Before we believe in Jesus the law is a fearful thing. When we attempt to obey it in our own strength several things may happen. We change it to standards we can meet. Instead of God’s perfect law, we substitute man-made rules that we can keep. That’s what the Pharisees did in Jesus’ day. Possibly we may hate ourselves because we can’t keep it. Martin Luther did that before he discovered that Jesus made us righteous. Even worse, we may hate God because He has given us a bar we can’t clear despite all our best efforts. Many people do that. Apart from Christ, the law that can’t save us is the source of a lot of anxiety.

As believers, we value the law because the sting is taken out of it. Before we believed in Jesus it stood over us in judgment. After our faith in Jesus, we fear no judgment because Jesus bore that for us on His Cross. The law remains as what God intended it to be—a picture of humanity at its best. It describes someone we would love to have as a friend.

What difference does faith in Jesus make, then, in our behavior? Paul says, in his letter to the Galatian Christians, that because of Jesus we now have the Holy Spirit dwelling in us. We begin to display the fruit of our new nature. It is the fruit of the Spirit, not the efforts of our old nature apart from Christ. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law” (Galatians 5:22-23).

John Bunyan, who wrote “Pilgrim’s Progress,” expressed the change this way: “Run, John, run. The law commands but gives me neither feet nor hands. Better news the gospel brings; it bids me fly and gives me wings.”