For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; & his commandments are not grievous. 1 John 5:3
I mentioned to a friend that sometimes I really wished God had made it simple & said: Do this; don't do that ~ & then I realised He's tried that once already, with dubious results. Mind you, it's kept the Jewish people together through several Diasporas but somehow I don't think that was quite what God had in mind, not primarily.
Now just like anyone else I can trot out the trite & simple answers as to what God wants & at different times I have conveniently let it go at that: Love God, love your neighbour. Um, yeah. And depending on whom I speak with & what denomination they belong to depends on what sort of answers I get if I ask, "But how do I love God? What does it mean to love my neighbour?"
When I ask God the answers are a little more troubling because the whole bible is about answering those 2 questions! Dear God, from the legalism of the Jews & the tolerance of the Liberals, preserve us! There is a Way for my stumbling feet that hangs between the Law & the Prophets of the Old Testament & the Grace of the New. It is the path Jesus trod & the closer I find myself to His example the more of His peace I have ~ the peace that passeth all understanding.
Some of where I find myself is familiar territory because the church got the teaching's right. Some is unexplored territory because in embracing the new the church forgot the old teachings. There is a delicate balance. The whole of the New Testament hangs upon the old. Jesus came that the old might be fulfilled: fulfilled, not abolished, not done away with, not abandoned as of no more importance. I tell you the truth until heaven & earth disappear, not even the smallest detail of God's law will disappear until it's purpose is achieved. [matt 5:18:]
Grace, yes. Without it we are lost indeed, but the law also because the law tells us when we have sinned ~ & how we have sinned. Now before you all jump all over me consider than we in the west have been immeasurably blessed by the Jewish law. Our entire legal system is based in part on the 10 commandments. Imagine what would happen if our laws were dispensed with! People could do what they wanted, say what they wanted, take what they wanted & there would be no recompense, no justice. OK, so our world is going to hell in a basket & sometimes it already feels like the worst has happened but so long as the law stands the knowledge of right & wrong persists. And the law is not just a negative. It points out the best way to treat others ~ & God. When Jesus tells us to love others as we love ourselves it is this I'd be pretty sure He had in mind because Jesus was a Torah observant Jew. He knew His O.T.
If God is the same yesterday, today & forever [& He says He is] then He hasn't arbitrarily changed his mind. If He says a thing will last forever, it will. If He puts something in motion that is to last in perpetuity I wouldn't bet on it not. And here's the funny thing. If you had asked me if I loved God I would have answered, "Yes, of course!" But it was love on my terms ~ & ignorance is no excuse. God explains very clearly how we are to show our love for Him ~ you might be surprised.
The purpose of the law was not to trap people in legalism. It was to train the heart to think in a Kingdom way & a person to act in a Kingdom way ~ ways that glorify God & bless people. With that picture the Old Testament slides seamlessly into the New like a hand into a glove. Grasping the greater purpose the whole of scripture lights up like a stained glass window with the sunlight shining brilliantly through it & "How sweet are thy words unto my taste; yea sweeter than honey to my mouth." [psalm 119:103]
15 comments:
You wrote: "The purpose of the law... was to train the heart to think in a Kingdom way & a person to act in a Kingdom way ~ ways that glorify God & bless people."
You know my dear, that is truly profound.
*blink* It is? *Blink, Blink*
I think I know what inspired this and I am in agreement with you. I cannot understand how some view Jesus as being Jewish by birth, but not in practice...? I also agree that all the laws in the Bible handed down from God are guidelines with just the two being the foundation of them all as Jesus stated in Matthew 22, "These two commandments sum up and upon them depend all the Law and the Prophets."
On another note, my husband, having been in Israel, has seen some of the ways that the legalities of religion have been...hmm, added to, perhaps, in an attempt to be sure the most basic ones are not broken. One example would be the Shabbat elevators in Israel.
