The Necessity of the Law

I gave a small devotion at our church meeting this Sunday and since I wrote it out I thought I would share it. We have been studying the law recently reading through Biblical Institutes Vol. 1, so it has been on my mind.

The Necessity of the law

Psalms 119:97 “O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day.”

Psalms 119:113 “I hate vain thoughts: but thy law do I love.”

Psalms 119:163 “I hate and abhor lying: but thy law do I love.”

By what standard will we govern our lives? This is, I believe, the greatest battle of our day in the Christian circles. From the passages just read we can see that David knew what would govern his life. Will we be like David and govern our lives by the Word of God and his law? Or will we govern our lives based on what man believes and says?

If we ask any Christian what their answer to those two questions we will almost always be given the first response. But in reality, when that is professed is it really being acted out in the lives of the people that say that. Are we living by every Word of God? Do we really believe that the Bible speaks to every area of life? Or is the Bible simply a set of spiritual maxims that teach us how to commune with God and be “saved” but does not deal with the whole man in how we deal with people in our lives and conduct our everyday actions, how government is run, how the church is run, and how the family should be set up and functions? I would have us consider that God’s word does speak to every area of our lives and that he has given us in his word his law that we are to obey.

God’s law is one of his greatest gifts to mankind. We as finite weak creatures are not left to our own helpless reasoning to discover what right and wrong are, but have been given, by the triune God, his word which tells us, absolutely and eternally, what constitutes right and what constitutes wrong. To deny this fact is to deny that God has all power and is all knowing. God has decreed in his law what is right, what is wrong, and how law-keepers, and law-breakers are to be dealt with.

Rushdooney in his 1^st Volume of his Biblical Institues makes an observation about law; he states,

“Law in every culture is religious in origin. Because law governs man and society, because it establishes and declares the meaning of justice and righteousness, law is inescapably religious, in that it establishes in practical fashion the ultimate concerns of a culture.”

Another statement made by a great theologian was that, “culture is religion externalized”. Which was made by Henry Van’til.

In light of these two statements we can see that the laws that are passed in a society are a direct outworking of the religious beliefs held by the people of that society. If our religion is revealed in our culture, and our laws are made and voted on by the people that make up our culture, then we can rightly say that the laws that govern our society are representations of the people’s beliefs of what is right and wrong.

But how can this be true if in our country, as of 2008 over 75% of adult Americans professed to be Bible believing Christians? How can we see laws being passed that praise what God calls evil, demote what God calls righteous, and exalt what God says should be punished? How can this happen if the vast majority of the populace say that they believe Christ is Lord? How can we see evil seemingly to prevail in our country when well over half of the people say they believe in righteousness? Herein is the problem.

To quote Rushdooney on this, he says,

“A central characteristic of the churches and of modern preaching and Biblical teaching is antinomianism, an anti-law position. The antinomian believes that faith frees the Christian from the law, so that he is not outside the law but is rather dead to the law.”

I would have us consider this morning that this belief is what has led us to the condition our culture is in today and rendered the church-world impotent in its power to change and accomplish any feats for the kingdom of Christ and to stem the tide of evil in our nation. The church has taught for over 100 years now, that we are no longer bound to obey the law, but that we are freed from it to live a life under grace. But this view stems from a misunderstanding of what the law as for and what the curse of the law was.

Most Christians will quote verses to say the law is done away with like Galatians 3:13 which says, “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law,” And this is certainly true. But what is the curse of the law?

“Romans 6:23 says, “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

The curse of the law that we are no longer under, is that we are no longer condemned to eternal death by the law. We are freed to life eternal with Christ. In other words, the law condemned us to death, but Christ paid our debt so that we can go free. But are we to now say that since Christ has paid our debt we are now free to break the law? The law that was so important to God that it required Christ’s death?

Romans 6:1-2 ¶ “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?”

1Jo 3:4 ¶ Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.

If sin is the transgression of the law as 1 John 3:4 states, how are we to know what sin is if the law is done away with? And if Paul says that after we are saved we are not to continue in sin; if the law has been done away with then there is no sin and nothing to not continue in any longer! Is scripture contradicting itself or is the modern interpretation of the law false and leading people astray? I would argue the latter.

