The New City Catechism — Week 13
Question 1 — Can anyone keep the law of God perfectly?
Answer — Since the fall, no mere human has been able to keep the law of God perfectly, but consistently breaks it in thought, word, and deed.
Romans 3:10–12 (ESV)10as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; 11no one understands; no one seeks for God. 12All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”
On August 8, 1974 after a long and difficult political scandal that included the attempted cover up of the break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters, president Richard Nixon gave a speech declaring his intention to resign from the office of President of the United States. The speech given and the resignation came just one day before Nixon was expected to be impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives.
As Nixon leaves the White House, famously shown walking onto Marine One, the disgraced president exits as the most powerful man in the world and breaking the oath that he made to all the American people in thought, word, and deed.
History looks back at Nixon as the man who was fierce, arrogant, and would do anything to stay ahead of his political opponents. Often when history looks back at people of the past who made their mark on the world, it is often the negatives that are highlighted over the good they may have accomplished. It would be the same for Nixon. But when looking deeply at the state of the human condition, we can easily see that the President was and is a product of the fall and sin is what prevents us from living up to the standard God has set before us.
Can we keep the law of God perfectly? The simple answer is “no.” We cannot. Sin has corrupted and derailed what God made “good” in the garden. It prevents us living as part of God’s design. And that is where the NCC comes in to help us articulate what the Bible says about the human condition.
We break God’s law consistently. We break it with our thoughts. We break it with our words. We break it with our actions. We are fallen people who sin against God and man. If we were left to our own devices we would live and die in our sin. But the Bible is a book of hope. No mere human can keep the law of God. We couldn’t because we can’t. We sin and because of that sin, we are unable to do what is good, but always lean towards what is evil.
But that hope is found not in a mere human, but in the Son of God who comes and lives a perfect life for us so that we might one day be free of the constant sin we commit. God is gracious and loving and sent his son so that we might be saved from what we are prone to do. Through Christ, we are given relief from the sin in our lives. Through Christ we are redeemed from the sin in our lives. Through Christ we are saved from the death the sin in our lives produces.
Remember this—the Bible speaks to our condition so that we might know and not live in darkness. We are sinners, but that is no excuse to sin. We are sinners and need to be saved. That is where God in his mercy comes in—he sends his Son to do what we could not and be what we could never achieve so on our own, so that we might be with God and he might be with us!