commandments are there in the Bible?

Your initial reaction is to say there are 10 commandments.

This is technically correct since God gave Moses his 10 commandments written upon tablets of stone.

However, there are may more commandments that God gave the people of Israel.

On the screen we have Moshe Maimonides.

He was a Rabbi that died in the year 1,204.

He studied the Old Testament and came up with a list of 613 commandments.

Here is a sampling of some of a few of these 613 commandments:

Love God, Deuteronomy 6:4

Do not embarrass other people, Leviticus 19:17

Do not cast magic spells, Deuteronomy 18:11

Bless God after a meal, Deuteronomy 8:10

Let me ask you another question, “How many commandments do we need to keep in order to be saved?”

This is a very bad question because there is actually no answer.

There is not a good answer to this question.

The problem with this question is that it forgets one very important truth taught in the Bible:

Santiago 2:10 NIV

10 For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.

Sooner or later, we will break God’s commandments.

If we keep 612 commandments, but break 1, it is as if we have broken all 613 commandments.

If we break God’s law, then we cannot be saved and must face the consequences for breaking God’s law.

Therefore, we cannot be saved based on what we do.

It does not matter how many good works we do, or how many commandments we have kept - we cannot be saved on this basis because sooner or later we will break one of God’s commandments.

There was a group in the early church that started teaching gentile (non-Jewish) christians that in order to be saved, you had to believe in Jesus but also had to be circumcised and observe the commandments.

Hechos de los Apóstoles 15:1 (NIV)

“Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved.”

Hechos de los Apóstoles 15:5 (NIV)

“The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to keep the law of Moses.”

So, in their minds in order to be saved you must:

Believe in Jesus + be circumcised + keep the law of Moses

Just imagine if this is what God required of us?

If these are the conditions by which God saves people, is there any hope for us?

NO!

This message offers no hope for salvation because there is no one that can keep God’s law; sooner or later we will be tempted to lie, to be angry without cause, to cheat, etc.

It is for this reason that we praise God for the true Gospel of Jesus Christ.

God’s message to humanity is that you must believe in Jesus and trust in him for salvation.

There is nothing we can do to earn God’s salvation because if this where the case; we would find ourselves incapable of obeying all 613 commandments.

Romanos 3:28 NIV

28 For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.

As christian believers, we know that if we sin we can go to God and ask for forgiveness, and we can trust that he will be faithful to forgive - because we are not saved on the basis of our good works but on the basis of what Jesus did on the cross.