If we believe that Christ came to pay our debt for our sins and the result of that was to free us from obedience to the law; this would be as if to say that if we stole from someone and were convicted, after we had paid the victim back, we are now free to steal as much as we like for the rest of our lives! Does that make any sense?

Christ said in Matthew 5:17-18 “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.”

Christ says that as long as heaven and earth are here, none of God’s law will be done away with. Not even one jot or tittle! If we truly believe this and believe that God is an unchanging God; then if we reject God’s law, even a jot or a tittle, we reject God himself. As Norman Williams said, “A man cannot reject any word of God without in principle rejecting every word of God.”

God’s saving grace does not give us the license to break the law; it empowers us to be law-keepers.

There is a wonderful example of what the power of Christ does to someone in the story of Zacceus. The scripture says after Christ had told Zacceus that he was going to eat with him, that he received him joyfully and then says, quote, “And Zacchaeus stood, and said unto the Lord; Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken anything from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold. ⁹ And Jesus said unto him, This day is salvation come to this house, forsomuch as he also is a son of Abraham. ¹⁰

Now, why did Zacceus say he would restore to anyone fourfold if he had taken something from them by false accusation? It was in fulfillment of God’s law. In Ex 22:1 God said, “If a man shall steal an ox, or a sheep, and kill it, or sell it; he shall restore five oxen for an ox, and four sheep for a sheep.”

God’s law required that if a man had stolen something from someone and either sold it or didn’t have it in his possession to repay, then he was to restore to that man fourfold what he had taken. We know that Zacceus was a tax collector and most theologians say that he had gained extra money from the people by some type of trickery. So in Zacceus saying that he would restore to anyone fourfold if he had taken something from them by false accusation, he was directly fulfilling the law of God as was given to Moses.

Here we see an example of what happens to a saved man. Christ says after Zacceus’s declaration, This day is salvation come to this house, forsomuch as he also is a son of Abraham. ¹⁰ What was the evidence that Zacceus had received salvation? He fulfilled the law of God! When God saves us he saves us TO his law…not from it. He gives us the power to keep his law and not be law-breakers.

As one theologian said,

“Man’s justification is by the grace of God in Jesus Christ; man’s sanctification is by means of the law of God”. Once we are saved we are empowered to be covenant keepers and to work out our salvation more and more by learning to keep God’s law more and more. And one of the glories of God’s law is that it speaks to every area of life.

God’s law applies and addresses everything in our world; individual, family, church, and civil government. For us to deny that God has authority over these areas and to say that there are areas of life that God is not concerned with is to attempt to strip God of his sovereignty and to say that he is not the ruler of this world. If there is an area that God’s word and law does not speak to then there is an area that Christ is not Lord over.

I would argue that it is the denial of God’s law that has led us to the state that we are in today. In times past the laws of nations was based on the law of God. Just one example to show this is the New Haven Colony, which was founded in modern day Connecticut, whose records show that the law of God was made the law of the colony:

On April 3^rd, 1644 it was said, “it was ordered that the judicial laws of God, as they were delivered by Moses… be a rule to all the courts in this jurisdiction in their proceeding against offenders…”.

The charters of the founders of this country show that they based their lives and governments on the law of God and our country was founded on that law which is what has maintained us as a blessed nation ever since. As our nation begins to degenerate towards lawlessness due to the lack of obedience to God’s word, it is our duty to proclaim the sufficiency of scripture and to tell the church world that God’s word is the final authority in every area of life. We must return to keeping God’s law in our everyday lives and seek to see it implemented in our churches, communities, and civil government. Without it, our country has no foundation on which to stand and God’s law commands that we be destroyed. Judgment begins at the house of God and we will either be blessed for being law-keepers, or judged for breaking his eternal law.

While the specific application of all of the law of God needs to be discussed and regained, may God give us the grace to desire to see God’s law embraced in every area of our lives.

May we be able to say with David;

“O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day.”