O how love I your law! it is my meditation all the day. You through your commandments have made me wiser than my enemies: for they are ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers: for your testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the ancients, because I keep your precepts. I have refrained my feet from every evil way, that I might keep your word. I have not departed from your judgments: for you have taught me. How sweet are your words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth! Through your precepts I get understanding: therefore I hate every false way. (Psalms 119:97-104)

God reveals one way for man to become wise and understanding, but few find this way. Jesus said, “Enter in at the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leads to destruction, and many there be who go in there: Because narrow is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leads unto life, and few there be that find it.” (Matthew 7:13-14)

How can this way be so narrow and hidden? What is it about God’s law, commandments, testimonies, and precepts that makes them so hard to understand in the natural, that they create such mystery? Consider the ways in which religious people keep God’s Law these days. On one hand we have countless groups who say we must perfectly obey all of God’s laws for ancient Israel, or some subset of them, in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. On another hand we see denominations teach that we must follow their particular set of laws to keep in good standing with God, laws like not smoking, drinking alcohol, or going to dances. On yet another hand we see multitudes saying that there exist no laws we must obey (and thus imply that sin no longer exists either). All alike get it wrong because they miss the narrow way.

For example, God commanded Israel to stone the woman caught in adultery, yet he called Joseph a righteous man because he refused to condemn Mary to public stoning when she, he thought, had committed fornication and was, therefore, found pregnant. Why was Joseph considered to be righteous? Because he had found the narrow way.

Pharisees accused Jesus of breaching God’s laws for various reasons, primarily because they thought that he worked on the Sabbath. When he stood so condemned by them he said, “if you had known what this means, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the guiltless.” (Matthew 12:7) Paul was not legalistic because he specifically taught the Galatians not to place themselves under the Old Testament law of circumcision and clearly taught that salvation comes not by the Law, yet Paul was not lawless either. He said,

Owe no man anything, but to love one another: for he that loves another has fulfilled the law. For this, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not kill, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, You shall not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying, namely, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love works no ill to his neighbor: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. (Romans 13:8-10)

We know beyond doubt that Paul was not lawless for he also said,

For, brethren, you have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; You shall love your neighbor as yourself. But if you bite and devour one another, take heed that you be not consumed one of another. This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that you cannot do the things that you would. But if you be led of the Spirit, you are not under the law. (Galatians 5:13-18)

James speaks this same truth, saying,

If you fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, You shall love your neighbor as yourself, you do well: But if you have respect to persons, you commit sin, and are convicted of the law as transgressors. For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if you commit no adultery, yet  you kill, you are become a transgressor of the law. So speak, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty. For he shall have judgment without mercy, that has showed no mercy; and mercy triumphs over judgment. (James 2:8-13)

Joseph understood that mercy triumphs over judgment. It was better for him to forgive Mary than for him to lead a public stoning of her even if she had sinned. At the same time, though, he would never have condoned her fornication had she indeed done so. This is the paradox and this is understanding. Do you see the stark contrast between God’s wisdom and what the world and its churches teach? Most churches and most people teach either legalism or lawlessness, but God’s truth establishes neither one. They built on some other foundation.