God's Law

 “Gods Law” // Message @ JRCC – Sunday, March 20, 2011

Text: Romans 2:17-29 // Series: “But Now…” The Greatest Words Ever Spoken

Good morning, welcome here, friends.  My name is Brad, I’m part of the teaching and pastoral team here and I want to add my welcome and invite you to grab a Bible – either the one on your phone, one your brought or head back to the welcome centre and Michelle has a copy of the Bible for you to borrow.  If you don’t have your own, please take that home as our gift to you. 

When you pick up the Bible, how do you imagine you should read it?  Let’s say you’ve never picked up a Bible before…  What would be your instinctive response?  Yes.  Start at the front, in western culture that is the left-hand side of a book – and go from the top of the left page to the bottom of the right page.  Flip over and repeat.  That tends to be how we treat books.  If and when you do this, let me paint a picture for you of what you’d find.  First of all, you might not realize it because it’s printed on such think paper, but the Bible is a pretty thick book. There’s an introduction which is usually pretty boring stuff talking about Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic – the languages of the ancient world in which the text was originally written and methodologies of translation that they have used.  Then you usually have a big page that says “Old Testament”.  Then you’re into the book of beginnings, Genesis, which we studied the first part of in January and February and we will be finishing off while I’m on sabbatical this summer.  You’d find, as we did in our Sunday morning study, that Genesis has cool narratives – there’s snakes, floods, sibling rivalry & murder, travel to exotic locations and stories about people who go from prison to being king of the world…  It’s all very exciting! 

Then you come to the next book of the Old Testament, Exodus.  Which continues with very interesting stories.  There’s a power struggle between and oppressed people group and the nation-state who has enslaved them for 400 years.  There’s dramatic showdowns, bushes that catch on fire, rivers the turn to blood, 10 plagues… very cool stuff!  Then the narrative slows down for a little while and some rules for life get discussed.  Things like the 10 commandments.  Then there’s more rules for liturgy, a construction project including a complete inventory of items included in their portable worship set up…  We’ve beginning to see that the Bible has various genres in it, not just narrative. 

The next book is Leviticus, which is literally a book of laws or the book of the Law.  Here we get into procedures for everything.  There’s different types of offerings, instructions on the ordination of priests, definition of what makes your ceremonially clean or unclean.  We hear about rules about skin diseases and bodily discharges, what to eat and not to eat – pork is out.  A lot of these rules have to do with something called holiness, living in a way that pleases God.  And some of them are very specific – like God instructing people not to wear clothing woven on two different kinds of material.  Apparently, poly-cotton weave was out.  We learn about religious festivals, the yearly calendar, hiring and firing strategies for priests and logistical set up and take down instructions for the worship space of ancient Israel.  It’s perhaps not quite as sexy as Genesis or Exodus so we slow down a bit or skip over parts in our reading usually.

The next book is Numbers.  It reads like a manual for the Ministry of Vital Statistics.  Some of you love that level of detail.  It’s all about who does when and when…  Vows, style and form of ancient worship, there’s cool stories again of the people rebelling and some early wars but there’s also a lot of census data.  Next – Deuteronomy (if you can say or spell it).  The law is repeated and there a lots of speeches about what to do and not to do… You get my point.  Which is to simply say this: There is a lot of [law] early real estate given to a genre called LAW in the Bible.  And we have to wrestle with the implications of that…  What do you and I do with these instructions?  As I see it, we kind of have 3 basic options when it comes to God’s law in the Old Testament: We either go with option 1, follow them literally.  Option 2, pick and choose which ones we like, or Option 3, ignore or minimize this section of the Bible completely.  A few years ago, journalist A.J. Jacobs, himself the product of a secular Jewish home, decided he was going to take one year and try as hard as he could to follow every rule he could isolate in the Old Testament.  And there are thousands.  From not trimming his beard, to specific food choices, to the admonition to stone adulterers…  He was going to take 365 days and try to, in his words, Live Biblically.  He writes well about it in his book “The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to follow the Bible as literally as possible.”  You can imagine some of his challenges as he wrestles with the question what to do with this whole section of the Bible called God’s Law.  But Jacobs was not the first to wrestle with this question… We’re going to look this morning in our series in the book of Romans at the second half of Romans 2 and ask the question what do you and I need to know about God’s Law?  Let’s pray as we look into God’s Word this morning. 

