Legalism has been a problem for Christianity since the beginning. (Actually since the very beginning ... with Eve.) We humans are so careful to follow rules -- real or imagined, biblical or cultural, whatever -- that we lose sight of the purpose of rules. We think they are to control the population, to make people nicer, better. So we pass laws to prevent gun violence by people who have already demonstrated that they are perfectly willing to break laws to commit gun violence. Just an obvious example. We think that better laws make better people. Just a hint: they don't.
So why are there laws? Well, let's distinguish, here. Why did God make laws? Perhaps we can find the optimum reason for laws if we ask why the Optimum Being made them. You don't suppose He didn't know what people were like, do you? So why did He do it? We aren't left to guess. "We know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law, so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God" (Rom 3:19). That's interesting, isn't it? It doesn't say, "So people will be better." It says, "So that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God." It's kind of like a contract. Put in writing, we now know what is expected of us. Before we guessed, we assumed, we presumed. We operated off of questionable consciences. I'm sorry; I put that in the past tense. We actually still do, don't we? It's not the complexity of the law that is our problem, either. Jesus listed two: Love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself (Matt 22:37-40). Just two. And we can't do two. The law was not given to make us right (Rom 3:20; Gal 2:16). It was given to show how evil we are. "Here's the standard," the law says, "and you don't meet it."
That's why Christians who make it their aim to make people submit are wasting their time. The purpose of God's rules were never to make people better. Following them would certainly make them happier. After all, the Creator of all knows how we work, and following the law would surely make our lives better. But the real purpose is to point out our desperate need for a Savior. So when we make "correcting evil" our life's goal, we miss the mark (which, by the way, is the definition of sin). The Bible points to sin -- a violation of God's law -- as a problem for which Christ is the remedy. Jesus said, "If you love Me, you will keep My commandments" (John 14:15), so keeping the law is a product of a relationship with Christ and the new life that realtionship brings. We ought not use sin as a problem people can solve. When we do, we're just making matters worse.
2 comments:
Without the Law, we would be left to our own subjective rules and conscience. It is a very good thing, it's just never been sufficient to save anyone because it doesn't have any remedy for sin already committed. If all we did was obey the Law, it still would be insufficient to earn heaven because then you've only done what you're meant to have done. Only Christ's righteousness applied to us can get us to even. Obedience only gets us to a zero-righteousness balance.
Paul suggests (if not outright states) the Law informs us about what sin is. We can look down the list of "thou shalt nots" and find one or two which strike us as "problematic". "Oh, gee! I can't do that anymore!" It was something I felt compelled to do...it pleased me...it was my "orientation" or how I typically respond and I'm not supposed to do it. The Law exposes us and we can see what we are more plainly by the Law which describes what we must not do.
Or as some have done, we can pretend those laws which most inconvenience us are magically no longer applicable to we "Christians". That seems really risky to me so while I struggle with that which compels me, I'll strive to cope with the compulsion rather than give in to it...for His sake.
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