Why Keeping The 10 Commandments Doesn’t Save Us

When we share the gospel we often hear folks saying they believe that getting into heaven is about keeping the 10 Commandments. Turning to a passage such as James 2 is helpful in our evangelism. James 2:10-11:

10 For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all. 
11 For He who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” Now if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. 

James says: “For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in line point, he is guilty of all.”  Given the examples provided in these verses, it seems clear that James has in mind what we often describe as the “moral law” in the Old Testament.  Much of the “cultic law,” such as dietary laws or other laws of rite and ritual, are no longer binding upon believers today.  But the “moral law” is timeless.  Every culture has some sense of moral law woven into the fabric of their existence, even if that culture fails to understand that their sense of law is rooted in the grace of God.  

For Christians, the moral law is aptly summarized in the “Ten Commandments,” located in Exodus 20:1-17 and Deuteronomy 5:6-21.  This moral law is a cohesive unit to be obeyed in its entirety.  We are not permitted to ignore any of them.  James says we are to “keep the whole law.”

This raises a necessary clarification: James is writing to Christians.  We’ve noted in previous posts that James’ letter is not about how to become a Christian, but how to behave as a Christian.  He is writing to those who have been saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.  So James is not teaching here that the way one is saved is by keeping the Old Testament Law, keeping the 10 Commandments.

Many people think that that’s what the Bible teaches.  Many people wrongly think that Christianity is about following rules and regulations.  But Christianity is not so much about following principles as it is about following a Person, Jesus Christ.  Jesus is the only one who obeyed perfectly “the whole” law so that we could be forgiven of our sin.  Once we have trusted Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we live out the moral law in obedience to God not as a means by which to be saved—that has been accomplished already through faith in Jesus—but as a means of glorifying God with our new hearts.

One of the primary functions of the Old Testament law is to convict unbelievers of their sin, forever pointing out their inability to keep the law and pointing to the only one who perfectly has, Jesus Christ (cf Romans 3:20; Galatians 3:21-24).  

The Bible is a mirror.  As we look into it, we must allow it to show us what we are before we can expect to do what it says.  And we can’t really do what it says until we first see what we are.  We must first see our sin before we can rightly see our Savior.  Then we turn to Him, trusting Him as Lord.  We are saved by grace through faith in Christ.  Jesus lived for us and died for us.  He kept the law perfectly and thus fulfilled the law on our behalf.  He died, taking our punishment for breaking the law, and He rose from the dead so we could be declared righteous by faith in Him.

So if we have been saved through faith in Christ, then the law is now “lived out” in us, not to gain our justification, but to grow in our sanctification.  Christians live the law not in an  effort to get saved; Christians live the moral law because they are saved.

James teaches that Christians, then, should be living out this moral law, by “keeping” it, keeping “the whole law.”  Unfortunately many in James’ day thought of the law as the means of gaining salvation:

The Jew was very apt to regard the law as a series of detached injunctions.  To keep one was to gain credit; to break one was to incur debt.  A man could add up the ones he kept and subtract the ones he broke and so emerge with a credit or a debit balance.¹

This is exactly how many today regard the observance of biblical commands.  They think if they keep a biblical command they will gain a credit, and when they break a biblical command they will incur a debt.  They hope that they will have more credits than debts in the end and perhaps tip the scales of justice in their favor.

But one reason it is impossible to be saved by keeping the law (Romans 3:20; Galatians 2:16) is precisely because it is a cohesive unit. A person must obey it in its entirety—and no person does that consistently and perfectly. To break one single command is to break all the law, much in the way one single crack on a windshield affects the entire windshield.

If you hope to be saved by keeping the law, you would have to keep all of it consistently and perfectly.  

Think about taking a test in school.  Say there are 100 questions worth one point each and you miss 5, you get a 95%.  That’s an A by most calculations.  But imagine if you took that test and there are 100 questions worth one point each and you miss only one and receive an F.  You would argue, “But I got 99 right, I only missed one!”  The teacher replies, “Doesn’t matter.  This test is “pass” or “fail” test and because you did not get all of the questions correct, you fail.”

If you’re hoping to keep the Old Testament law as a means of earning salvation, you need to know that God does not grade on a curve.  You’ve got to keep the whole law in its entirety.  Breaking any one of them is to break all of them.  Breaking just one command makes one “a transgressor of the law.”

Imagine you are rushing to catch a plane.  You are hurrying through check-in, moving quickly through the security line, and now running to the gate so you can catch the plane.  But when you finally reach that gate it does not matter whether you are just one minute late or ten minutes late, once that gate is closed you are not getting on that plane.  It doesn’t matter how close you got, you are not allowed to board that flight.

If you are not a Christian, it doesn’t matter how closely you try to follow the 10 Commandments.  It really doesn’t matter how “close” you get, because you are not saved by keeping the law.  Nobody keeps the law consistently and perfectly—nobody but Jesus.  That’s why He is the only way in. 

From the standpoint of an unbeliever, “sin is sin,” whether it is murder or adultery or lying.  Just one sin will keep a person from getting though the “gate” into heaven.  It doesn’t matter if it’s a so-called “big” sin or a so-called “little” sin.  Just one is enough to keep anyone from entering heaven.

This raises the need for another important word of clarification.  While the phrase “sin is sin” is rightly used when referring to an unbeliever’s ability to earn forgiveness or his hoping somehow to gain entrance to heaven based on an accrued number of “credits” he hopes outnumber his “debts,” it is not always appropriate to use this phrase.

We should use the phrase “sin is sin” with care.  Not all sins are equal in the sense that not all are equally heinous, equally ugly, or equally reprehensible.  You could be fired from your job for lying to a co-worker or for physically beating a co-worker, but which would you rather have to explain at your next job interview?

Would you rather your daughter be found guilty of driving too fast or for robbing a bank?  To say, “sin is sin” is to fail to account for degrees of wickedness as well as degrees of punishment or consequences.

Some sins are more or less heinous, but all are equally deadly in terms of a lost person’s hope of gaining some sense of favor before God, doing good works in the hopes of becoming more “savable.”  

The law is a cohesive unit.  It is an interdependent whole, to be obeyed in its entirety.  So the Christian lives the law not in order to gain justification, but to grow in sanctification. 

May God help every Christian “live out the law” this week to the praise of His glory!

What About You?

• Why is it not always helpful to say “sin is sin?”
• Do you think using James 2:10-11 is helpful in evangelism?
• With whom will you share these verses this week?

1. William Barclay, Daily Study Bible, James 2