This Is The Way

 

The Lawlessness Of Modern Christianity

Are modern Christians under God’s law or any law at all for that matter? How does Christianity function as a lawful society if there are no laws? If we are following laws, whose laws are we following? God’s or man’s? A section in the Bible heavy with discussion of the law is Romans chapters 6 - 11. It’s a large section of scripture to cover in a single article, so we’ll break it up over a couple. The thing we need to remember when we start looking at anything in the New Testament is that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and forever.¹ and The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand forever.² If Christ is the same forever and His word will stand forever, that leads us to look at something fundamental.

Who Was the “God” of the Old Testament?

When we start looking at the law and whether it is still applicable to us or not, we run into a prevalent dilemma and one that we must necessarily answer before we can discuss law effectively. Who was the God of the Old Testament? Was it a gruff and merciless God the Father? 

Neh 9:28 "But after they had rest, They again did evil before You. Therefore You left them in the hand of their enemies, So that they had dominion over them; Yet when they returned and cried out to You, You heard from heaven; And many times You delivered them according to Your mercies,

And,

Psa 69:16 Hear me, O LORD, for Your lovingkindness [is] good; Turn to me according to the multitude of Your tender mercies.

And,

Psa 89:1 A Contemplation of Ethan the Ezrahite. I will sing of the mercies of the LORD forever; With my mouth will I make known Your faithfulness to all generations.

It doesn’t appear so at all! If the Father is the God of the Old Testament, then it doesn’t sound like the writers of the Old Testament believed Him to be the merciless being some today believe Him to have been. There’s another option in this discussion. What if the God of the Old Testament was the one who became Christ? There are multiple places where Christ says no one has seen the Father.

John 1:18 No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared [Him].  

John 14:7, 10-11 "If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him." ... 

"Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own [authority]; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works. 

"Believe Me that I [am] in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves.

That would mean that the being Moses saw, Abraham saw, and Joshua saw were all Christ and not His Father. From the beginning of time, it seems that it has been Christ interacting the most with humanity. So it would appear logical to say that Christ is the God of the Old Testament. We run into a problem, however, a problem that strips away the logic of this view. There are sections in the Old Testament that specifically mention two beings as God. There isn’t just one God of the Old Testament; there are and always have been two. One of these scriptures is in Genesis when God or Elohim, which is plural says, “Let Us make man in Our image.” This is backed up by John when he says nothing that was made was made without Him, Christ. In the psalms, there are clearly two beings presented as both being God. We’ll look at just one of these sections, but I’ll also include the references for the others. Psalms 2, 16, 22, 89, 90, 110, and 118. The one we are going to look at is Psalm 2:1-4. 

Psa 2:1-4 Why do the nations rage, And the people plot a vain thing? 

The kings of the earth set themselves, And the rulers take counsel together, Against the LORD (Jehovah) and against His Anointed (Christ), [saying], 

"Let us break Their (Jehovah and His Christ) bonds in pieces And cast away Their (Jehovah and His Christ) cords from us." 

He (Jehovah) who sits in the heavens shall laugh; The Lord (Jehovah) shall hold them in derision.

In the last verse, the Lord was changed by the Jews to be Adonai instead of Jehovah. We know they did this because they made a careful record of it. As if that alone isn’t enough, later on in the same chapter, the psalmist records this: 

Psa 2:6-12 "Yet I have set My King On My holy hill of Zion." 

"I will declare the decree: The LORD has said to Me, 'You [are] My Son, Today I have begotten You. 

Ask of Me, and I will give [You] The nations [for] Your inheritance, And the ends of the earth [for] Your possession. 

You shall break them with a rod of iron; You shall dash them to pieces like a potter's vessel.' " 

Now therefore, be wise, O kings; Be instructed, you judges of the earth. 

Serve the LORD with fear, And rejoice with trembling. 

Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, And you perish [in] the way, When His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed [are] all those who put their trust in Him.  

What an odd thing for a singular being to say. What we take away from all of this is that there wasn’t “A God of the Old Testament” and a separate one of the New Testament; there were and are two beings currently in the God family who have worked with humanity from the beginning and created all things together. Knowing who God is, as much as our tiny brains can know an infinite being (which isn’t very much), we can now begin the exploration of what law is still applicable to us.  

Do We Have To Follow Those Old Things? 

