As usual, the school holidays have flown by and the kids are preparing to go back to meet their new teachers and begin a new year of learning. The Bible tells us that we all have a schoolmaster:

^“Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.” Galatians 3:24

The lessons of the law are easy to understand, even in our modern world:

1. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:
3. Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.
4. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
5. Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.
6. Thou shalt not kill.
7. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
8. Thou shalt not steal.
9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbour’s.

However, a big problem for many is that they have tried to keep the commandments of the law as a way of gaining favour with God and hoping to reach heaven. In other words,  they did not really listen to what the schoolmaster was telling them! The law was intended to teach us that we can never achieve these standards and meant to show us that we are failures, sinners, in God’s sight. The law was given to point us to faith in Christ as the only way of pleasing God and obtaining His salvation.

“Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; even the righteousness of God which is by faith in Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe”. Romans 2: 20-22