The Church of Christ: Yesterday and Today. . .

IS THE CHURCH UNDER LAW?

It is easy for one to overstate his case on this question, whether his answer be yes or no, for the scriptures are inclined to allow one to have it either way, depending on what he makes the question mean. The Bible makes it sufficiently clear that believers are in some way responsible to law, as these passages indicate:

“Help one another to carry these heavy loads, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2).

“Always speak and act as men who are to be judged under a law of freedom” (Jas. 2:12).

“To win Gentiles who are outside the law, I made myself like one of them, although I am not in truth outside God’s law, being under the law of Christ” (l Cor. 7:21).

And 1 Cor. 14:34 requires women not to address the assembly “as the law directs,” while Heb. 8:10 anticipates the New Covenant as being distinctive in that “I will set my laws in their understanding and write them on their hearts.” Another apostle writes: “The man who looks closely into the perfect law, the law that makes us free, and who lives in its company, does not forget what he hears, but acts upon it” (Jas. 1:25).

Moreover “it is the lot of men to die once, and after death comes judgment,” which surely includes believers. How can they be judged without a law? Acts 1 7:31 assures us that “he has fixed the day on which he will have the world judged, and justly judged, by a man of his choosing; of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” How can the Judge, who is Jesus, pass judgment except by a law?

There you have it: Paul says plainly that he was under law to Christ, and he urges us to fulfill the law of Christ. God writes laws on our hearts, and scriptures refer to the perfect law and the law that makes us free. And there is to be a judgment, with all of us held accountable for our response to God’s laws. How then can it be asserted that we are not under law?

But the scriptures do precisely that, as the following verses indicate:

“If you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law” (Gal, 5:18)

“Thus the law was a kind of tutor in charge of us until Christ should come, when we should be justified through faith; and now that faith has come, the tutor’s charge is at an end” (Gal. 3:24-25).

“You are no longer under law, but under the grace of God” (Ro. 6:14).

“For Christ ends the law and brings righteousness for everyone who has faith” (Ro. 10:4).

“While the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:17).

Again we have it: we are not under law. Paul could not have made it plainer. In fact, he says it twice in one chapter (Ro. 6), along with the question “Are we to sin, because we are not under law but under grace? Of course not”.

One answer to this is that God took away one law (the Mosaic) and gave us another one (the Christian), which explains how we are still “under law,” even though the old system was nailed to the cross. This view is necessarily legalistic, for it places one under the same obligation as were those under Moses: he must keep the law in order to be justified, which no one ever has done or ever will do, except the Son of God himself. And this nullifies the work of Christ as our sin-bearer, for, as the apostle puts it, “if righteousness comes by law, then Christ died for nothing” (Gal, 2:21). Law given by the Messiah is no easier to keep than law given by Moses, for they are both of God. God would be doing little for man’s sin by simply removing one legalistic system and replacing it with another. The good news of the gospel is not that we now have law from Jesus instead of from Moses.

If we are “under law” in the sense that justification comes only in keeping it, then we are in bondage no less than those who were under Moses. We would still be in need of a deliverer, and it would be as if the Christ had not come. One can struggle with commands that Jesus has given as much as with those given by Moses or Buddha. He will have his good days and bad days in law-keeping, but he soon stumbles over his own pride and falls on his arrogant neck in his efforts to measure up to the demands of any legalistic system. Paul describes his own agony in law-keeping in Ro. 7, saying in part: “While we lived on the level of our lower nature, the sinful passions evoked by the law worked in our bodies, to bear fruit for death.” This is always the story of law-keeping, whether Judaism, Christianity, or Buddhism, it bears fruit for death.

So that answer will not do at all. We are in no way under law to Christ as Israel was under law to Moses. God did not nail one legal system to the cross and then give us another to take its place. Paul’s words of triumph must also be meaningful to the Church of Christ today: “But now, having died to that which held us bound, we are discharged from the law, to serve God in a new way, the way of the spirit, in contrast to the old way, the way of a written code” (Ro. 7:6).

Another answer is that of the “libertarian,” who insists that law is no longer a frame of reference, no longer relevant to the believer. Grace has set him free to the point of turning him against any and all law. He is really an antinomian (one who opposes law) in that he sees no law at all in God’s plan for the believer, and he is inclined to blame all the ills of the church upon concern for laws and commands.

This is equally objectionable, for the scriptures always present a lofty concept of the law of God. Jesus said that he had come to fulfill it, not to destroy it. Paul calls the law both good and spiritual, and even says “in my inmost self delight in the law of God” (Ro. 7:22). Nor could an antinomian ever liken the law to a tutor that brings us to Christ or include it as one of God’s splendid gifts to Israel.

What then is to be the attitude of the church? We are to rejoice in God’s grace through Christ, which delivers us from the bondage of the law, and yet we are to be law-abiding believers, realizing that God commands us through Christ just as he commanded through Moses. We are not under law in that law-keeping saves us, but we do have laws that the Spirit of God helps us to obey. As law-abiding believers we are always conscious of the weakness of law. “What the law could never do, because our lower nature robbed it of all potency, God has done: by sending his own Son in a form like that of our sinful nature, and as a sacrifice for sin, he has passed judgment against sin within that very nature, so that the commandment of the law may find fulfillment in us, whose conduct, no longer under the control of our lower nature, is directed by the Spirit” (Ro. 8:3-4).

