Summary
Love is the goal of Christianity. It is also the great commandment: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself' " (Mk 12:30-31). The paradox here is that that goal is not directly accessible to us (Rm 8:7). Calling us to obedience is supposed to bring us insight into that fact.
Something is broken that needs fixing. We are egocentric by default. We need to be brought back into a nurturing relationship with God. However we resist owning our problem. We stubbornly seek to prove our goodness creating a front that keeps us from being real. Our relationships then, the structure of love, lack authenticity.
To bring us insight, God, through the old covenant, seeks to establish a sense of moral responsibility to law. This is not a just a theological construct. It's simply the triad of right and wrong, backed by authority, impressed upon our conscience. That is the essence of the old covenant. It is not that the old covenant creates legalism, it's the natural way we relate to law outside of grace. At its lowest level this serves to restrain our selfishness. However, if we take it seriously, it can help us see our inability to comply with the spiritual implications of the law.
Law is integral to the function of the new covenant. Grace must reference from law. If we don't accept responsibility for our actions, grace fails to have significance. We'll find little need for a new moral climate unless we have experienced the flawed nature of our legalistic moral make up.
The tenor of the two covenants is very different due to their different functions. The old covenant uses authority and judgment to enforce "morality", the new uses faith and love to inspire goodness. Therefore, as we read the Bible, one of the most important distinctions we must make is between the old and new covenants. Failure to do so has fueled gross distortions in our understanding of how God relates to us. This confusion leads many to accept various pictures of a judgmental and often angry God. It has led others to see Him as dictatorial, capricious, and even brutal.
Failing to make this distinction can lead to characterizing love in a dualistic manner. We accept the definition of love in Ist Corinthians 13 as the love we should give to others. Yet, we allow our understanding of God's love to be infused with the pragmatic harshness of the old covenant. We fail to realize that the distinguishing feature of the old covenant is its dependence on authority and judgment rather than simply its use of law.
Some block out these harsher aspects, accepting an intuitive understanding of His love. Although making for a better relationship with God, this editing is intellectually dishonest and fails to deal with the reasons for the Bible's dualistic perspective.
The old covenant contract with God, given at Sinai, was not simply legislated legalism. As a pedagogue, the law functions as enforcer, debt maker, gap creator, and finally, when its truth is stripped of its old covenant trappings, as an appropriate guide. Unless we see the height of God's standards, we fail to understand our inability to measure up. The atmosphere surrounding our obedience is not characterized by grace. We lack essential humility. There is then, no solution for our judgmental and self-righteous attitudes.
Grace must reference from law. We can't experience grace for a failure that we do not see as such. Unless we see that infraction as something we should have done, forgiveness and understanding are pointless. I may think I have been gracious, while you simply wonder what the fuss was all about. Grace works only where there is a need for it.
Why the Wizard of Oz routine at Sinai? This seems a marked contrast to Jesus holding little children on His lap. Unless the law has authority, it can too easily be ignored or reframed into a user-friendly version, pandering to our weaknesses. Today's irresponsible "sexual freedom" would not have taken place in the past without a sense of having crossed the line. Today, the authority of that line has been removed for most. The law must establish clear and authoritative parameters to be taken seriously.
The New Testament also has its thundering Sinais. Authoritarian and judgmental images in the New Testament continue to serve an old covenant function. God wants to make it clear that we cannot take His words lightly. The vision of His power and authority supports the integrity of His truth. However, once we take Him seriously, God expands our vision. The focus shifts to His redemptive grace.
Some will say that I am simply talking about two aspects of God, His mercy and His justice. I don't think so. The authoritarian and judgmental qualities God takes on in the old covenant are not a true reflection of who He is. Those qualities are simply a necessary expedient backing the authority of the old covenant.
Once again let's enumerate the reasons why God did not simply
give us the law (truth) in a new covenant manner:
· Unless the law is driven home with authority, we fail to see it as
our responsibility.
· Unless the law has authority, it fails to withstand challenge. Everyone
will define right in his/her own way.
· Unless we take law seriously, it won't convict us of sin, nor will
it restrain. It's like the police going around in Santa suits.
· Unless the standards are high, we too easily placate our moral self
by accepting a comfortable right.
· Unless the law has teeth, we fail to see the need for a grace-based
relationship with God that shifts our perspective from the often rigid and judgmental
attitudes of our conscience. Why seek a relationship with someone we can't see
unless we need it?
· Unless we have a sense of debt, there will be no humility or appreciation
for grace.
Peace must be our spiritual foundation. This comes as we trust God fully with our lives, knowing He is working in all our circumstances for our good. However, rest requires the cooperation of our submission. We can't expect God to order things appropriately while we're off doing our own thing. However, submission must take place under the merciful hand of grace or the lack of freedom and the knowledge of our weakness and failures will never allow us peace.
The root of most spiritual problems lies in our understanding of God. Many have a picture of God that will not promote a healthy faith. Without a healthy faith it is impossible to truly submit from the heart. Without a free submission, we cannot let go and let God. Bound then as slaves to our needs and fears, we can't rest and all our works are tainted by self. Our fruit is, in other words, rotten.
So what should we do? We must understand the nature of the new covenant in contrast to the old. This gives us a proper understanding of the true nature of God's love and kingdom. We must then contemplate His freeing love, letting that inspire an honest faith. We will then desire His lordship and can freely submit. Giving ourselves to God allows us to let go of our worries and cares, for we are now in His care. Finally, we must release that fleshly notion that in seeking after our happiness we will find it. Then, as choices come, we must walk in the light.
We must give up our ambivalence toward law and understand its function as a pedagogue. We must hold up God's laws and see them as valid, our proper goal, and accessible through grace. We must respond to the call to obedience and accept grace as the alternative to our natural legalism. Failing to see the appropriate place for law results in our using fear and authority to bring about change rather than the true principles of grace.
As we struggle then, to obey, we'll find that it's more about contemplation and communication than will power, more about knowing God than simply knowing what to do. We will find that it's more about letting go, than trying.
"Good things as well as bad, you know, are caught by a kind of infection. If you want to get warm you must stand near the fire: if you want to be wet you must get into the water. If you want joy, power, peace, eternal life, you must get close to, or even into the thing that has them. They are not a sort of prize which God could, if He chose, just hand out to anyone. They are a great fountain of energy and beauty spurting up at the very center of reality. If you are close to it, the spray will wet you: if you are not, you will remain dry" (CS Lewis in Mere Christianity).
The church often enables legalism. No, it doesn't teach it,
it enables it by emasculating the pedagogue. The reason the issues I've presented
here aren't of more concern to many is the same reason the Laodiceans (Rev 3)
felt little need for a true experience in grace. We feel our performance is
acceptable, or we plead justification as an excuse for our mediocrity. We get
caught in a trap created by an incomplete understanding of Christian spirituality.
Lifting up a real standard while accepting growth toward that standard as our
proper goal, limits our ability to stay "comfortably" lukewarm.
Copyright 8/04, Patrick Fagenstrom - edited 6/09