When I first saw the quote below on someone’s Facebook page, I thought it was a joke:
God doesn’t expect you to follow a single commandment from the Law, which included the 10 Commandments. His Spirit is now your guide. Don’t just trust Him for forgiveness, but for morality as well.
I followed the quote to its source. It was a hyper-grace “Bible teacher” whom I had seen quoted before on Facebook. I would have just ignored him, but I noticed he had 34,000 Facebook followers. Hundreds of them had “liked” or “loved” his claim that I first thought was a joke. More than 100 people had shared it with their Facebook friends.
It is amazing that anyone who has ever read the New Testament would pit the Mosaic Law’s moral commandments, including the Ten Commandments, against being guided by the Holy Spirit. Any and all guidance from the Holy Spirit of God would, of course, harmonize perfectly with God’s moral commandments. That being so, could this particular hyper-grace teacher actually think that the Holy Spirit might guide someone in a way that would contradict God’s moral commandments? Apparently so, because that is what he strongly implied in his claim. Read it again for yourself:
God doesn’t expect you to follow a single commandment from the Law, which included the 10 Commandments. His Spirit is now your guide.
Is that what Paul believed? Well, he wrote, “Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but what matters is keeping the commandments of God” (1 Cor. 7:19, emphasis added). That seems quite plain.
Of course, Paul also believed that born-again believers should be led by the Spirit, but he believed the Spirit would lead them in harmony with God’s moral law. He never said anything remotely similar to, “God doesn’t expect you to follow a single commandment from the Law.” He never pitted keeping God’s moral commandments against being led by the Spirit. On the contrary, Paul’s letters are full of written admonitions for believers to obey God’s moral laws. At times, Paul even quoted verbatim from the Mosaic Law, and he did it in such a way that it is indisputable that he believed those commandments were binding upon new covenant believers. Here is an example:
Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. For this, “You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not covet,” and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law (Rom. 13:8-10, emphasis added).
Paul believed that one of the Mosaic Law’s commandments fulfilled all the rest of the Mosaic Law’s moral commandments. Obviously, he believed that Christians should follow every commandment that he mentioned in that passage in Romans.
Paul also once wrote, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. ‘Honor your father and mother (which is the first commandment with a promise), so that it may be well with you, and that you may live long on the earth'” (Eph. 6:1-3). Paul believed that the 5th Commandment was still relevant, was worth citing in order to admonish Christians, and was binding on new covenant believers.
The apostle James agreed with Paul that the moral imperatives of the Mosaic Law were binding on new covenant Christians, and thus he did not shy away from reminded them of it:
If, however, you are fulfilling the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the Law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the whole Law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all. For He who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not commit murder.” Now if you do not commit adultery, but do commit murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty (Jas. 2:8, 10-12).
So, is it true that “God doesn’t expect you to follow a single commandment from the Law, which included the 10 Commandments” because “His Spirit is now your guide”?
And, of course, without actually quoting from the Mosaic Law or the Ten Commandments, the authors of the New Testament epistles often admonish their readers to do many things that are in perfect alignment with moral imperatives in the Mosaic Law and Ten Commandments. John, for example, warned that no murderer has eternal life (1 John 3:15). Paul warned that no sexually immoral or impure person will inherit God’s kingdom (Eph. 5:5).
Jesus, of course, publicly endorsed at least five of the Ten Commandments during His earthly ministry (see, for example, Matt. 5:21-23, 27-30; 19:18-19). He publicly endorsed other commandments from the Mosaic Law (see, for example, Matt. 22:34-40).
Some hyper-grace teachers make the claim that, since Jesus ministered under the old covenant during His earthly ministry, what He said is not applicable to new covenant believers. Yet after His resurrection, when the new covenant had been inaugurated, Jesus told His disciples, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations…teaching them to observe all that I commanded you” (Matt. 28:19-20, emphasis added). Some of what Jesus commanded them was straight from the Ten Commandments.
This particular hyper-grace teacher apparently believes that the Spirit will guide believers into moral behavior if they “trust Him for it.” Here is the second part of his Facebook quote: “Don’t just trust Him for forgiveness, but for morality as well.”
That part of his claim reveals that he is also fundamentally confused on what it means to believe in Jesus, essentially reducing it to “trusting Him for forgiveness.” There is much, much more to believing in Jesus than trusting Him for forgiveness. It also includes believing “in Him,” that is, believing in who He is. He is, by the way, King of kings and Lord of lords!
Regardless, to advise Christians to “trust the Spirit for morality” while telling them that “God doesn’t expect you to follow a single commandment from the Law, which included the 10 Commandments,” is to, again, pit God’s moral commandments against the Spirit’s moral guidance, which opens the door to potential spiritually-deadly deception. Over the decades, I’ve witnessed too many professing Christians be “led by the Spirit” to do what is forbidden by God’s commandments. Every one of them was deceived by Satan.
To pit God’s moral commandments against the Spirit’s moral guidance is not only heretical, it is also blasphemous, as it pits God against Himself.
Let’s wise-up! When someone’s “ministry” is all about gaining more popularity and followers and selling more books (with photos of himself filling the book covers), and all by telling people what they want to hear, like, “God doesn’t expect you to follow a single commandment from the Law, which included the 10 Commandments,” it’s time to exercise a little discernment!