We are not, then, under law as Israel was, shut up to a system that saves only through a personal righteousness that is impossible. But we do have law or laws (which would include some application of the Old Covenant scriptures) that we are to keep. But in ourselves (“our lower nature” as Paul would put it) we cannot keep these laws anymore than Israel could keep their laws. The big difference is God’s grace, given through Jesus, which helps us to fulfill the law in our own lives. The Holy Spirit is our helper, so that, “directed by the Spirit the law may find fulfillment in us.”

An illustration may prove helpful. There are many, many laws of God in the New Covenant scriptures. A few of them are:

“Flee fornication” (1 Cor. 6: 18).

“Call down blessings on your persecutors — blessings, not curses” (Ro. 12: 14).

“Always treat others as you would like them to treat you” (Mt. 7:12). Here Jesus says this command is the law.

“Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them” (Col. 2:19).

“Every person must submit to the supreme authorities” (Ro. 13:1).

These are as much. law as is the command in Lev. 19:18: “You shall not put on a garment woven with two kinds of yarn.” And one is no more likely to keep perfectly the laws of the New Covenant scriptures than those of the old Mosaic system. The law is weak, not because it is dependent upon sinful man for fulfillment. And the weakness applies to any law, Jewish, Chirstian or moral. No man can keep law, any law, perfectly. This is why we must have Jesus and his indwelling Spirit.

As a law-abiding believer I take seriously the command to love my wife and not treat her harshly or the one that tells me to call down blessings on my persecutors instead of curses. But even with my kind of wife and enemies I cannot keep such laws exactly. Due to the weakness of my lower nature I sometimes sin in these respects. But because of God’s grace, because of what Jesus has done for me, the law is fulfilled in me anyway. I endeavor to keep all God’s laws, for they are good and spiritual, but I have no illusion about being able to measure up to them perfectly. And so I know I cannot be saved that way. I keep them because I love God and wish to please Him, and I believe that such laws are for my good, that God’s purposes are realized through them. And when I place my life under the control of the Holy Spirit rather than my lower nature, it is as if I were keeping the laws perfectly, for through the Spirit the Lord himself is in me and with me and frees me from the harshness of the law. And so Paul’s conclusion is my own: “There is no condemnation for those who are united with Christ Jesus, because in Christ Jesus the life-giving law of the Spirit has set you free from the law of sin and death” (Ro. 8:1-2).

The Church therefore is to see law as Paul saw it. Law serves us in that it exposes the sin that we might otherwise ignore (Ro. 7:7). Law kills us, causing us to seek help beyond ourselves (Ro. 7:9-10). Yet it really isn’t law that kills us, but the sin within us that the law arouses (Ro. 7:12-13). And so the law is holy and just and good, Paul adds. It is our sinful flesh that is the villain, not law. In fact, it was God’s intention that the law make us holy, but this was impossible due to our sinful nature. So Jesus did for us what the law by itself could not do, and so fulfilled the law in us. We can therefore speak of the “fulfillment of the law” as well as “freedom from the law”. God thus makes us righteous through the fulfilled law within us, which is Christ’s work in our lives.

Phillips’ translation of Ro. 8:2-5 catches this truth beautifully:

“The Law never succeeded in producing righteousness — the failure was always the weakness of human nature. But God has met this by sending his own Son Jesus Christ to live in that human nature which causes the trouble. And, while Christ was actually taking upon himself the sins of men, God condemned that sinful nature. So that we are able to meet the Law’s requirements, so long as we are living no longer by the dictates of our sinful nature, but in obedience to the promptings of the Spirit.”

Do we therefore now keep the Law? Yes, by the help of the Spirit. This is how God makes us spiritual. The law and the Spirit are not to be set over against each other, for Paul makes it clear that “the law is spiritual, but I am carnal.” It is rather that the indwelling Spirit fulfills the law in us.

And it is the law that makes us moral, contrary to the thinking of the new morality and existentialism. The “just requirement of the law” is fulfilled in us when we are united with Jesus. God thus uses law to make us the kind of people He wants us to be, and through the Spirit he enables us so that the law can do its work in us. This is Christian morality. One reason the church of today is lacking in moral sensitivity is that it has been influenced by the antinomianism that is infesting so much of modern thought. Law has come upon hard times in the church and in the world. But law is of God and it is intended to make us good. Looseness in attitude toward God’s injunctions against lying, lechery, and lasciviousness causes us to smile at streaking and be tolerant of wickedness in high places. No nation or church can be moral that takes a passive attitude toward the law.

Like the great apostle. then, the church is to “delight in the law” in its inmost self. In recognizing that we are no more able to keep the law by our own strength and goodness than were those under Moses, we are bearing witness to our need of God. The man who can cry out as Paul did, “Wretched man that I am,” is one who realizes that he needs a helper. And that is precisely the mission of the Spirit in our hearts, to serve as our Helper. We therefore have our answer to the question that Paul asked in his desperation, “Who shall deliver me from this body of death?” And that answer must always be, “I thank God there is a way out through Jesus Christ our Lord.” It is not from law that Jesus delivers us, but from the bondage of the law.”

Is the church then under law? Yes and no. Yes, in that God’s law is always relevant and that we are to be law-abiding for our own morality and spirituality, and so God makes us obedient to the law through the Helper who dwells in us as a heavenly guest. No, in that we are discharged from the law’s bondage and tyranny and are reliant instead upon the grace of God. So in this sense we are not under law but under grace. It is a question of what we are bound to. No longer are we bound to the law, but in being bound to Christ we are law-abiding and look to him to fulfill in us all the just requirements of the law.—the Editor