In the first two chapters of his Gospel, Luke describes Jesus' family, Joseph and Mary, as law-abiding people. They obeyed both the civil law and the religious Law of Moses.

Everything recorded in the "Infancy Gospel" can be seen realised in the life of Jesus, and so Jesus is also portrayed as a man who kept the law, both the civil law and the religious law of His people. If, at times, He seemed to break the law of the Sabbath, it was rather a matter of putting things in perspective. Laws are meant for the benefit of a community or society, and there are times when the pursuit of that benefit may mean going beyond the law, to fulfil its spirit rather than its letter. Society has nothing to fear from Christians, as Christians have nothing to fear from insertion into society when it is governed justly by just people operating within the structures of that society, especially within the structure of law.