The Law and Its Uses

God's Law

1. "You shall have no other gods before me."
2. "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.  You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me,  but showing love to a thousand {generations} of those who love me and keep my commandments. "
3. "You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name."
4. "Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.  Six days you shall labor and do all your work,  but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates.  For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy."
5. "Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you. "
6.   "You shall not murder."
7. "You shall not commit adultery. "
8. "You shall not steal. "
9. "You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor." "
10. "You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor."  Exodus 20:3-17

Summary of the Law: 

Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."  Matthew 22:37-40

Three Legal Uses of the Law

1. To keep us from beating each other up and taking each others' stuff (authority)
2. Show us our need for a savior
3. Show Christians what a good work is.

The only way the Law can save you is if you keep it perfectly from the moment you are born.  (Although there is a problem with:  Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.  Psalm 51:4-6)  IF the Law could save you, there would have been no need for Christ to die on the cross.

I Samuel 12:24

Only fear the LORD and serve him faithfully with all your heart. For consider what great things he has done for you.

In this verse Samuel is addressing the children of Israel.  They have had a history of being faithful for a time then falling away from the LORD.  Samuel admonishes the Israelites for even wanting a king.  God was supposed to be the nation's king.  He (Samuel) says in verse 13:  And now, behold the king whom you have chosen (Saul), for whom you have asked; behold, the LORD has set a king over you. (14)If you will fear the LORD and serve him and obey his voice and not rebel against the commandment of the LORD, and if both you and the king who reigns over you will follow the LORD your God, it will be well.  (15) But if you will not obey the voice of the LORD, but rebel against the commandment of the LORD then the hand of the LORD will be against you and your king.

At this point, the children of Israel have already received the ten commandments.   They have found that it is not possible to keep the commandments (law) perfectly, so God set up a sacrificial system to atone (pay) for their sins.

So back to verse 24,  Only fear the LORD and serve him faithfully with all your heart.  Since we already know that this is impossible, why would Samuel say this?  When one fears the LORD and serves him faithfully, it means that the individual is living a life of continual repentance.  NOT serving him faithfully will all of his heart.  Of course it is something we can strive for, but we should not judge ourselves by how faithfully we have served, because it is not quantifiable.  If it were, we would fall woefully short anyway.

That is why faith is crucial.  That is why Jesus died on the cross.  Hebrews 11:6 reads:  And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

He Is Risen!

(image from copiosa.org)

If this were the end of the story, we would still be in despair, without hope and forgiveness of sins.  "He was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and by his stripes we are healed."  Isaiah 53:5

(image from google search)

Because of this, we are able to believe, in faith, repent, and receive forgiveness of sins.  "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."  2 Corinth. 5:21

There really are only two religions. Really.

One:  A religion based on faith.

Two:  Every other religion is based on law.

First let's look at law.  Why do I say this?  Think about it.  What do you have to do to get to heaven, or reach the highest plane of consciousness, or reach Nirvana, or have twenty-some virgins, or keep your family together in heaven?  Do the right things, to earn your place in heaven.  Or become something, or be something.

It's rules and more rules, meditation, good works, bearing children, killing infidels, serving others, feeding the poor.  It's do, do, do.  If you have to do something it qualifies as a work which qualifies as law.

Next, let's look at faith.  The Bible (through Christ) is the only place where faith is a requirement.

Paul had a lot to say about it.  In the book of Romans alone, we find:
 
For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: "The righteous will live by faith."  Romans 1:17

God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished—Romans 3:25

For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law.  Rom 3:28

However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness.   Rom 4:5

And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. So then, he is the father of all who believe but have not been circumcised, in order that righteousness might be credited to them.  Rom 4:11

It was not through law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith.  For if those who live by law are heirs, faith has no value and the promise is worthless, because law brings wrath. And where there is no law there is no transgression.  Romans 4:13-15

It seems counter intuitive that we don't have to work to receive heaven, our experience of  life on earth is generally full of the harder you work, the greater your reward.

