LOVE = LAW = LIBERTY | ||
Over the years, many churches have had many different approaches to the laws of God. Some insist that God's laws were all done away with, that they were "nailed to the cross" and all that is necessary for Christians today is to "love" others. On the other extreme are those who claim that God's laws are still entirely in force, that if anything they were expanded or magnified, that one cannot enter the Kingdom of God without making every possible attempt to strictly obey every last law. Others have taken a more balanced approach saying that a Christian should indeed be trying to keep God's laws, but that grace covers the shortcomings and weaknesses. Most of the various flavors of the "Church of God" (at least those which count the Worldwide Church of God in their ancestry) have chosen the second position, the third position, or somewhere in between. Which, if any, of these postures constitutes scriptural correctness? We are about to make three statements which, at least to many traditional "Church of God" people, will at first seem like absolute blasphemy! Before we make those statements, we would like to quote a couple of scriptures. The first is Prov 18:13 which states, "He who answers a matter before he hears it, it is folly and shame to him." [All scripture references are from the New King James Version unless otherwise noted.] The second is Jn 7:51 which says, "Does our law judge a man before it hears him and knows what he is doing?" In other words, "hear us out" before making your judgment on what is said. THREE STATEMENTS
Read those statements again slowly and carefully and don't jump to any conclusions just yet. GOD'S LAW WAS NAILED TO THE CROSS/STAKEIn considering this statement, first we must realize just what God's law is. According to Jesus Christ, God's laws are summarized into two categories when He said, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets" (Matt 22:36-40). In Lk 10:29-37 He answered the question, "And who is my neighbor?" by the parable of the "good Samaritan" showing that all people are our neighbors. The apostle Paul took Christ's summarization of the law and boiled it down even further. In Rom 13:8-10 he wrote, "He who loves another has fulfilled the law ... love is the fulfillment of the law." Love fulfills God's law. But what is this thing called love? Again, Paul is the one who probably described it best when he wrote, "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails" (1 Cor 13:4-8, NIV). And of course, as Christ said, we are to love our neighbor. This was not a new idea, but rather a direct quote from the Old Testament which is found in Lev 19:18 which ends by stating, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD." Take a look at the passage Christ quoted from, breaking into it at Lev 19:9:
Here are a bunch of "You shall not" statements (or the "Thou shalt not" form of the KJV) which seem to turn off so many people. Yet at the end of this series is the "love your neighbor" segment which, to so many, seems totally out of place. Actually, it is not. The Mosaic format is "You shall not" while the Pauline format is "Love is." If we apply the Pauline formula to this section we get the following:
The law defines how love operates. This is what Christ was talking about. Now let's apply the Pauline formula to the "Ten Commandments" of Ex 20:1-17. The result is, in paraphrased and shortened form: Love has no other gods before Me. Love does not make for itself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; love does not bow down to them nor serve them. Love does not take the name of the LORD your God in vain. Love remembers the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Love honors its father and mother. Love does not murder. Love does not commit adultery. Love does not steal. Love does not bear false witness against its neighbor. Love does not covet anything that is its neighbor's. Again, the law defines love. The keeping of God's laws is intended to be an expression of love, not a list of do's and don't's for people to try to keep track of. But were these expressions of love nailed to the cross/stake? Was love done away with? The apostle John gave us another definition of love. He said, "God is love" (1 Jn 4:8, 16). Now, how does God fit into the present statement about the law being "nailed to the cross/stake"? In John 1:1-14 we find, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ... And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us." The Word was God and the Word became flesh, became Jesus Christ. Did Jesus show this godly characteristic? He said, "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13) and then proceeded to do that very thing on the cross/stake. The law is love, God is love, Jesus Christ was God in the flesh, and Jesus Christ was nailed to the cross/stake; He was the epitome of God's law in human form, His love was complete, He was the law, and He was executed on the cross/stake. Yes, in this way the law was "nailed to the cross/stake." LAW KEEPING IS OPTIONALThis statement appears very radical to many Christians, especially in the Church of God. Many have stated that the keeping of God's laws has never been an option. But is that what God said? In Deut 30:19 God commanded the Israelites, "[C]hoose life, that both you and your descendants may live." In Lev 26:3-12 He stated, "If you walk in My statutes, and keep My commandments, and do them ... I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you shall be My people." The keeping or rejecting of God's laws was always an option. One could choose to obey or disobey. God never shoved His laws down people's throats, He merely explained His laws and what would happen if they were observed and what would happen if they weren't observed. One cannot choose if there is no choice. In the case of God's laws, there exists a good choice and a bad choice, but a choice nonetheless. One can choose to live by God's laws and receive His blessings, or one can choose to ignore God's laws and suffer the consequences. As Joshua instructed, "[C]hoose you this day whom ye will serve" (Josh 24:15). The choice belongs to all, and in keeping with the previous section, it now should be clear that the choice is between showing love and not showing love. Will a person choose to express love of one's neighbor or not? CHRISTIANS ARE FREED FROM HAVING TO KEEP GOD'S LAWTo properly clarify this statement, it must be understood that essentially there are three approaches to God's laws: 1) one doesn't keep the law, 2) one has to keep the law, and 3) one wants to keep the law. The workings of the law in a Christian's life can be illustrated by a normal toddler who is just beginning to learn to walk and simultaneously learning to talk. Each of these activities, at this point, requires full concentration. A child learning how to walk must focus his/her entire thought processes on the one activity. Ditto with talking. For a child in this situation who is talking and needs to walk, the child stops talking and starts walking. If the child is walking and wants to talk, the child stops walking and starts talking. For a while the child is incapable of doing both at the same time because each requires full concentration. Only when both activities become at least semi-automatic can one do both at the same time. Before long, the child is walking and talking at the same time, at first with some difficulty, but eventually with little