A Few More Thoughts on the Law
Since
I am an Old Testament PhD student I like to think about the Law given by
Moses. It is a good thing to
wrestle with how the Law applies to Christians today and how we should think
about the Law. Of course we know
that we are not saved by the Law, we are saved by Christ, but the Law for many
Christians is still a thing of mystery that we just don’t quite seem to
understand how it fits with the Gospel.
I have talked about the Law in several other posts, particularly one
HERE, arguing that the Law is a grace of God. I have received several questions lately from church members
regarding how the Law should be understood by Christians and providentially
heard a lecture series that dealt with aspects of the Law all within a week of
each other. I thought it would be
good to give a few more pointers on how a Christian should think about the
Law. Here are few in no particular
order:
1. The Law was fulfilled by
Christ. This principal comes from
Matthew 5:17-20, and really should be the guiding principal for Christians as
we think about the Law. This
passage says several important things.
First, Jesus did not abolish the Law and Prophets but fulfilled
them. Now this needs a little
explaining. The word ‘fulfill’ in
this passage comes from the Greek word πληρόω which means
‘to make full, to fill up’. I
think it is important to see that this word translated as ‘fulfill’ by the NASB
in English is pointing to the fact that Jesus ‘filled up the Law’. He did not fulfill it in a ‘completed’,
‘it’s over and done’ sense, but rather filled it up with content and that
content was Him. As I have heard
used as an illustration, it is as if the Law gave us a cup and Jesus was poured
in. The cup is not the complete
picture but when Jesus is poured in now we have the whole picture. This is why Matthew 5:18 can say that
nothing in the Law is passing away until everything is completed at the end of
all time. The Law is still in
affect but it has been filled up with Jesus. Jesus fulfills the Law by living the perfect life for us, He
fulfills it by revealing the archetype it was looking forward to, He fulfills
it by accomplishing the salvation it hoped for, and He fulfills it in many
other ways. When you think about
the Law as a Christian think about how Jesus fills the Law up with content and
meaning at each and every particular.
2.
The Law was a grace of God. I
have argued this idea HERE in another article, but I wanted to expand on this
idea just a bit. In the article
cited above I argued the Law was a grace, first because John calls it that in
John 1:16 (Jesus being the grace given on top of the grace of the Law so that
John can say ‘grace upon grace’), and second because it gave sinful Israel a
way to relate to a Holy God. In a
lecture series at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary I heard Dr. DanielBlock give two lectures on some aspects of the Law. In his second lecture he showed from Ancient Near East
literature that most peoples of the ANE were begging their gods to reveal how they
should best serve and relate to their gods. Israel became the peculiar people because YHWH did reveal to
His people how to relate to Him!
It was a blessing that this Holy God would tell the people exactly how
He wanted His people to relate to Him.
This was also meant to be the envy of all the other nations. Thus Israel was to be the city on a
hill that God had meant it to be drawing all nations to Himself. Israel was to draw the nations to a God
that pulled no tricks but told his worshippers exactly what He demanded of
them. When you think about the Law
think about how it was a grace of God to allow a people to draw near to Him in
relationship.
3.
The Law teaches us about God’s Holiness.
If it was a grace to reveal to Israel
how it should relate to God then the peculiarities of the Law tell us something
about God’s character and how He should be worshipped. This is why Christians can still appeal
to verses in the Law to understand God’s Holy demands on humanity. God’s
Holiness demands Holy worshippers and the Law was instruction on how to become
an acceptable worshipper. Now some
of you are already thinking, “But some of the Law is just weird and I don’t
understand why God would demand His people to do certain things.” That is ok you don’t have to understand
why God demands to be worshipped in a certain way. He gets to define His worship not us. He is God. But we should think deeply about the parts of the Law that
disturb us and think about what those Laws say about God, what they demand of
man, and how Christ filled up even the odd demands of the Law.
4.
The Law was meant to distinguish Israel as worshippers of YHWH. As Israel followed the distinctions of
the Law they set themselves apart from the rest of the world. They did things different and that is
what God wanted. He wanted and
still wants his people to be distinct from the world. As modern evangelicals we have let this principal slide in
the name of contextualization in missions, Christian freedom, and thinking that
the Law is over and done and has nothing to teach us. Part of what it teaches us is that God’s people should be
different. We should not
accommodate to the culture just because we think something is cool but rather
seek to understand how God would have us act first. When you think about the Law consider how God was
distinguishing His people from the world.
5.
The Law reveals our sin. Romans
7:7-8 tells us this. It shows us
all the ways in which we fall short of being a Holy people. When you read through the Law think
about the ways in which it is revealing the very sin nature of humanity. The law has always demanded a heart
that follows God; that can be seen in the many times Deuteronomy talks about
the heart. Maybe the reason the
Law is so hard to accept at times is because it is confronting our sin.
6.
The Law when followed by faith administered God’s forbearance. I want to be
careful how I say this but I think it is important. As evangelicals we often ask how people in the Old Testament
were saved and I think this is it:
They followed the Law of God by faith (Think Galatians 3:7-9). Now did the Law save them? I want to answer with a resounding
NO! But we have to wrestle with
the fact that many, many times in Leviticus it says that if the worshipper will
fulfill the prescriptions of the Law ‘their sins will be atoned for’ and ‘they
will be forgiven’(See Leviticus 4:31, Leviticus 5:10 and many others). So we have to understand how the Law
fits into our understanding of salvation.
I think Romans 3:23-25 and particularly Romans 3:24-25 give us the
answer to this perplexing question.
Paul is telling us in this Romans passage that basically God in His
forbearance looked over previous sin and in the fullness of time put all sins
on Christ. Again the Law does not
save, it was the people’s faith in what God had said at the time that invoked
His forbearance of sins until Christ and the Law was a part of that. It is in Christ only that God dealt
with the sins of the world.
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