Essay 30 (5/16/04)

 

ARE WE UNDER LAW?

 

This question has to be answered Yes and No. Yes, we are under law, and it is a blessing that we are, for law reveals to us what God expects of us. It disciplines us, informs us, and makes civil society possible. It exposes wrongdoing for what it is, and it reminds us -- even painfully -- of the dimension of our own sin and of our dependence upon God's grace. There were several reasons why Paul could say, "We know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully" (1 Tim. 1:8). He must mean by that we are to use law for what it is, law -- and not attempt to make it do what law cannot do.

 

  The answer is also No. We are not under law for justification. Law itself cannot make us right with God. Law does not save. Paul makes this clear in Rom. 10:4: "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes." Christ is not the end of the law (period), but the end of the law for righteousness.  The law of God is eternal. Jesus was emphatic about his mission in reference to the law: "Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill" (Mt. 5:17). He went on to say that not one jot or tittle will pass from the law until all is fulfilled -- which allows for no time limit. He was equally emphatic in saying that those who keep "the least of these commandments" (law) shall be called great in the kingdom of God.

 

  Our Lord was always responsive to the law, and he never in the least denigrated it -- though he did disapprove of some Pharisaic treatment of it. His submission to baptism even when he did not need to be baptized -- so as to "fufill all righteousness" -- appears to be because of the law. He paid the temple tax; he sent those he healed to the priests; he honored the Sabbath; he attended synagogues -- and there read from the law. When he was asked to name the greatest commandment, he quoted from the law (Mk. 12:29). He in fact named the two greatest commandments -- both drawn from the law. He was conscious of the law to the very end. When on the cross he said, "It is finished," he appears to refer to his accomplished mission of fulfilling all the things the law had said the Son of Man should do.

 

  It may appear that he was pointing to the end of the law when he said, "The Law and the Prophets were until John. Since that time the kingdom of God has been preached, and everyone is pressing into it" (Lk. 16:16). But this cannot be, for he goes on to say in the next verse, "It is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one tittle of the law to fail." He was rather saying that the law and the prophets informed concerning the kingdom of God, and led God's people to it, which they violently entered. But the law and the prophets go on and on, never failing -- not saving God's people -- but informing and disciplining them, and bringing them to the One who does save.

 

  It is the same in Paul's teaching. He insisted that the law was "holy, just, and good" (Rom. 7:12), and that his faith did not make the law void -- on the contrary, he said, his faith upheld the law (Rom. 3:31). And yet he stressed that righteousness does not come through the law -- if so, then Christ died in vain (Gal. 2:21). He could not have made it plainer than in Rom. 3:28: "Therefore we conclude that man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law."

 

  What then is the purpose of the law?  It was "added because of transgression" (Gal. 3:19), which means the law was given so as to control sin in the world, or to put a damper on it. The "strength of sin is the law'" (1 Cor 15:56), which means that the law exposes sin and reveals its deadly power. "I would not have known sin," Paul says in Rom. 7:7, "except through the law." Covetousness proved to be his besetting sin, "but I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said 'You shall not covet.'" Deep in his heart Paul knew of course that he was covetous, but when the law zapped him with the fact, his response was, "When the commandment came -- not to covet -- sin revived and I died." He even says that the law "killed" him (Rom. 7:11).

 

  This led him to say a remarkable thing about the law: "We know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin" (Rom. 7:14).  There is no problem in the law -- except that no one can keep it perfectly. It is spiritual, perhaps too good in fact. The problem is with us -- our weak flesh has the propensity to sin. The law reveals and condemns the sin. But it also brings us to Christ and to grace. Paul could at last say, "O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God -- through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom. 7:24-25). But he would never have come to grace except for the role of the law.

 

  He said it beautfifully -- if a bit cryptically -- in Gal. 2:19: "I through the law died to the law that I might live unto God." He is saying that it was the law that got him there -- to grace! That is, it was by the law itself that he died to the power of the law, and thereby found life in God -- in grace, in Christ. That is a Wow!

 

  But it is the same apostle Paul who assures us that the battle is ongoing -- between the flesh and the spirit -- and so the law is still around as part of the crucible. Even after his cry of victory in Christ he says in Rom. 7:25: "So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin." He had a heart for God, a desire to be spiritual, and to conform his life to the demands of the law. But there is the flesh -- his carnal nature -- that also calls for his service. The war goes on inside of us all. But "now that (justification by) faith has come" -- as Paul puts it in Gal. 3:25 -- we have the help we need in the struggle.

 

  "What the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin, he condemned  sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirements of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit" (Rom. 8:3-4).

 

  What the law could not do, God did! By sending His own Son! -- that what the law requires might be fulfilled in us!

 

  That is what is good about the good news!