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One of the reasons God revealed the Ten Commandments was because it was His way of saying, "I know who you really are, I see you..." This is why the people drew back in terror, because they realized that God saw the inner condition of their heart, exposed it, and shined the light of moral truth upon it (Exod. 20:18-21). Nonetheless it is a great and ongoing credit to the Jewish people that they were willing to receive the revelation at Sinai, since it demonstrates that they were genuinely willing to be honest with themselves. Despite their many subsequent failures, they still revered the truth of God's Torah and meticulously preserved the revelation for future generations (Rom. 3:1-2).
There is the "lawful use of the law" (1 Tim. 1:8-11). γνῶθι σεαυτόν -- If we are honest with ourselves, we will acknowledge that we also have the impulse to be faithless, to worship the moment, to cheat, to lie, to lust, to kill, and so on. If you think you can keep the Ten Commandments by your own resolve, it is unlikely you have dared to examine your own inner impulses. If you take the time to do so, you will see these things are there...
The moral law reveals both the holy character of God as well as our inner condition of heart, since its imperatives speak to the need for deliverance. This is the entry point, if you will, because the assumption that the "flesh" can justify itself through its own inner determination must be shattered and broken as were the first tables of stone... It is only after confession and the acceptance of our great need for divine deliverance are we given new hearts to serve God -- no longer as fearful slaves, but as His redeemed children. The genuinely redeemed soul is a "new creation" that inhabits a new realm or "order" of reality (2 Cor. 5:16-17; Gal. 6:15). There is new wine put into new wineskins... Asking a regenerated soul to observe the written law is like asking a post graduate student to go back and take kindergarten classes again. You can review the ordinances, rules, customs, and so on, but ultimately this God wants the inward heart. In other words, "Torah" means something far more than merely the mishpatim, chukkot, and shoftim (laws, decrees, and judgments) revealed in the lawcode revealed to Moses. There is Torat Yeshua, the "yoke" of His teaching that brings you before the Throne of Grace, before the heavenly kapporet, and empowers you to walk according to the law of love by the power of the Holy Spirit. The New Covenant provides both the Source for keeping the inner meaning of the Torah - as well as its true End - in Yeshua, the First and the Last, who is forever the Living Torah....
The law was given as a guardian (παιδαγωγὸς) intended to restrain the evil impulses of the heart until transformation by Messiah would be given to those who believe (Gal. 3:24-25). The problem is not with the law, of course, but with the underlying condition of the heart... What we need is not mere outward conformity but a genuine change of heart - and that is precisely what the New Covenant is all about: spiritual rebirth, a new "heart of flesh," and God-given power to walk in love that transcends the law and its requirements. The law, in other words, was never meant to be an end in itself but only a means to a greater end, namely, the life of love, joy, peace, freedom, and the fruit of the Holy Spirit - "against such things there is no law" (Gal. 5:22-23). The genuinely regenerated soul is a "new creation" that inhabits a new realm or "order" of reality (2 Cor. 5:16-17; Gal. 6:15).
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