God’s law has never been very popular with mankind. From the very beginning, when there was just one command, man has felt hemmed in by it. Satan played off this when he deceived Eve into eating from the forbidden tree. Cain certainly felt its restrictions after he clonked brother dearest over the head with a rock. Why do we need those dumb old things anyways? Isn’t man innately a moral being? If you are still asking that after what the past few years have shown, then I question your sanity. Man is not inherently good; in fact, without God’s help in the form of the Holy Spirit, we would not be even a little bit decent. 

Psa 14:3 They have all turned aside, They have together become corrupt; [There is] none who does good, No, not one.

Gen 8:21 And the LORD smelled a soothing aroma. Then the LORD said in His heart, "I will never again curse the ground for man's sake, although the imagination of man's heart [is] evil from his youth; nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done.

Mat 15:19 "For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.

Jer 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?

Mankind needs a moral code upon which to function. The only reason we have even a bit of a moral code left in society is because of the Christian principles this nation was founded on. Without law, we are animals. So why is God’s law so unpopular? Well, it runs contrary to our human nature, even though it is for our benefit. His law takes work, and we don’t like being told no.

We know we need a moral law in general, and God’s law in particular, but wasn’t His law nailed to the cross when Christ died? Weren’t those old things done away with? Isn’t Christ the new nice God who doesn’t ask anything of us other than our love? Haha, not so fast! This brings us back to our earlier discussion of who the God of the Old Testament was. Guess what? With them being one and the same throughout the entire Bible, we get an excellent consistency, and what’s more, we find out why I brought that up in the first place. Exciting, isn’t it? If Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and forever, and The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand forever, then why would He do away with His own law, for it was the one who became Christ who gave Moses the ten commandments. His commandments have existed from the beginning. Cain was judged under them, God created the fourth commandment in creation, and Noah abided by the clean meat laws. Why would Christ abolish something He set up from the beginning? Doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, now does it? Well, we’ll see about that. All of this has served as a rather lengthy introduction to our main topic: walking in the way. And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, "This is the way, walk in it," when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left.³ 

A Roman Holiday

We are going next to the book of Romans, where we will spend the rest of our time in this article (and probably a dozen more) with brief forays into other scriptures for clarity, context, and interpretation. As Isaiah and the Mandalorian put it, we have a way to walk and a creed to follow, so we better make sure that we know what is still in effect as far as God’s law goes. We are going to leapfrog a little bit, going through Romans, sometimes jumping ahead, other times going back to get more context in what Paul is saying.

What is our starting premise? We must have an accurate starting premise to accurately build upon it and arrive at a solid conclusion. Here’s ours:

For a moral society to exist (that should be us as Christians), there must necessarily exist a moral law, for we are not inherently moral beings. 

I think we have pretty well already established that, so let’s work outwards from here. 

Rom 7:1-4 Or do you not know, brothers and sisters (for I am speaking to those who know the law), that the law is lord over a person as long as he lives? 

For a married woman is bound by law to her husband as long as he lives, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of the marriage. 

So then, if she is joined to another man while her husband is alive, she will be called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she is joined to another man, she is not an adulteress. 

So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you could be joined to another, to the one who was raised from the dead, to bear fruit to God.          

To understand this section, we must first understand that there is a difference between a covenant and a law. They are not the same thing and are not bound to each other. God’s law existed before the Old Covenant. This section is talking about a marriage covenant made with Israel. A woman can only remarry if her husband dies. Even though Christ divorced Israel, that wasn’t enough. He and His people weren’t free to make a new marriage covenant. Someone had to die, specifically the husband. This is the “law” or covenant we were made dead to when Christ died. His death opened the way for Him to put a new marriage covenant in place, one that includes all people, as many as walk His way and drink His cup. Drink His cup… Does this remind you of anything? Brief foray coming right up. 

1Co 11:25 In the same manner [He] also [took] the cup after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood. As often as you drink [it], this do in remembrance of Me."  

Why is drinking of the cup so important, and what does it have to do with marriage? Something Christ said when He handed it to His disciples makes this cup extremely significant to marriage and a new marriage covenant. 

Mat 26:29 I tell you, from now on I will not drink of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom."

