Photo by Paul Venturo
What would you say if someone asked you how to get to Heaven? Have you ever thought about that? Pause for a moment and think through how you might answer that question.
Surprisingly, Jesus didn’t answer the way we might expect. As recorded in Luke 10:25-28, a lawyer asked Jesus the same question: “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” (v. 25). Jesus responded by asking, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” (v. 26).
Halt! What just happened? Jesus directed this lawyer’s attention to the Law of God. According to Jesus, the answer to the question “How do I get to Heaven?” lies in the Law of God.
The lawyer, an expert in the Jewish law, made no hesitation. He quoted the greatest commandments of all: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself” (v. 27). To obey these commands is to obey all of God’s law, for “on these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 22:40).
Jesus answered, “Do this, and you will live” (v. 28). How do you get to Heaven? By obeying God’s Law perfectly. Perfect righteousness is the entrance fee of Heaven (Matt. 25:31-46). In Matthew 5:48, Jesus says “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
Obviously, there’s a problem with that, because everyone is born with sin and guilty before God. No one could ever obey God’s Law perfectly.
But, Jesus obeyed the Law perfectly! (Hebrews 7:26). He willingly took the penalty of the Law (death, Romans 6:23; Leviticus 22:9 Numbers 4:20; Ezekiel 18; etc.) on Himself when He died on the Cross. “God has done what the Law, weakened by [our sinful] flesh, could not do” (Rom. 8:3a). Jesus paid our fine! Then He was buried and rose again! Now, through repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus, we can be acquitted and admitted into Heaven. (Click here to read more about this wonderful news!)
The Law then serves as the standard by which we see our own sin and the means required to clear ourselves of our guilt (Romans 3:20; Galatians 3:24). Like a human law, it exposes our sin and warns us that there will be punishment for breaking the law.
So, when explaining to someone the way to Heaven, begin with the Law, summarized in the Ten Commandments. Don’t judge—let the Law do it. Show that person how well they measure up to the standard which will condemn them on the last day (see James 2:10). Then give them the solution in Christ.
As noted in previous devotionals, the Gospel doesn’t make sense without an understanding of our sin. And the way to understand our sin is to look carefully at the Law of God.
Please see LivingWaters.com for more information about how to use the Law of God in Gospel conversations.
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Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, Used by permission. All rights reserved.