Well you might recall that in the weeks of Lent leading up to Easter we are teaching through some of the big picture themes of the book of Romans under the series title “But Now…” – the Greatest words ever spoken.  The phrase ‘but now’ speaks of movement and transformation. As in, I once was unemployed, but now, I have a job.  In the first half of Romans 2, which we explored two weeks ago, we came to understand that you and I once were far from God and because of our actions, we were subject to His wrath and judgment.  But now, because of the forbearance and mercy of God, He provides a way through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus that you and I do not have to experience God’s judgment of sin.  Romans 8:2 says “because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.”  So the natural question, then ought to be if Christ has come to set us free, does that nullify or invalidate multiple centuries of Old Testament law?  In some ways, for us, this might seem like a bit of a foreign or distant question but for those in the early Christian movement, it was the most heated topic of debate you could possible imagine.  Think about it...  You have Jewish Christians, who have been living under law for millennia.  And now you have non-Jews, or Gentiles, coming to faith in Jesus and saying “Jesus died, I have faith in Him – to heck with your silly rules!”  You can imagine the theological, intercultural and inter-personal tension and conflict that this created.  And so this discussion about what to do with the laws in the Old Testament, particularly those first 5 books I mentioned, was one of the most potent discussions of the early Christian movement.  The driving question behind it is “how do I know if I’m right with God?  What will get me to heaven?”  And so in the book of Romans, one of the leaders and key thinkers of the early church lays out a complex but compact set of arguments to answer these key questions.  He mentions law 50 times in this book, so it is one of the major themes to understand and wrestle with.  And when we think about it, the question of God’s law is not a dusty or antiquated history lesson…  Every one of us needs to wrestle with the question “am I right with God?  What gives me any kind of certainty that I will go to heaven when I die?  Is it contingent on following a set of rules – if so, what rules?  If not, what is it contingent on?”  Let’s look at our text because it provides some clear and compelling answers…  Turn to Romans 2:17                      [2 Scripture slides]

So, the picture we have is this.  That those with Jewish heritage believe they can get right with God by following the rules.  And they do have the argument of history on their side…  Because before Christ came into the picture, this was indeed the case. There was a very good reason and very clear purpose for the law.  God gave the law to Moses and the prophets as a way of:

• It took the guesswork out of moral behaviour (2:18 - you know what God wants).  If I am going to be held accountable for my actions, I need to know wants is on-side and what is off-side.  

The other helpful thing that the law does is that

• Before Christ, it provided a way to be in right relationship with God.  There was a very elaborate system of sacrifices and religious ordinances which had a very specific function.  The book of Hebrews and the book of Galatians talk a lot about this…  That

- “The purpose of the law was to keep a sinful people in the way of salvation until Christ.” (Galatians 3:18)

And here’s where our series phrase kicks in – BUT NOW… as Jennifer Hudson would say “It’s a new day, a new way”.  So why would God have to initiate something other than law to save us?  Well, Romans 2 highlights some of the problems that are implicit in a Law-driven system.  Let’s look at a few:

• Pride (Romans 2:17 & 29)

With any system of rules, there are people who keep them and people who break them.  And the challenge for people who keep them is to do so without feeling morally superior to the rest of us who immediately become second class citizens.  Some people, such as my wife and mother in law – would do exceptionally well if we were living in a police state.  They like to follow rules.  Me, on the other hand, I don’t.  But when I do, man do I like to look down on others who don’t follow the rules!  The existence of the law provides a very clear path of pride.  This was true historically for the Jews and, we’ll see if a minute, it can be very true of contemporary Christians.

