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 In Love With the Law By Shawn BoonstraIf the law condemns us, how can we ever love it? Flashing red and blue lights caught my eye as I glanced in the rearview mirror. Instinctively, I glanced down at the speedometer. Just as I feared, I was driving above the speed limit. Not a lot too fastbut fast enough that behind me, a police car was signaling me to pull over.
Most of the time, we think of law as an unpleasant necessity. We know that we need laws to protect us and keep society running smoothly. But we dont usually celebrate laws or take delight in them. Yet a poet thousands of years ago wrote: Oh, how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day.1 Laws are necessary Do those words sound a little strange to our modern ears? Yes, God gave humanity laws to live by. We know them as the Ten Commandments. Even if we agree that laws are necessary and useful, we seldom think about how much we love those laws, nor do we spend hours meditating about how wonderful they are. The Jewish people, like the writer of the 119th psalm, have a long tradition of honoring and taking delight in Gods lawnot just the Ten Commandments, but the full array of rules and ceremonies that God laid out in Scripture for the Jews. The most highly respected part of the Hebrew Scriptures are the Books of the Law, the Torah. On a feast day called Simchat Torah, devout Jews dance around the synagogue carrying the Torah scrolls. Everyone in the congregation takes a turn dancing with the scrolls as a sign of reverence and love. Christians, however, have a more complicated relationship with the law. We recognize that Gods law is good, but we also know how difficult it is to keep. Were fallen, fallible human beings, and even with the best of intentions, we fail and stumble again and again in our attempts to live up to Gods high standards. We can relate to the words of the apostle Paul, who said, We know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do.2 The law is impossible to keep perfectly With all our failures and inabilities to keep it perfectly, whats to love about the law? Maybe we should just do away with it! In fact, thats what many Christians believe has happened. After all, the Bible says: That no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for the just shall live by faith. . . . Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law.3 Doesnt that passage make it pretty clear that Gods law has no power in the lives of Christians? Those are powerful verses, but lets not rush too quickly to abandon the law. First, lets take a closer look at what Paul is actually saying in this passage. Its true, as Paul tells us here, that no one can ever be saved by keeping the law. We simply arent good enough. Gods law sets a high standarda standard of moral perfectionwhich none of us can achieve. If we had to depend on our own law-keeping efforts to get to heaven, none of us would make it. Instead, God saves us by His grace, which we accept through faith. Jesus, the only human Being ever to obey Gods law perfectly, died in our place as a perfect sacrifice for sin. All the good deeds we could ever do would never accomplish what Jesus death accomplished for ushanding us the key to eternal life. Jesus law-keeping brings us salvation So if Jesus is the only Person who ever fully kept the law and His death gives us salvation freely, is Gods law abolished? Even in Jesus own time people accused Him of trying to do away with the law. His reply? Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.4 In fact, Jesus not only upheld the law for His followers, He also redefined it in ways that made it much stricter. The law said it was a sin to murder; Jesus said it was sin even to speak hateful words to another person. The law said it was a sin to commit adultery; Jesus said it was sin to lust. The law said to refrain from work on the Sabbath; Jesus urged people to go out of their way to bless and help others on the Sabbath. Jesus redefined commandments focused not just on outward actions but on inner attitudes. If we look more deeply into the Scriptures, we discover that the only law thats invalid for Christians is the Jewish ceremonial lawthose regulations governing what sacrifices to offer at the temple and which feast days to observe. All these ceremonial regulations pointed the nation of Israel forward symbolically to the MessiahJesuswho was to come. Christians no longer need those ceremonies. But Gods Ten Commandment law remains the standard for moral behavior. Jesus upheld it. Paul celebrated it even as he pointed out how hard it is to keep it: I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind.5 Gods law is the expression of Gods character. It tells us what kind of God we serve and what kind of people we should be. Love leads to obedience When asked which was the greatest commandment, Jesus replied: 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. 6 The commandments are laws of love. The first four teach us how to love God with all our hearts; the last six illustrate what it means to love our neighbor as ourselves. Can the law of love ever be abolished? Never! Are we perfect? No. Do we stumble? Yes. And yet God calls us to a higher standard. He asks us to keep His law. God gives us the gift of His Holy Spirit, who comes to live in our hearts and provides us the power to live holy lives. As saved Christians, we can finally begin to appreciate the beauty of the law. It no longer hangs over us like a sentence, judging our imperfections and barring our way to heaven. Instead, it opens like a gate, leading us to become the kind of loving people God wants us to be. With the example of Jesus before our eyes and the Spirit of Jesus living in our hearts, we see Gods law in a whole new light. With that ancient psalmist, we too will be able to say, Oh, how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day. Shawn Boonstra is the director-speaker of the It Is Written television program. ______________________________ 1 2 3 4 5 6 |
        
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