trouble. Even adults in whom it is practically totally automatic, when one stumbles or trips unexpectedly the talking stops while full concentration is spent on either keeping one's balance or breaking one's fall. But how does this apply to the keeping or not keeping of God's law? Paul wrote, "[H]e who is called while free is Christ's slave" (1 Cor 7:21-23). What is a "slave" in this context? The word is translated from the Greek word doulos (Strong's #1401) and Thayer's Greek Lexicon defines the word as meaning: 1) a slave, a bondman, a man of servile condition a) a slave b) metaphorically, one who gives himself up to another's will, those whose service is used by Christ in extending and advancing His cause among men c) devoted to another to the disregard of one's own interests 2) a servant, an attendant. Since, as Paul stated, a Christian is a slave to Christ, and Christ is God, and God is love, and the law is love, then a Christian logically becomes a slave to the law. But since the law is love, then a Christian is a slave to love: the two are synonymous. But is God's law really a burden to be borne? Many have thought so and continue to think so. Can it be a burden? Absolutely! How can this be? Simple. If one is of the opinion that one must keep the law, then it becomes a burden. If, on the other hand, one has the law internalized, if one is actually living a life of love, then the law is not a burden but instead an expression of one's character. Paul likened the law to a schoolmaster in Gal 3:23-25. A schoolmaster can definitely be a burden, especially if there is a lot of homework assigned! A first grade student has to do a lot of hard work and concentration and practice to learn how to add two numbers together accurately. Once that operation is mastered, the teacher stops teaching it. The process has become internalized and therefore automatic. Once the teacher stops teaching addition, does that mean that 1 + 1 no longer equals 2? Of course not! The rules of addition continue to function even though they are not being taught any longer. The student continues on to subtraction and the process is repeated for that process. And once it is mastered, the teacher and student move on to multiplication. The "laws" of addition and subtraction cease being taught, but they are still in force and still affect one's mathematical development. In Rom 3:19-21 Paul wrote a seemingly curious statement which goes, "Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets." This has been quoted by many to prove that Christians are no longer to be "under the law" and required to obey it. Contrary to what the Church of God has traditionally taught, this stand is true. A little later Paul said, "For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly not! Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one's slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness?" (Rom 6:14-16) Now, many have decided, in order to maintain an "under the law" stance, to insert three words into Paul's statement. They rewrite it to read, "[F]or you are not under the penalty of the law but under grace." Unfortunately, that's not what Paul said. God has made strict warnings about adding to or deleting from His Word so we must be very careful here. Paul said nothing about "the penalty of" the law, but he spoke directly about the law itself. He also said that Christ came "to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons" (Gal 4:5). Again, those who added "the penalty of" in Rom 6:14 add those same words here. And again, Paul did not write them. Paul plainly said that Christians are no longer under the law. How can this be? We must look at the whole picture. Paul stated that the law was a teacher, a schoolmaster, a means to internalize its message. In Gal 5:13-26 he said, "[Y]ou have been called to liberty; but through love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' ... But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law" and then explains the works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit. One point to emphasize in passing here is that the works of the flesh "are" (plural) but the fruit of the Spirit "is" (singular). It is not, as many have stated, the "fruits" of the Spirit. This does not equate to the gifts which are plural and not all found in all believers. All of the nine listed "flavors" or manifestations of the fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control) will be present in all who are led by the Spirit. Notice the first aspect: love. Paul announced that we have been "delivered from bondage into glorious liberty" (Rom 8:21). Bondage to what? Sin. What else? The approach of having to keep God's laws. Through the Holy Spirit, we come to live a life of love and that life of love obeys God's laws whether they are there or not. So of what value are God's laws to one who is no longer "under" them? They no longer define what one "must" do or what one "should" do; they now define what we are as Spirit-led believers. They teach us what love is all about and remind us of our new nature in which these laws expressing love have been internalized. They are no longer written on the doorposts of our houses but instead they are written on the fleshy tables of our hearts. This is the liberty the law provides for us, the freedom Christ gave us as stated in Gal 5:1. James called it "the perfect law of liberty" in Js 1:25 and simply "the law of liberty" in Js 2:12. The law sets us free, free to love and free in love. But freedom needs fences, liberty needs limits. The laws of our land, for the most part, are also based on love. They limit our freedom for the very purpose of establishing and maintaining our freedom. For example, our traffic laws permit traffic to freely flow through our cities. Those limits to our driving liberties, those fences to our driving freedom, make it possible to get where we are going. The traffic signals, the lines, the stop signs, etc. are all necessary for our freedom. If we had total "freedom" then we would pave everything that isn't covered by a building, remove all the signs, signals, and lines, and let everybody go wherever they wanted to go any way they wanted to get there. A city would immediately become one large traffic jam with nobody going anywhere! To have freedom, we need fences which allow that freedom to exist. God's laws are an expression of His love for us. In "limiting" our liberty, He maintains that liberty. He knows what infringes upon our freedom and shows us what to avoid in order to keep our freedom. Rather than becoming slaves to sin, we become slaves to righteousness. The slaves of sin face destruction whereas the slaves of righteousness enjoy eternal life in pure joy. If we become slaves to other gods, we become obedient to the laws of those other gods. If we become slaves to Christ, we become obedient to the laws of God and enjoy the freedom they provide. When we internalize God's law through the love engendered by the presence of the Holy Spirit, we are truly free. God's laws are an expression of love. Love is manifested through obedience to God's laws. It is not a forced obedience but rather a natural desire. Wherever a Christian feels the necessity to disobey some aspect of God's laws, that is an indication of a lack of true godly love and the need for more of God's Holy Spirit to lead in the person's life. And when the law is being kept out of love, the believer enjoys the liberty that love produces.
|
