Keep the 10 Commandments? In Your Dreams!

Over spring break my freshman year, I went with my youth group on a missions trip to the Dominican Republic. Many Dominicans hold to a form of Catholicism centered on ritual, religious tradition, and family heritage. There we met a woman who insisted she didn’t need salvation because she had kept the 10 Commandments. She told us that Jesus had appeared to her in a dream and revealed that this was why she would be welcomed into Heaven.

When a leader told her that no one can keep the 10 Commandments, she pointed to Mark 10:17-21—

And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.’” And he said to him, “Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.” And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”

But was Jesus really saying that this man had kept all the commandments? Was the implication that he had gained all the righteousness he needed except for one little thing?

This conversation in the DR  prompted me to research the topics on becoming right with God by keeping the 10 Commandments and why man needs salvation. I realized that although I knew the answers, I wasn’t prepared to explain them to someone who disagreed.

The Bible makes it clear that salvation is impossible except by faith in Jesus’ death and resurrection. Galatians 2:16 & 22 reads,

“yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified… I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.”

Other relevant scripture (horribly overused in NCFCA apol) includes Romans 3:23, Isaiah 64:6 and Ephesians 2:8-9, though Romans 3:20-28 as a whole (long!) passage could work in competition. No one can be justified (made right with God) by keeping commandments, and even if they could, no one can keep the commandments anyway. 

The real Jesus, the God of the Bible, might speak tongue-in-cheek to a self-righteous snob, but He would never tell someone that they had earned Heaven. Breaking any law set by an infinitely holy God means an infinite debt. No finite good works can make it up. Instead, we need a transfer of infinite righteousness. The only one who can give that is God Himself. Aren’t you thankful He offers it?