{"id":518,"date":"2011-08-02T21:25:39","date_gmt":"2011-08-02T21:25:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christcommunitychurch.com\/blog\/?p=518"},"modified":"2011-08-02T21:25:39","modified_gmt":"2011-08-02T21:25:39","slug":"oh-how-i-love-your-law-psalm-11997","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/christcommunitychurch.com\/blog\/2011\/08\/02\/oh-how-i-love-your-law-psalm-11997\/","title":{"rendered":"Oh how I love your law (Psalm 119:97)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Having the law written on our hearts and having our stony hearts turned to flesh\u2014all for the sake of Christ alone who bore our sins\u2014we are finally able to rejoice in God\u2019s commandments as the rule for loving God and our neighbors.<\/p>\n

–Mike Horton<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

Entire article, “Two Ways of Denying God\u2019s Law and One Way of Affirming It”:<\/p>\n

It hardly needs to be pointed out that American culture is morally adrift.\u00a0Newsweek<\/em> magazine referred to the question over values as \u201ca deep, vexing national anxiety\u2026about the nagging sense that unlimited personal freedom and rampaging materialism yield only greater hungers and lonelier nights.\u201d\u00a0Furthermore, \u201cthe acting out has been bipartisan.\u00a0Self-actualizing liberals have been obsessed with personal freedom to the point of self-immolation; predatory conservatives have been obsessed with commercial freedom to the point of pillage.\u201d\u00a0One thing is clear, according to Newsweek<\/em>\u2019s Joe Klein: \u201cBoth these indulgences have run their course.\u00a0The 30-year spree has caused a monster hang-over.\u00a0 There is a yearning for something more than the standard political analgesics.” (1)<\/a> Not to be outdone, Time\u2019<\/em>s former editor-in-chief, Henry Grunwald, complains that everyone is obsessed with freedom and rights when what we need is more responsibility.\u00a0 He even concludes, \u201cOur view of man obviously depends on our view of God.” (2)<\/a><\/p>\n

Yet while evangelicals seem obsessed with reviving \u201cJudeo-Christian values,\u201d according to surveys most of them cannot name the Ten Commandments that they want to see mounted in public courtrooms and classrooms. (3)<\/a> Furthermore, the same surveys reveal that regular church-goers do not differ significantly from the rest of society in their lifestyle. (4)<\/a> What\u2019s more, well-known evangelical leaders who inveigh against public immorality with more self-righteous than righteous indignation are all too often themselves exposed for their deviancy, fueling even greater cynicism in the service of suppressing the truth in unrighteousness.\u00a0In this situation, the first three chapters of Paul\u2019s letter to the Romans have special relevance.<\/p>\n

Denying God’s Law: Gentile Suppression (License)<\/h3>\n

First, he aims the guns at the Gentiles: the Newsweek<\/em> and Time<\/em> audience (Rom. 1:18-32).\u00a0 Everyone knows the law, Paul says.\u00a0No one can say that he or she never had a chance to respond to God\u2019s revelation.\u00a0Written on the conscience in creation, the law is natural to us.\u00a0 Reformed theology has identified this natural law with the covenant of creation (also known as the covenant of works).\u00a0No one has an excuse, because everyone knows God\u2019s moral will.\u00a0This general revelation includes God\u2019s existence, his creation of the world, and even \u201chis eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are,\u201d by means of \u201cthe things he has made.\u201d\u00a0\u201cSo,\u201d says Paul, \u201cthey are without excuse, for though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened\u201d (vv 20-21).<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, the ungodly willfully suppress the truth in unrighteousness (v 18).\u00a0As Grunwald observed above, it all starts with God.\u00a0To justify their immoral behavior, Gentiles invent a god who will not bring them into judgment.\u00a0Attempting to eradicate every vestige of God\u2019s revelation and his image in humanity, Gentiles transgress even the bounds of nature.\u00a0Paul alludes to examples in verses 24-27, especially homosexuality.\u00a0While the gospel\u2014the good news of the righteousness that comes through faith in Christ\u2014is utterly foreign to the natural person, the law is the most obvious and universally known fact of human existence.\u00a0 Nothing runs more against the grain of the way we were made\u2014even against our biological design\u2014than homosexual behavior.\u00a0The most obvious dictates of reason must be suppressed, erased, ignored, and silenced.\u00a0So when a people get to the place where their idolatry has run its course, not even natural, common-sense moral sensibilities hold sway.\u00a0It\u2019s not belief in God that is irrational; naturalism\u2014worshiping the creation rather than the Creator\u2014leads us finally to deny reason altogether.<\/p>\n