Praise God!  If it were up to my good works, I'd be on my way to Hell.  (All of the verses quoted are from the NIV.)

Can You Substitute Change for Sin?

Okay, this will probably be a bit of a rant.  Last night (and this morning) I was at a workshop, entitled Full Confidence.  It was about having confidence in what the Bible says is true.  Since "fide" was highlighted in the title, I thought that faith would be discussed more, but in the sessions I sat in on, it was not.

The opening speaker talked about change.  He began with a story about the movie Finding Nemo.  He ended with Dory's "just keep swimming" chant/song.  Honestly, I'm not sure what that has to do with keeping confidence in God's word.  He read Hebrews (citation needed):  He then launched into an entire lecture on change, starting with the creation in Genesis and talking about how God created a world of change.  He also talked about Adam and Eve eating of the forbidden tree in the garden, stating it was an arbitrary rule.  That act put us on a "changed" trajectory.  I think his pinnacle statement was that God had to change his form (to man) to come to earth.  He also said, delighted, something like:  The change, that causes the change, that brings the change (I'm sure I'm getting this wrong.)  The point is he said "change, change, change, change" a lot.  It this story making sense?  If it is not, it wasn't to me either and this is the best I can do to explain it.  I was getting more and more frustrated because it seemed like this lecturer was more impressed with what he was telling us, than to look at God's word. 

As the lecture was winding down he quoted this "verse" twice, which hit my boiling point.  "Christ became change, who knew no change."  Now, this probably sounds familiar, it is the verse:  God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God(II Cor. 5:21)  Being my usual wall-flower self, I piped up to the speaker and said something like:  "The Bible says sin."  To which the speaker said, yes, it does and quoted the verse correctly.  I challenged him and said, "why don't you tell us what the Bible says, then."  He somehow wove my comment into the lecture and kept chugging along.

A short while later it was time for our break.  At that point a man sitting in front of me turned to me and said I needed to "make this right" and apologize for saying what I did.  The fact that I wanted the Bible quoted correctly didn't make any difference to him.

I will say this.  Now, certainly you can have a discussion where you talk about an unchanging God changing and coming to earth for mankind.  I'm in with that discussion.  What I'm not in is making God's word say what it does not say.  If replacing "change" for "sin" in II Cor 5:21 works, shouldn't exchanging the two words in other contexts work just as well?  Let's see--

By no means! We died to change; how can we live in it any longer?  Rom 6:2
The wages of change is death.  Rom 6:23
Christ died for our change according to the scripture.  I Cor 15:3
For Christ died for changes once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit,  I Pet. 3:18

Hmm, those don't seem to work as well.  Maybe I'm a simpleton and don't understand the nuances of a lecture from a PhD.  Maybe I'm too much of a fundamentalist.  I am still confused as to why highlighting "change" and changing a verse gives us confidence in the steadfastness of the scriptures.  You know, maybe it was not the right way for me to handle the situation.  But if the worst one can say about me is a staunchly defend God's word, that's okay with me.  And, personally, I need Christ to forgive me of my daily sins, not my daily changes.

Jesus Didn't Say...

"You can't judge a book by its cover."*
What he did say:  "Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit.  You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.  
Matthew 12:33-34

and

"For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thornbushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush.  The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.  
Luke 6:43-45

*Paul Washer

Studying the Bible

In my previous post,  I introduced the word hermeneutics.  It simply means how one goes about studying the Bible.

There are different ways in which to do this:  The way many pastors and theologians use is Grammatical, Historical and Systematic.  These terms are pretty clear.  Grammatical is what the text actually says, not what you could make it say or want it to say.  Historical is looking at how other theologians during the course of history have interpreted the Biblical events.  A systematic approach is one that is orderly, building on the Biblical text over time.

Trouble arises when these approaches are deviated from.   Some examples?  Stay tuned.