The Organ of Meaning

I think most Christians don’t know what to do with the Law, by that I mean that we often speak about the regulations given to Abraham by God as if they are defective and somehow not good. The Law is full of things that we don’t get – when do you do this kill this animal this way, don’t mix fabrics, don’t grow a goatee (I’m looking at you youth pastors), don’t even touch your wife during her “special time”.

I’ve been reading a book that we got for free from Advance09 – Total Church: A Radical Reshaping around Gospel and Community. Honestly, I didn’t expect that it would be a book that I would underline all that much, but I was underlining within 6 pages. One of the things that I underlined had hit me like a slap in the face:

The Law of Moses is given as the word by which God rules his people as they wait for the coming Savior. It is a liberating law given to bless God’s people. It was the lie of the serpent to portray God’s rule as harsh and tyrannical. The reality is that the rule of God is a rule of life, blessing, peace and justice. God rules through his word, and his rule brings freedom and joy.

The author is right! The thing that I do so often is portray the Law as something that was intended to be a limiting shackle on the people of Israel. Quite the opposite, it gave freedom by giving boundaries. Our Americanized idea of freedom says that where there are any boundaries there is no freedom, but real freedom requires boundaries; how free would we really be if there were no laws to restrain murder and theft? We’d spend all of our days protecting ourselves and our stuff.

The Law did the same thing.

In the nations that surrounded Israel, the polytheistic faiths gave no liberty – no freedom to live life unshackled by guilt and doubt. Think of all of the stories even of the ancient Greeks and Romans, they were always trying to appease some god or making sure they weren’t stepping on some goddess’ toes (I’m looking at you Hera); they were never sure if they were in good standing.

Think about it, you’re following a God that just held back the sea and then drowned the most elite soldiers of one of the most powerful nations on earth at the time, a God who had made a tangible darkness hang over the whole country, that turned the Nile into blood and supernaturally killed hundreds to set you free – and not just random hundreds, but only the firstborn and only in unmarked houses. You want to know whether or not you’re in good standing with that God. So, what does that God do? He gives you guidelines so you can know.

You no longer have to guess whether or not you’re doing things right, you have the Law to make reference to. You can know whether God is pleased with you or wanting a closer walk with you.

One thing to remember – unclean was not sin. You have this trichotomy of holiness. You have things that are clean (this is set apart or holy or able to be in God’s presence), you have things that are sinful (things that God is against and are an affront to him in some personal way) and you have the middle ground of the unclean (which is just common, banal, vulgar). The unclean was not bad (or else undertakers were never able to be in God’s good graces and the dead would just lie where they died), it was just common. The reason that this is talked about so much in the Law – God had called his people to be set apart, to be holy and a light that shined His holiness. They were not better than other people, they were just to imitate God more closely.

I think the lesson that I need to take from this is to understand why those in the Old Testament loved the Law.

Psalm 119:97

Oh how I love your law!
It is my meditation all the day.

Okay, so it’s been a week and a half since I returned from Advance09 and much of it has still been on my mind. I do still want to give some sort of rundown of just about of the talks from the three days; or at least share a highlight or a quote from it that stood out. I missed two of them and there was one that was good, but nothing that stood out as something that I needed to really write down. It was a good listen though.

So, I want to just share one quote from Bryan Chapell’s talk, “Communicating the Gospel through Preaching.”

The imperative is based on the indicative and the order is not reversible. You obey because you are a child of God, not the other way around.”

This idea about the Gospel is so true and has been communicated many different ways. What it points to is one of the beliefs that is central to the message of the Christian faith that has appeared to me to be unique among the world religions – you are not accepted based on your merits as a good person. On the contrary, the life of “holiness” is something that is an outpouring of worship and thankfulness to God. It’s not a response to an angry dictatorial Despot, but a King and Father who has already made us royalty and is constantly making us able to live lives of honor and nobility.

Our obedience flows out of who we already are, not from a need to prove ourselves.

The principle of love has been found to possess very great power over men. In the infancy of history nations dream that crime can be put down by severity, and they rely upon fierce punishments; but experience corrects the error. Our forefathers dreaded forgery, which is a troublesome fraud, and interferes with the confidence which should exist between man and man. To put it down they made forgery a capital offense. Alas for the murders committed by that law! Yet the constant use of the gallows was never sufficient to stamp out the crime. Many offenses have been created and multiplied by the penalty which was meant to suppress them. Some offenses have almost ceased when the penalty against them has been lightened.

It is a notable fact as to men, that if they are forbidden to do a thing they straightway pine to do it, though they had never thought of doing it before. Law commands obedience, but does not promote it; it often creates disobedience, and an over-weighted penalty has been known to provoke an offense. Law fails, but love wins.

C.H. Spurgeon, The Doctrines of Grace Do Not Lead to Sin.