While I do agree with you that the Bible is all about training one's heart, the truth is that laws themselves, in practice, do not really train, but provide awareness of right and wrong as well as reward and consequence. There must be awareness first, so that training can result. When Eve ate of the Tree of Knowledge, she had an awareness of right and wrong that was not necessary previously and foreign to her at that time. (I could write volumes about how that one act put us in a place of continually striving to regain what was lost. They had paradise and walked with God yet wanted more and we have more yet our hearts still yearn for paradise and wish we could walk with God. Such a paradox!)
I would say what others would see as laws, would be just an essential part of one's spiritual being, which should be the most predominate aspect of a person governing the physical and mental/emotional aspects. Ideally, when our hearts are right with the Lord, these laws are integral parts of us, written on our hearts, so to speak, without even feeling like they are laws at all.
Hi Ganeida,
Rather interesting, for my post for today is about building the church, and talks about our love for the church and how we can improve it. :)
I agree with "Persuaded" - your post is very thought-provoking!
Have a wonderful week,
Love and blessings, Jillian ♥
Seeking: you are right. We need skype. I do not see how we can thoroughly thrash this out in the comments boxes. lol
I want to be in the position I would bet Christ was: Your law have I written on my heart ~ so that my thoughts & actions are Kingdom thoughts & actions, not contrived, not bogged down in legalities, but actions born of a loving desire to please my Father, my Lord, my saviour. The law is nothing without Christ.
Awareness of right & wrong comes first ~ of course ~ & the law gives us that, but after awareness it becomes a training tool. How should I act? What should I do? As we train our children so God trains us. It is a process & the law is not inflexible. Look what Jesus did with it!
Jillian: my thoughts are complicated & messy & not finished & I'm no theologian. Anyone with a clear logical mind could shoot me down in flames I'm sure but Christ wants me to understand something of the purpose & meaning of Torah & *talking* here helps me clarify my thoughts & position. Between the Law & the Prophets, between the Old & the New, Between Judgement & Grace ~ Hangs the cross. Scripture so often is the tension of polar opposites & the truth is to be found in walking the tightrope between them.
I feel that the "training" is not from the law itself...well, unless we are saying the training is from the Law. Again, I would modify that to the "struggle" between the physical and emotional/mental aspects surrendering to and sanctifying the spiritual aspect of a person to have its rightful place as being the predominating aspect.
Without the Holy Spirit indwelling, there is no struggle, there is only "do this and don't do" that because it is written in the Bible or because God says so. There is no feel for the law, no love of it, no heart for it. I can live by a set of laws because I fear punishment or I just think they are good rules to live by and I can even seem to be Christian because I know all the laws and act accordingly as if I am honoring them, but I cannot possess or have real spiritual communion with the law without the Holy Spirit.
Remember that word synteresis that you thought you would not be using in a conversation? Well, here we are using it after all. I believe that this is not the Holy Spirit itself, but rather it is the vessel for the Holy Spirit, our own little Holy of Holies within the temple of ourselves. The spiritual aspect is incomplete without the Holy Spirit taking its place there to commune with us.
I believe "training" comes from God directly, but when we wrestle with our spiritual aspect, what we are really doing is undermining its/His authority and, in so doing, we are giving its intended control to another aspect of ourselves. Now, when in certain situations, it is not necessarily wrong for another aspect to dominate actions. For instance, a car is coming at us. We most likely would not be thinking, if it is God's will I allow myself to be hit--no, we have physical reflexes to jump out of the way without much thought spent on "should I...?" This is not wrong or bad, but imagine being so well trained in giving the spiritual aspect dominance at all times to not see the car as a threat at all....imagine not seeing anything as having substance or value unless it is in God's Kingdom.
We get glimpses of this wisdom in the Bible, but there is no law nor practice of the law within it that can really train us to achieve it. We can go through the raw rehearsals, if you will, the memorized scriptures, the motions, the rituals, even prayer and not get it. Also, there is the question will we need the Bible when we are in God's Kingdom? If not, then shouldn't we be striving for spiritual awareness of this Kingdom in which we are already citizens?