Although homosexuality is a singular example of suppressing the truth that we know, Paul doesn\u2019t necessarily single this out as the worst sin.\u00a0In fact, he begins with idolatry (vv 22-23), which leads to ethical license (vv 24-25).\u00a0Furthermore, along with homosexuality he mentions, \u201cThey were filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice.\u00a0Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, craftiness, they are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, rebellious toward parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless\u201d (vv 29-31).\u00a0Gentiles should be able to recognize themselves somewhere (probably several times) on the list.\u00a0In the current culture wars, however, Paul\u2019s argument gets lost as one side focuses on the one sin that religious people find most offensive in others<\/em> (at least publicly), while the other side either simply dismisses or twists these clear declarations.<\/p>\n

Denying God’s Law: Jewish Legalism (Hypocrisy)<\/h3>\n

But while the Jews in Paul\u2019s audience were undoubtedly relishing the apostle\u2019s description of Gentile immorality, the guns turn toward them next in Romans 2:1-29.\u00a0The only thing worse than denying Judeo-Christian values, he says, is touting them while breaking them (vv 1-16).\u00a0 The Jews boast in being \u201ca guide to the blind\u201d while actually walking in darkness themselves, so Paul demands, \u201cIf you are sure that you are\u2026a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of children, having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth, you, then, who teach others, why do you not teach yourself?\u00a0 While you preach against stealing, do you steal?\u00a0 You who forbid adultery, do you commit adultery?\u201d\u00a0The questions are obviously rhetorical: \u201cFor, as it is written, \u2018The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you\u2019\u201d (vv 17-24).\u00a0Their circumcision in which they boast has simply made them more accountable even than the Gentiles to keep the whole law (vv 25-29).\u00a0The Jews are no better than the Gentiles before the searching judgment of the law.\u00a0Everyone, \u201cboth Jews and Greeks, are under the power of sin\u201d and no one is righteous before God (vv 9-18).<\/p>\n

All of this is meant to shut the mouths of the whole world as Jews and Gentiles together are made to hear the terrible sentence of condemnation (3:19).\u00a0Only then can they hear together the good news that God has accomplished salvation for all who have faith in Christ.\u00a0\u201cFor no human being will be justified in his sight by deeds prescribed by the law, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin\u201d (v 20).<\/p>\n

If we do not understand the law, we cannot understand the gospel; nor are we trained in the wisdom that God has decreed for lives of gratitude in view of his grace.\u00a0Thinking, like the rich young ruler, that we have actually followed God\u2019s precepts from our youth, we look for other laws to fulfill and often these rules devised by human wisdom, without divine authority, become the genuine marks of Christian discipleship.\u00a0Yet legalism is just another way of suppressing the truth in unrighteousness, of setting the bar lower for ourselves, putting ourselves in the position of authority and power over our lives and the lives of others.\u00a0We need to be freed not only from license but from legalism.\u00a0This can only come when we have been taken into the custody of our Redeemer-King: liberated by his gospel and ruled by his law alone.<\/p>\n

Affirming God’s Law<\/h3>\n

Many of us were raised with the view that the law belongs to the Old Testament.\u00a0While it is true that the Mosaic covenant, which included the moral law (Ten Commandments), civil laws, and ceremonial laws, dominates much of the first half of the Bible, the Abrahamic covenant\u2014the covenant of grace\u2014actually precedes it (Gen 15 with Gal 3:17-18).\u00a0In fact, the gospel promise was given to Adam and Eve after the fall (Gen 3:15).\u00a0 The new covenant, in fulfillment of the Abrahamic blessing, does not exclude the law.\u00a0Rather, precisely because its blessings are given to us based on Christ\u2019s performance of its stipulations rather than our own and its curses are borne by Christ rather than by us, the law can actually be embraced now out of gratitude rather than out of fear or self-righteousness.\u00a0Through Jeremiah, God announces that the \u201cnew covenant\u2026will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers\u201d at Sinai, \u201cbecause they broke my covenant.\u201d\u00a0Rather, the new covenant will bring forgiveness of sin and, on that basis, \u201cI will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.\u00a0I will be their God and they will be my people\u201d (Jer 31:31-33).\u00a0Already in the Old Testament, the law is upheld as the way in which the saved are to walk, not as the way of salvation.\u00a0Only if we are justified by grace alone, through faith alone, by Christ alone are we able to see the law as a friend rather than as our judge and executioner.<\/p>\n

