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taken out of context, as the state–
ment He at this time gives to Sam:
" Kcep the commandments"! Cer–
tainly J esus didn't overlook faith, or
grace, or belief. o r the efficacy of H is
name!
Yet despite that. Jesus said in–
stead: " lf you will enter into life,
KEEP THECOMMANDMENTS"!
That's what He told Adam and
Eve. " 1f you will enter into life,
don
't
eat of the fru it of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil , but DO
eat of the tree of life!"
1t
was all
very simple. The tree of life wou ld
have granted Adam and Evc the
Holy Spirit. Joined with their minds,
it would have enabled them to call
on the Father in heaven and over–
come a ny of the difficulties that thcy
might come across. With the Spiril
of God, they would have been able
to resist Satan the devil and he
wou ld have fled from them. They
wou ld have not been deceived o r
conned into the eating of that frui1
which brough1 death upon them–
and us. Bu1 that's not what hap–
pened. They broke the only com–
mandmenl 1hey were given by God
and ate from lhe wrong tree!
Jesus' answer 10 Sam's q'ues1ion is
embarrassing 10 sorne people who
believe you don't have to DO any–
thing to inherit eterna! life- and
provides 1he total a nswer to o thers.
8oth groups a re wrong!
Sorne o f us have repea1ed J esus'
s1a 1ement " Keep 1he co'mmand–
ments" lo wives, husbands. sons,
daughters, uncles, aun1s, cousins
and grandmas, friend s and employ–
ers, in arder to sum up lhe essence
of what we believe. That is, if you
The
PLAIN TRUTH October-November 1977
''Qne came and said
unto him, Good
Master, what good thing shall 1do,
that 1may have eternal life?
And he said unto him, Why callest
thou me good? There is none good
but one, that is, God: but if thou
wilt enter into life,
keep the commandments."
a re going to inheri t eterna! life, if
you are going 10 gel into God 's
Kingdom, ifyou are going to be His
Son, you're going to have to keep
the commandments. And thal is. in–
deed, whal Jesus answered- bul He
had mucb more 10 say, and lhe
answe r is nol as simple as il
appears!
Sam's Pharisee Questlon
Remember, Jesus started His a n–
swer by first asking a question- by
focusing Sam's mind, if he would
have but heard it, on the fact that
NONE is "good" excepl God Him–
self. Sam's ques1ion, "What good
thing shaU
1
do?" was a typical Job
question, a Pharisee question. A
ty pical question of the type of
people who want to know where
they stand, exactly, who like to have
everything spelled out so there is no
doubt at anytime as to the fact that
they a re headed directly on the path
into the Kingdom- that they have
all 1heir goodies wai1ing for them
where moth doth not entcr and n.ist
doth not corrupt and that every–
thing is going well. God is in His
heaven, and we're here on the earth
guided by Him in all our comfort–
able do's and don ' ts.
But Jesus did say, after all, " Keep
the commandments."
We ll , Sam made a nother mistake,
and asked, "Which?" Which com–
mandments? Sam eviden tl y as–
sumed if he just k new
which
commandments he was supposed to
keep, he'd have no problem.
What Sam should have asked is
" How?"- not "Which?" Jesus had
already told him nobody was good
except God- so the rea l question
tha t needs a nswering is HOw!
Whlch Commandments?
But the reason Sam asked
which
commandments was because. being
an intelligent Jew of his age, he real–
ized lhat there were many sets of
commandments. T he Roman gov–
ernment was occupying Judea at thc
time and they had their laws, their
commandmen ts, th e ir do's and
don'ts of civi l government and even
laws regarding how religions ough t
to be observed in arder not to inter–
rupt the imperial crown of Rome.
Satan's dominant power on earlh at
the time.
Sam also asked "Which?" be–
cause he knew there were over 600
laws, commandments, rules, regu–
lations, oral law, which had been
added by 1he elders of Israel to the
laws of God , a nd in particular to the
Te n Commandments. The idea be–
hind these add itions was that they
realized 1he Ten ·commandrnents
were so holy. so pure, so good. that
if they were broken they would
bring death. So, they were going to
create
another
law to "build a fence"
around the Ten Commandments.
When a person carne up to break
Th e Law, he had to break down the
fence first and perhaps in so doing
would realize he was about to break
a Great Law and stop before he did!
All a very fine, philosophical ap–
proach, a fine idea-only one prob–
lem:
lt didn 't work!
What the fence
did, in etrect , was to obscure The
Law so it couldn't be s<;en, under–
stood, comprehended, couldn't en–
ter into the hearts and minds and be
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