[Special note… see Mel Lawrenz’s “A Prayer for the Christmas Season,” text, printable PDF, or audio HERE.]
It is inevitable that, when we talk about “living the Bible,” our minds will drift toward verses and passages that are commands or laws which seem to beckon us toward obedience to God. “You shall not commit adultery,” or “you shall not murder,” or “you shall not steal,” and other parts of the Ten Commandments, for instance, seem pretty straightforward.
But the New Testament writers tell us that, with the coming of Jesus, everything has changed. It is not that the old covenant has been contradicted, but it has been fulfilled. Whereas the covenant God gave the Israelites included the more than 600 laws in the first five books of the Bible, in the new covenant God has advanced his relationship with us by internalizing the law: “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts” (Jer. 31:33).
That is why the law-obsessed Pharisee Saul of Tarsus became Paul, the “Apostle of the heart set free” as F. F. Bruce put it. Paul offered a revolutionary new view of how God’s “law” works. He asserted that we have “died to the law through the body of Christ, so that [we] might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God” (Rom. 7:4). In other words, the fruitful, productive, good life is truly possible when we come to live within the higher law of Jesus Christ, which is not a system of rules and mechanical conformity, but a new “law of the Spirit who gives life and [sets us] free from the law of sin and death” (Rom. 8:1).
This could be confusing, so let’s be careful here. The word “law” in the Old and New Testaments is used in different senses. It is used in the Old Testament for the body of laws given to Israel, which define the boundaries of their covenant relationship with God, but “law” can also refer to the first five books of the Old Testament, or the specific body of laws contained in them In the New Testament “law” can refer to Mosaic regulations, or to the Scriptures as a whole, or to governing principles of life or spiritual dynamics, as in “the law of sin and death” (Rom. 8:2) or “the law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2).
To sort this out, let’s focus on the example of Paul whose teaching is consistent with the rest of the New Testament, including that of Jesus himself who said that he did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it (Matt. 5:17). When Paul wrote to the Philippians from his imprisonment, thinking he may be living in the last days of his life, he wrote about his prior “confidence” in following the law of God as a Pharisee: “circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.” And then he says: “But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith” (Philippians 3:7-9).
That is the personal testimony of a man who was expert in obedience to laws, but who found that to be rubbish compared with the righteousness that comes from God by faith.
In Romans 7:4-6 Paul explains why “dying” to the law, or “the way of the written code” is necessary for us to live in “the new way of the Spirit” and so “bear fruit.” If anything, the laws of Scripture reveal how incapable we are to live rightly. The law is like a tutor, leading us to Christ (Gal. 3:24). This should not make us think the laws of the Old Testament are wrong. “The law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good” (Rom. 7:12).
Looking at these and many other New Testament passages about “law,” the fundamental point is this: Scripture does not contain laws so that we can read them and simply obey them, and so live good and right lives. Sin has a crippling effect. We need God’s grace and power to carry us toward righteousness. We need to be freed from the curse of sin and freed toward life in the Spirit, which is how obedience is possible.
“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free” is how Paul put it in Galatians 5:1. But he then goes on to warn people not to think that they are “free” to live however they want. “Do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” (vss. 13-14).
(to be continued)
Jesus came to fulfill the law not to change it or do away with it! But all the commandments are summed up in the 1st commandment, “thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy mind, with all thy soul and thy neighbor as they self!! Your neighbor is black, brown, Asian, Muslim, white, native American, south American, your neighbor is the man at the gas station begging for change, or the prostitute working the streets, the gang banger, the Lesbian in the restuarant you go to, the gay man waiting on your table, or your realty agent. Your neighbor is the woman teller in your bank, or the operator on the other end of your phone, your UPS driver delivering your amazon pckg. Living the law is still where it is at!!! You cannot get away from it!!! Love your neighbor as your self, when you vote, when you buy groceries, when you ride the bus, when you uber, when you use the phone operator, when you take money out of the bank, wherever you go, whatever you do, you must love your neighbor as yourself!!! God’s law is perfect, and still in tact, and can only be accomplished if you ask for his Holy Spirit to Guide you every single hour of every single day, and to fill you with HIS love!!! Christ in us, the hope of Glory!!!!
Well said enjoyed reading your very accurate assessment
Well said enjoyed reading your very accurate assessment. The only thing to remember is we cannot possibly abide by the dictates of the old Mosaic law. Christ allowed us to be covered by the blood through his sacrificial death at Calvary. Thereby Jesus fulfilled the law.