Genesis Study - Section 7
THE LAW OF GOD
In this session we shall be considering the law of God as God's revelation of his ways and his instruction to man. We note that this law comes from a God of love who seeks to bring liberty rather than bondage to his children. The meaning of conscience and the role it plays in affecting man's behaviour will also be discussed, as God created man with a conscience to help man live the right way However, we also see why we cannot rely on conscience alone due to the fall.
Questions:
- What is your conscience?
- What does the word 'Torah' mean?
- Why do many people have a negative picture of the law?
Law.
"If any body of people are going to live together, they must make laws and they must agree to stick by them.
That's what it's like in a game, for instance.If we are playing cricket, and a player is out - and refuses to go
out - then the whole game is spoiled."
Dr W. Barclay in The Old Law and The New Law page 3.
Generally speaking, law is an expression of will enforced by power; it implies a lawgiver, a subject, an expression of will, and power enforcing that will. God's will is summed up in the Law of Love. A law tells you about the lawgiver. 'God is love' (1 John 4:8).
How do we think Jamie Oliver would act if there were always going to be the possibility of an explosion every time he mixed certain food substances together? How would you like to drink a can of fruit juice, when there was the potential of being poisoned in doing so?
Moral law, as opposed to natural law, relates to the constitution of rational and free beings. It implies a lawgiver, a free moral subject, power to enforce the command, obligation on the part of the subject to obey, and sanctions for disobedience.
For a society to function properly there needs to be moral laws in place preventing the strong from exploiting the weak, and enabling families and loved ones to grow up in a safe secure environment. Law, when it is right, just and fair, brings freedom and gives us a framework to live within that is uplifting for all.
For a society to function properly God needs to be at the centre of community. The centre must be God, and not just knowledge of God, as the power to love and care for our fellow man comes only from a relationship with our Creator.
Temptation in the Garden of Eden.
Apart from being persuaded to doubt God there are at least two others points we can note concerning the temptation in the Garden of Eden.
- The temptation was for Eve to believe that she had the right to decide who was telling the truth - the Creator or some other source. In a sense she became a law unto herself.
- The temptation was also for Eve to break free from using the Creator's Word as a standard for truth.
In the temptation both the word of God and His very nature is attacked. The words of the accuser, ". strike at
faith in God by undermining His Word; they strike at hope in God by directing it toward self; and they strike at
love by replacing God's love with self-love."
Dr M. Bobgan in 'How to Counsel From Scripture', p30
Secular humanism places man as the final judge of right and wrong. This humanism seeks to elevate the human mind; will and emotions to the place God should hold and place the hope for mankind in man.
In doing so, man destroys the very life he seeks to preserve, and separates himself from the only Person who can truly help him. In order to function properly man needs to lean on God's understanding and view life from His perspective.
"God - He is both transcendent and immanent. He both thinks and feels. He is divine, and he is personal. He knows, he remembers, he predicts. He experiences and rejoices and is sad.
He does things: he creates, he comes, he acts, he performs miracles. He loves; he forms relationships; he warms our hearts. He is holy and good; he provides standards of right and wrong. He speaks; he communicates propositionally; he reveals truth. He is the truth; he promises, he guarantees, he holds things together. All these characteristics are found in the one God, not contradicting each other, but enriching one another."
Dr Peter Hicks, 'Evangelicals and Truth' p 148.
We need to continually remember that all of God's commands proceed from His love. If we don't, then we deceive ourselves and make God into something that He is not, such as a cosmic kill-joy who treats me as a pawn (regardless of my feelings) in His game of life.
The 'god's of religion tend to sit back and enjoy their status as gods. The God of the Bible takes the initiative to save sinners. It was in his plan from the very beginning to send Jesus Christ to save sinners by his death on the cross.
When it comes to salvation, we must not see God as the problem. God is committed to saving us and does not need to be coaxed - even by Jesus - into loving sinners.
God's love for mankind has always been consistent and his purpose has always been to save sinners. The cross did not purchase love for sinners, it simply expressed the tremendous love that was already there. It is we, not God, who need to be changed in attitude.
In doubting God's word we doubt His very character and move out of the protective place of relationship. We are like the small boy who cries out, 'You're not really my mum and dad,' when things go wrong at home, or 'I'm running away because you don't care about me.'
Adam and Eve began by doubting God's word and ended up shutting themselves in with what self had become - fallen and separated from God.
God's triune nature is relational and consists of giving and receiving. The world itself was made to reflect that reciprocal process, to provide, as it were, an 'echo' of the giving and receiving of the triune persons.
When man shuts himself off from God he is unable to receive the love that God has for him, as indeed a young man in prison is not able to receive the full benefits of parental love due to his actions.
Dr K. Barfield in his book, "Why the Bible is Number One" (pages 69-70), notes the following concerning stress: "Study after study over the past fifty years has demonstrated the effects of various stress agents upon the human system. Many have indicated that disease-producing bacteria do not become overtly active in humans without the help of stress factors.The long list of diseases now known to be either caused or aggravated by emotional stress includes disease of the digestive system (ulcers, mucous colitis, constipation, diarrhoea), and diseases of the circulatory system (high blood pressure, strokes, heart attacks, abnormal heart rhythms, migraine headaches, angina pectoris, arteriosclerosis)."
Barfield continues with: "diseases in the skeletal-muscular system (backache, headache, rheumatoid arthritis, muscle spasms), and disease due to the failure of the immunological system (allergies, asthma, hay fever, infectious mononucleosis, dermatitis, psoriasis). Some research even shows a link between cancer and extreme stress."