The Ten Commandments are preceded by the brief historical prologue that justifies God\u2019s authority in this treaty: \u201cI am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery\u201d (Ex 20:2).\u00a0God is represented here as the Great King who has just rescued a tiny, helpless people from the clutches of an oppressive regime.\u00a0But this rescue does not leave them to themselves, to be invaded and tyrannized again sometime in the future.\u00a0Instead, God himself assumes the reign of Israel as Redeemer-King.\u00a0Israel didn\u2019t \u201cmake Yahweh Lord\u201d; rather, as Israel\u2019s Lord he redeemed his people and now rules them for his glory and their good.\u00a0The covenant relationship originates not with \u201cWe the people,\u201d as in the U. S. Constitution, but with \u201cI, the LORD your God who brought you up out of Egypt.\u201d<\/p>\n

This law that was written on the conscience in creation and on tablets of stone at Sinai first of all condemns every person, Jew and Gentile, \u201cGod-fearing American\u201d and godless pagan.\u00a0 That which we know by nature we suppress in unrighteousness, in an effort to ignore the inevitable judgment upon our lives.\u00a0Even as believers, we discover in Paul\u2019s description both of Gentiles and Jews all too familiar remnants of the old Adam.\u00a0Yet in Christ, that fear is removed.\u00a0The law can no longer condemn those who are clothed in Christ\u2019s righteousness.\u00a0 He has kept the law perfectly for us, in our place.\u00a0However, the Lord who redeems is also the Lord who rules.\u00a0The same salvation that removes the curse of the law in justification liberates us from the tyranny of sin and death.\u00a0The Covenant Lord saves his sinful people from predators not to leave them on their own, but to take them under his care for the rest of their lives.\u00a0Although we make only imperfect beginnings in holiness during our pilgrimage, it is all of our being (mind, heart, will, and body) that approves and even delights in all of God\u2019s commands\u2014for this too is the gift of God\u2019s grace in the gospel of Christ.\u00a0Having the law written on our hearts and having our stony hearts turned to flesh\u2014all for the sake of Christ alone who bore our sins\u2014we are finally able to rejoice in God\u2019s commandments as the rule for loving God and our neighbors.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/h3>\n

From this perspective, we can resist the Gentile enterprise of twisting, suppressing, and denying God\u2019s moral will for humanity.\u00a0We can offer explicit witness to the truth that God has made known to everyone.\u00a0Yet because we are recipients of that other word\u2014the gospel that reveals not only God\u2019s eternal power and divine nature but his grace and mercy in Jesus Christ\u2014we can no longer offer this witness from a position of moral superiority (which Paul identifies as hypocrisy).\u00a0We speak the truth now, whether the law or the gospel, as fellow sinners who have been justified and renewed and are being conformed daily to the image of the only one who ever perfectly satisfied his Father\u2019s will for his life and did so in our place.\u00a0Who wouldn\u2019t want to be ruled by this<\/em> King!<\/p>\n

\n
\n

Footnotes
\n1<\/a> Joe Klein, \u201cWhose Values?\u201d Newsweek<\/em>, 8 June 1992, 19.[back to text]<\/a>
\n2<\/a> Henry Grunwald, \u201cThe Year 2000: Is It the End\u2014Or Just the Beginning?\u201d Time<\/em>, 30 March 1992, 74.[back to text]<\/a>
\n3<\/a> George Gallup and James Castelli, The People\u2019s Religion<\/em> (New York: Macmillan, 1989), 60.\u00a0 These statistics, of course, are dated, but biblical literacy continues to decline.[back to text]<\/a>
\n4<\/a> George Barna and James Mackay, Vital Signs<\/em> (Westchester, IL: Crossway, 1984), 140-141[back to text]<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

First published in Evangelium, Vol. 5, Issue 1.\n<\/p><\/div>\n