Still Required

Proverbs 19:16 (KJV) He that keepeth the commandment keepeth his own soul; but he that despiseth his ways shall die.

If you’re looking for a bone to pick, you might lift this verse out and have issues with it because you claim it teaches works righteousness.  You might claim that this is a statement where we earn our salvation.  You might have a dissertation to write on dispensationalism and how we’re no longer under the law.

If so, you’ve missed the whole point.  This doesn’t say that you earn your soul by keeping the commandments.  It says you keep it.  All through Proverbs and Psalms I keep coming across statements about faith and trust in God’s favor being extended towards us.  That’s a simple statement of salvation.  It is grace through faith.  What this does is remind us that there is also the element of obedience, of walking in the faith, of being faithful.

So?  Keeping the Commandments should be automatic to us by this time.  I assume that when this talks about the Commandments, it’s talking about the Decalogue and the basic moral standards that are given in the Old Testament.  I don’t think He’s worried about us not boiling a kid and his mothers milk.  Rejoice in a God who is morally upright, and expects us to live the same way.