I am not saying that we should toss the Bible and listen only to the Spirit, because we all must be milk-fed, told like a young child in concrete terms what is right and wrong, but as we progress in our Christian walk ever closer to the Lord, ever more seeing the Kingdom which is "at hand" as Jesus repeatedly said (it is here and now and it always has been so), we should see and understand these laws are actually spiritual covenants. That is, we should be developing spiritual instincts from God directly that would be within the law, not necessarily written, yet personal instructions from the Lord, as He gave the prophets in both the the OT and NT. This is the training: desiring God fully, to hear His every word, to do His bidding, because He is at hand, even if (especially if) it seems against prudence.
When we study the OT, we must realize that there were essentially no laws written before Moses so Noah's building of ark was not from the law, but within the law and a fulfillment of it. Really amazing stuff!
I will stop now I just learned there is a character limit for a comment....We would definitely need to set a timer if we ever Skyped!!!!
seeking: Let's see if I have grabbed your nettle correctly because I actually think we are in agreeance! lol.
The law in & of itself is dead. See the scribes & pharisees. It is the spirit that gives life to the law by writing it on our hearts in such a way we display the Kingdom attributes. See Christ.
God's word will not pass away ~ but whether He means His written word, His spoken word or Christ as the word made flesh I have no idea at this point.
There is another complication as well, a stickier one in a sense, because knowing the whole scriptures is a protection, guarding us against false prophets & those who would lead us astray. I know I get alarm bells going off like firecrackers if I hear someone preach something I don't immediately recognise as scriptual.
There is a balance. Christ displayed it. Being human I tend to see~saw between extremes because it's easier on my flesh! Pail wasn't joking when he likened spiritual training to athletic training!!!! No wonder I'm getting so tired!
We are in agreement, Ganeida. It is in the little details that we both love to sink so we can challenge our own perspectives, those interesting sticky little points...too much to write! And, then my husband's perspective on law is that it is about punishment or consequence. Jesus was the sacrificial Lamb killed to fulfill the sin offering according to the law, so that works too. So many perspectives!!!
Why do I see the law as a covenant? Because Jesus said he was not here to destroy the law but to fulfill it. Laws are not fulfilled typically--complied with or broken, yes, but fulfilled...? Therefore, to me, God's law is a promise, a covenant with us.
Hmmm. My perspective is the Law (those from the Lawgiver) is still very much alive, but the Jewish laws (man created) to ensure the Laws were honored, now those were the ones that I think were Jesus pointed to as missing the mark of what God intended. For instance, men had to walk to the synagogue to worship because they were to keep the Sabbath holy, but the Jewish leaders decided they could only walk a certain number of steps to keep the Sabbath holy by not working. Then Jesus states the obvious in Luke 13:15 “You hypocrites, does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the stall and lead him away to water him?" This after being accused of working on the Sabbath by healing a woman.
Did Jesus break the Law as given by God? No. Did He break the law from the strict perspective of the Jewish leaders? Yes. Because the practice of the law had so overshadowed the spirit of the law. Imagine the dilemma of the religious leaders of the time: Here Jesus was miraculously healing people with a power that must come from God and that power did not automatically shut down on the Sabbath but then neither would God's power, He simply would choose not to use it...so how could this healing power come from God, because God would not break His own law by working on the Sabbath and yet, if it is from God, then Jesus was speaking and teaching truths from God Himself, like the prophets of old, and these teachings did not line up with all the laws they had created and lived by in the attempt to honor the law...this is the key point. They were attempting to honor the law and that was overshadowing honoring the Law Giver. Perhaps, the spirit of the law regarding no work on the Sabbath was about preparation so nothing got in way of devoting oneself to God for just one day out of each week.