The second problem with the law is that it:

• Provides knowledge of evil as well as good (what not to do looks attractive)

Romans chapter 7 which you read in your momentum journal on Friday and Saturday talks about this.  If I live with no understanding of the law ‘do not covet’ it’s one thing – read Romans 2:12-16…  But as soon as there is a law introduced that says do not covet, what do I immediately want to do?  Covet!  It’s like that old thought experiment where a person says ‘for the next 60 seconds, I want you to try very hard NOT to think of a pink elephant”.  What do you immediately do?  The existence of law provides a standard which, when I become aware of it is helpful because I know what God wants me to do, BUT it also is unhelpful because what NOT to do is also clear and that becomes attractive. 

Which leads to the next challenge that our text brings up… 

• People who know God’s law but don’t live it out (hypocrisy)

This is not simply a law problem, it’s a challenge of human nature which we studied in Genesis.  The law becomes the standard by which I will be measured, not only before God, but before the world.  And since it is

• Impossible to keep it all (see James 2:10)

The basic message is – if it’s up to the law to save you and me, we have no hope at all.  We’re screwed.  Because law has a tendency to make us into something.  Because we can’t keep it all, we tend to develop a bit of a hierarchy where we say “well, I may not keep it all but thank God I keep more of it than so and so”.  Law immediately causes us to compare and contrast our moral behaviors with others in the hopes of winning at the game of religiosity.  So, if you want to win at that game, let me help you by layout out some wonderful ground rules on How to Become a Good legalist.  I found these online – a 7 step program for being the most moralistic, legalistic person you can be:

1. Make lots of rules
2. Push yourself to try and keep your rules
3. Castigate yourself when you don’t
4. Become proud when you do keep them
5. Appoint yourself as judge over other people
6. Get angry with people who break your rules or have different rules
7. “Beat” the losers

You begin to see why the law was insufficient to make me right with God and why God designed and implemented a new and living way.  Because the law deals with externals – in verse 25 of Romans 2, Paul lists another external…  The external sign of the law for ancient Jews – physical circumcision.  He says in essence, you think you are so great and so right with God because you are willing to follow a list of rules – right down to physical customs and what, where and with whom you eat, what you don’t do on the Sabbath, precisely how much money you give away…  All of these are external rules.  And Paul says, you could keep them all – every last one – IF that was possible, which it isn’t.  And you would still miss the point (kinda like AJ Jacobs did in his book).  It’s not about obeying every jot and tittle of the law.  The Pharisees of Jesus’ day thought this and but elevating law above God himself, they became legalists.  In our terminology, we might call someone like this a fundamentalist.  Or, more literally, a legalist.  And many of you have seen or been exposed to the dangers of what happens when people, and sometimes entire religious sub-cultures or denominations go down that pathway.  It ain’t pretty, is it? 

So by now you might be saying “hooray!”  I can get rid of that law stuff – who cares what I eat or say or do – I am under God’s new system called grace.  Well, let me reign you back in for a minute because Paul is going to do that in chapter 6 of Romans and we’ll get there in our series.  But for now, let me attempt to summarize his Law Logic from Rom. 2 as follows:

• Those with some knowledge of God’s law start out in an advantaged position

This is the case he is making to the Jews in all through the book of Romans.  You are incredibly privileged to have been spared some of stupidity and heartache that some of the Gentiles have because they have lived their entire growing up lives without access to God’s moral law.  A more contemporary example might be those of you who grew up in a Christian home or went to a Christian School or frankly, most of us who grew up in a society greatly influenced by religion – God’s laws provide much of the framework for our legal system.  And sometimes those who grew up in this environment think to themselves, “man, I wish I had a salvation story like so and so…  They were far from God, into drugs and crime and sexual promiscuity and then they came to faith.  If I had a story like that, wow, when I stood up to give my testimony, people would really listen!”  But the funny thing is that those who have that as a part of their story say exactly the opposite: “wow… I would love to have a story where I started out with some knowledge of God.  I wish I grew up in a home like yours” (you get the picture.  The argument in Romans is that there is an advantage I knowing God’s law.  But (and it’s a HUGE BUT)…       

• BUT none of that ultimately makes a difference if you don’t ACT on it and move from legalism to grace

Look at the next part or our text in Romans 2:28-29.