What an odd thing to say. Perhaps Christ was referring to the fact that He would die soon and wouldn’t have a chance to drink of it… perhaps. His disciples certainly didn’t seem surprised by what He did. Maybe what He didn’t do here is an even more significant clue. He never drank of the cup here either. Why? Was He just against alcohol? Not likely since He turned water into wine. So what is going on here?? It takes us to the Jewish wedding ceremony. Not the ceremony itself, but something that happened about a year before the wedding even took place. The groom goes to ask the bride for her hand in marriage, and a special ceremony takes place. Instead of giving her a ring, he offers her a cup of wine. She drinks it as an acceptance of his proposal, and then he also drinks of it to close the covenant. Thus they are betrothed. When Christ offered the cup to His disciples, and by extension, all who come after who drink, He was proposing marriage to them. His disciples weren’t puzzled because they knew precisely what this represented. This brings us back around to that extra little thing He didn’t do. When He didn’t also drink of it, He left the covenant open-ended and made it possible for all humanity coming along after to accept His proposal. What a beautiful picture!! This all brings us back to Romans 7 and Christ’s death. This covenant is only made possible because He died for our sins. He had to die so that a new covenant could be made. 

Rom 7:6 But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.

In this next verse of Romans 7, Paul begins to transition from speaking of the covenant to speaking of God’s law. We are released from the marriage covenant in the first part of the verse, and in the next part, He references an earlier part of his letter. 

Rom 6:6-7 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with [Him], that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. 

For he who has died has been freed from sin.  

Here we go. What was holding us captive? Certainly not God’s law. Sin, however, was enslaving us. So Christ freed us from the sin that enslaved us and the old marriage covenant, freeing us up to serve Him in Spirit, not just the letter of the law. Christ gave several examples of what the Spirit of the law involves. We aren’t to even break the law in our hearts, let alone physically, which he demonstrates with His instructions on adultery.

Mat 5:27-28 "You have heard that it was said to those of old, 'You shall not commit adultery.' 

"But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

    

If anything, the Spirit of the law is far more stringent than the physical aspects of the law because we are a spiritual people, and hence we are held to a higher standard. The physical transgression of the law is to have no place within us. 

Rom 7:7 What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? May it never be! On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the Law; for I would not have known about lust if the Law had not said, "YOU SHALL NOT COVET." 

An odd thing to say. Is the law sin? Hardly. The law defines what sin is. Sin is the transgression of the law. If there is sin, there is law. Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.⁴ 

Rom 7:8-12 But sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind; for apart from the Law sin [is] dead. 

I was once alive apart from the Law; but when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died; 

and this commandment, which was to result in life, proved to result in death for me; 

for sin, taking an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. 

So then, the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

Notice how Paul finishes this section, “The Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.” Paul says this right after he gets done talking about how he was alive before law, but after it came, he died. What could he possibly be talking about here? This takes us back a bit to an earlier part of his letter.

Rom 4:15 for the Law brings about wrath, but where there is no law, there also is no violation.

This also brings us back to our earlier discussion of a moral law being necessary for a civilized society. Where there is no law, there is no sin because anything goes without law to define what sin is. So if Paul lives without law, believing it to be dead, then he also lives without sin. The catch to this is that he isn’t really living without sin because God’s law exists whether we believe it does or not, kind of like gender. Paul is only living sin-free in his mind. Sin deceived Paul into thinking that the law was gone; thus, lust was allowed to take hold of him because he believed sin to be dead. The chickens always come home to roost unless a fox got them, but that’s not the point. The law always existed whether Paul believed it to or not. Once he realized that, he recognized just how much the law of death was at work in his body. The life he had apart from the law was deceptive, for it was not true life. The only way he could truly live was to submit to the law and die to sin. This is why he says the commandment is good, true, and holy. The only way to die to sin is to live under the law, not just the physical aspects of the law, but the higher calling of the Spirit of the law as a spiritual people. 

Well! We made it through a whopping 12 verses of Romans 7! I hope you found this stuff interesting at the very least, dear reader. This will definitely be a series of articles, so I hope you can bear with me. This is a genuinely fascinating section of the Bible and one of my personal favorites. The passion Paul conveys is truly inspiring! As always, comments and discussions are welcome! This is the Way!  

Footnotes

¹Hebrews 13:8

²Isaiah 40:8

³Isaiah 30:21

⁴1 John 3:4