To see how far men took simple laws and made them go beyond intention we could examine the Book of Exodus which forbids "boiling a (kid) goat in its mother's milk." It was decided by the religious leaders that these foods must be kept separate at all times in all ways so when the invention of the refrigerator came along, each household had to have one for meat and one for milk. When you think about it, they seem to want to be absolutely sure there is no possibility of encroachment on the law so they go far beyond it, which is commendable in one way but in another way quite disrespectful for certainly God could express His own laws exactly as He meant them, couldn't He? Now, the cooking of ground beef and the making of cheese has nothing to do with "boiling a goat in its own mother's milk," but just try to find a beef cheeseburger in Israel even today.
The True Law does not pass away and knowing the Bible is important for us, in this life. My point is even the knowledge of the Bible itself can overshadow the relationship with God. I have seen this too many times, among those in the church who think they are Christians, but have book knowledge of Him only. However, one must gain awareness of Christ to accept Him also, so the Bible is important and, yes,...there should be balance.
I should have just written a blog post and gave a link!
Of course, I have been preaching to the choir, here, and just rambling on and on. I guess I could have just wrote:
We know that in just reading a blog, that we really get to know a person and share in her life. God gave us a Book of books throughout many ages so we could get to know Him and share in His Life, but even the Bible can be empty entertainment or code of laws if the relationship does not develop into one more personal. I know many pagans and atheists who know the Bible very well, but do not yet know God.
I forgot to add that many years ago, I once had a conversation with a Hasidic Jew that while they must observe the Taryag Mitzvot or the 613 commandments, converts were only expected to observe 271, I believe was the number, or 245 if not living in Israel. I don't remember what sect he was, but I found it interesting.
On another note, while God does not change so the spirit of the law remains the same, why were certain laws given at certain times and then other laws given that seemingly overrode, simplified, or fulfilled the previous ones? Have you even looked into the dispensational theology, as in periods in history in which God relates to human beings in different ways under different Biblical covenants? This ideology kind of answers those questions for me, as if mankind as a whole is going through distinct stages of spiritual development. God relates to us as a parent relates to a child as the child goes from infancy to adulthood. You would not relate to a five year old as you would a twenty five year old...that kind of thing. So God Himself does not change nor do His laws, but how much He reveals to us and how much self-responsibility His expects from us changes, perhaps. Not sure if that is true, but it certainly appeals to my logical side.
Lol. I don't do theology. It's not good for my head spaces & has nothing to do with my relationship with Christ but tends to get me caught exactly where I don't want to be on a lot of man made rules! God's rules, as you have pointed out, grow with His child. Man's rules do not. That Quaker designation is there for a reason! ☺
Also I'm a big picture thinker rather than detail oriented so when I think Torah I think *big picture*, not nit~picky detail. Overasll purpose & meaning of Torah, what belongs to the Kingdom, what is for this world alone. Anything that flows into the Kingdom I think I probably need to pay attention to. The festivals are the obvious example.
I have to echo Persuaded here:
"The purpose of the law... was to train the heart to think in a Kingdom way & a person to act in a Kingdom way ~ ways that glorify God & bless people."
Thank you. I am so very blessed by your blog because you cut through all the foolishness out there :)
Allison: Praise from Ceasar is praise indeed! ☺ I often think I come across as a complete idiot because I try to state my thoughts as simply as possible. No point in being clever & profound ~ & incomprehensible!
Wow. I'm trying to catch up, but this post and the comments require a little more time and less tired. :-) When I read the NT this week, I came away with the feeling that the Gospel is really much more simple than we make it out to be. Jesus saves us, by faith. And that salvation *is* the ability to be pleasing to God. Obedience to (the spirit, not the letter of) the law - love, justice, mercy... Jesus made a way, and we walk in it.
The new church struggled a lot with how much of the law to follow, and at first said the Jews should keep the law but Gentiles didn't have to, but then moved on toward the law not really being possible to be kept by anyone, so that Jews and Gentiles are all one in that we need Faith to make us right.
But you know that. :-)
Hopefully I can come back soon and re-read this post.
MamaO: Exactly! Through Christ's spirit, which resides in us through faith, we are empowered to keep the Law in the way God intended us to keep it & in ways that are pleasing to Him! My flesh gets in the way a lot!
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