Ultimately, it’s about what’s going on internally, not what kind of guardrails the law can produce externally.  If I want to be right with God, it’s about my heart, not about keeping the law.  This is the key points of the book of Romans where the law is mentioned over 50 times…  That when Christ came, he set us free from the moral requirement to keep Old Testament laws.  BUT Now, it doesn’t mean that it’s a free for all.  Now, I am guided not by external rules but by a changed heart.  And here’s the ironic thing, ultimately, when I experience a changed heart I will end up keeping lots of the moral law found in the Old Testament.  I will end up helping the poor like our team down in Guatemala this week, I will end up living a generous life and being transformed by God’s truth.  BUT now, I won’t do it so that I look good or so that I can score brownie points with God.  I do it because once I embrace the truth that the saving work of Jesus on the cross like we experienced together last week at the Stations of the Cross makes me right with God and not rule-keeping, God has given me a new heart.  Think of it this way…  In Montana in the 1990’s, you may recall that they had no posted speed limits on the interstate highway system.  A kind of North American autobahn without the nice cars.  So the question is ‘why keep the law if I don’t have to’?  To which there are a few answers.  Possible.  Firstly, even though there isn’t a speed limit posted, there are still actually are laws that I am living under.  Laws of inertia, physics, momentum, gravity…  Natural laws that say “if you are going 110 mph, you might not be able to make that corner as much as you want to”.  There is also the reality that your car, no matter what make or model, can only drive so fast so you are governed by that law.  The real kicker in Montana is really more this:  Weather conditions that suggest that even though there is no speed limit, there is still a prudent speed at which to drive.  Similarly, we can say “hooray!  God’s laws have been fulfilled in Christ.  They are taken away and nothing can slow me down.  But there are still laws at work.  The road is meant to be driven at a certain speed…  So ever though there is no law telling me how fast to drive (it was removed), I still know what safe driving looks like and I can still practice it. 

And this is the whole point of chapter 2 and our explanation of God’s laws.  In helpful ways, this discussion clarifies what God expects of me.  

• A vibrant and active relationship with God not just knowledge about Him

Because the law is external, we can know it and not follow it.  God invites us to consider that knowing about Him, even teaching others about Him is useless unless we do so from the position of an active and vibrant relationship with Him.  Some of you here today know a lot about God or a lot about the Bible, but you have never made that choice to say “I don’t just want to know about you, Jesus.  I want to know and experience and personal relationship with you.”  If that’s you, then when the worship team comes to play in a few minutes, the prayer team will be at the side tables.  I want you to go over to them and say “I want to explore what Brad was talking about this morning.  I want to know God personally.” 

The second thing this text shows us is that God wants us to live in  

A deeper understanding of His grace without flaunting or abusing it 

The Jews became very proud that they kept the law but they found lots of loop holes.  And some Christians today think that the new loop hole is “I’m under grace and not the law, so I can do whatever the heck I want!”  Paul says later in his writings in Galatians 5:14 “you will actually fulfill the entire law if you keep this as your operational principle: Love your neighbor as yourself.”  When we love our neighbours, we don’t flaunt grace, we extend it.  And when we receive God’s grace and when extend it to others, we

• To follow His law because we want to not because we have to

On the one side, there is the error of flaunting it.  But on the other, there is a temptation that still comes to us most every day.  And that is the temptation to walk in legalism.  Because frankly, it is easier.  The rules are clear-cut, you are in or out and it’s easy to tell.  Legalism is alive and well in our world, fiends.  But God invites you and me to live in the Spirit of the law, not under the letter of it.  And when we do that, we will receive praise from God and not from man. Let’s pray together and respond in song.