Review of "Pathway to Freedom"

Pathway to Freedom (How God’s Laws Guide Our Lives)

by Alastair Begg

Reviewed by Pat Beaty

            Alastair Begg, popular pastor and radio personality, preached a series of sermons on the Ten Commandments and was surprised by the response to the sermons.  Many listeners had not considered the commandments as applicable to their lives since they last studied them in elementary Sunday school.  The significant response to these sermons caused Moody Publishers to persuade the author to “turn the spoken word into the written word.”  He intended to illuminate both the meaning and the application of the commandments to our lives today and to emphasize the balance between the law and grace.

In the noteworthy forward to this book written by Charles Colson, it is pointed out that “God does not love us more if we obey the (ten) commandments and less if we do not.  His love for us, our justification, our sanctification, and our final glorification were settled once and for all by the perfect faithfulness of Christ on the cross, not day by day by our grossly deficient faithfulness.  Legalism is thus ruled out.”  He states that “we desperately need moral direction from God, which He gives us in the Ten Commandments.” 

The author proceeds to discuss this moral direction in detail by focusing on each of the commandments and both their implication and application to our lives.  The first commandment is that we should have no other gods before our God, the true God.  This is very important in society today.  Surveys have revealed that “more than three-fourths of all Americans believe that ‘many religions can lead to eternal life.”  Scriptures in both the Old and New Testament repeatedly reinforce the high priority that God places on our understanding of Him as the only God, the Creator, the Savior, an the eternally existing God.  

The author, in regard to the second commandment of “no graven images” states that we must worship the one true God in a worthy manner and worship “the correct God correctly.”

The discussion of the remaining eight commandments is interesting and thought provoking. His collected sermons give us much food for thought and for positive application to our lives.

 One purpose of the law that the author expounds upon is the pedagogical function of the law.  Paul emphasizes in Galatians 3:24 is that the law is put in place to lead us to Christ by the realization that we cannot keep it.  Martin Luther referred to this as “the principle purpose of the law and it’s most valuable contribution.”   Pastor Begg says, “Writing to the Galatians about life in the spirit, Paul says, ‘If you are led by the Sprit, you are not under law (3:18).  In other words, we say no to sin and yes to righteousness, not as a result of struggling to keep the Law, but by the power of the indwelling Spirit.  The Christian’s motivation does not come from the Law…It is, as we understand God’s love to us in Christ, that we find ourselves delighting in God’s law written in our hearts.”