God gave us His law in order that we might live in harmony with Himself. When God first spoke to man, He spoke to Adam and He gave him a law that he should not eat of a certain tree. God then speaks to Noah and gives him specific instruction in regard to the ark and how he was to subsequently replenish the earth. God then speaks to Abraham in similar fashion and so we find this recurrent theme, over and over again, in Scripture that God gives His commands and men disobey and then ensures chaos and misery. One of the primary uses of the law is to Restrain sin and yet we find God giving Adam a law before sin ever was in the world. God's law and obedience to that law brings or sustains health to the relationship between God and man whether there be sin or not. However now that sin has encapsulated the whole of the human heart we are, by nature, at odds with God and His law and that is why so many, professing Christian, today have been led into the grave error of thinking of God's law in derogatory terms. Obedience to God is the only way to true and fulfilled joy. And all joy would be lost, but that perfect obedience was restored to humanity in the Lord Jesus Christ. He was the perfect man and He had to be in tandem with His deity to be the sacrifice for the sin of His people. God does not save His people by by-passing the law, but by having it fulfilled in the Lord Jesus as a man. The most beautiful and clear demonstrations of the perfections of Christ, as a man, was His perfect obedience to the law in word, deed, thought and motive and this qualified Him to be the perfect lamb of God. Therefore, we are as those who are in Christ are filled with the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is leading us into a life of obedience. The law was that instrument used by the Holy Spirit to drive us to Christ and now being found in Christ the Holy Spirit leads us into obedience to that same law and it is there that the believer finds his greatest joy. Before regeneration we could only obey out of obligation or fear of consequence, but now being regenerate we can obey from the heart (out of love), which is the only true obedience and it is through this Holy Spirit empowered obedience that our relationship to Christ is strengthened and our joy is matured.
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