"Hatred, one of the prime stress factors, is prohibited in the Mosaic laws (Lev 19:17), and several N.T. passages warn against harbouring anger, resentment, or bitterness (Luke 9:51-56; Heb 12:14-15; Col 3:8,13-14). God's people were instructed not to covet what belonged to others (Exodus 20:17) or to be greedy (Col 3:5)
Conscience
The Oxford English Dictionary speaks of conscience as: -
"Inward knowledge; consciousness; inmost thought. Internal or mental recognition as acknowledgment of something."
Conscience is universal in both believer and non-believer alike. It is like an inner tribunal which tests and so helps guides behaviour by internalized moral norms. Everyone has a conscience, even the prostitute or drug-addict.
Adam and Eve knew they had done wrong, yet the fruit of their action was to separate themselves even further from God - they went and hid.
Despite huge steps forward in the areas of medicine and technology the human race appears more restless and confused than ever before. Deep within his God-given conscience mankind knows there is something missing.
We often live by our concept of what we think is right and wrong, yet have as a reference point, our own fallen nature and the thinking of the world instead of God's word. We live by the standard, or lack of standard, of our own consciences.
In speaking of the Gentiles, Paul says in Romans 2:14-15, "Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them."
An American woman's crisis of conscience once drew international publicity. She had been a student protest organizer in the 60s, going on to terrorism in 1970. In seeking to secure funds for the Black Panthers she narrowly avoided capture as her partners in crime were caught robbing a bank. She changed her identity, and went undetected (despite a massive FBI hunt) for 23 years. During that time she went to classes on depression, etc. Her instructor stated that he had never seen someone in such pain. Eventually she gave herself up preferring prison to the pain she had been living with.
Note John 8:7-10: - "When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?"
Conscience can be wrong:
A child who has often seen her mother beaten up and been told by her father not to tell anyone, can eventually tell someone and yet feel guilty. The 'rule' by which they live is false, yet they have lived under it as truth.
Conscience and the word of God.
Scripture reveals that the conscience is, in a sense, 'primed' by God. It is like an independent inspector in us: "The lamp of the Lord searches the spirit of a man; it searches out his inmost being." Proverbs 20:27.
In seeking to understand the above verse we note that
Psalm 119:105-106 informs us that God's word is a lamp to our feet and light to our path.
The word for 'spirit' is 'N'shaamaach' meaning, 'the power of a self-conscious man.'
Matthew 6:22 states that "'The eye' is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good your whole body will be full of light." What do we focus on as a standard of truth - who do we focus our attention on?
Metaphorically the eye speaks of opening the eyes of the mind, causing one to perceive and understand.
"The important thing is that by inserting an overlooked fact into our sequence of thought, chaos is often reduced to order and meaninglessness to meaning. What modern philosophers have been busy doing - indeed, philosophers of all time have practised the same art - is removing by unbelief certain facts from the sad case of this suffering world, facts given us by God himself to enable us to handle the problem intellectually."
Prof. A. E. Wilder-Smith, Paradox of Pain, p 25.
When the truth of God's word illuminates our hearts and minds and we grasp this truth by faith, we begin to understand this world as God intends us to and all that God reveals to us makes sense.
On the road to Damascus, Jesus said to Saul:
I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me. Acts 26:17-18
The Torah
The word 'Torah' has a wide range of meaning covering the revelation of God on Mt Sinai (10 commandments) or the 613 'commandments', or the Pentateuch, or simply being a summary description of the whole O.T.
Jesus reveals the real depth of the law in the Sermon on the Mount where He applies it to the thoughts and intents of the heart. Elsewhere He sums up God's laws with these words:
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbour as yourself'. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments. Matthew 22:37-40
The basic idea of 'Torah' derives from a Hebrew verb 'to point out with the finger or hand' or 'to shoot an arrow' or 'to rain.' God points back to Himself as the One who defines what life is all about.
Torah has no connotation of constraint or compulsion as a curtailer of true freedom, and simply means the revelation and instruction of God. God does not want our true characters to be suppressed but to be free to live in the knowledge of our loving Heavenly Father.
Psalm 19:7 states that, "The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul." The Hebrew word translated 'reviving' ('converting' in the K.J.) is from the word 'sub' meaning 'to turn back' for example, to a starting point. God's call was persistent for His people to return to Him.
When your people Israel have been defeated by an enemy because they have sinned against you, and when they turn back to you and confess your name, praying and making supplication to you in this temple, then hear from heaven and forgive the sin of your people Israel and bring them back to the land you gave to their fathers." 1 Kings 8:33-34. (Note also Jeremiah 4:1)
God calls us back to Himself, back to the safe, secure and challenging environment of His personal care. God's law shows us what sin is through enabling us to see what God is like, and what we are supposed to be like. Jesus is the way, the truth and the life.(John 14:6).
Dr Peter Hicks writing in, Evangelicals and Truth (p 192) has this to say about truth.
"We are made in the image of God not simply in order to enable us to amass more and more information. If all
truth is God-given, it will reflect the richness of God. It will be beautiful, good, ethical and practical as well as
factual. It will be multi-dimensional, a simple truth containing within itself interweaving, factual, moral,
personal, and practical implications. So our God-given ability to receive truth is broad, so broad that it affects
every part of us."
Dr Hick continues:
"God has made us so that we can respond to a given truth in a whole range of ways: with joy, with
understanding, with excitement, with fear, with love, with action, and so on. News of a terrorist bomb in London
is not just filed away in our minds as a piece of information; it makes us angry, or fills us with sympathy for
the victims, or warns us to be on the lookout when we are next in London."
We need to remember that all of God's commands proceed from His love. If we don't recognise this, we deceive ourselves and make God into something that He is not, a harsh dictatorial master.
In doubting God's word we doubt His very character and move out of the protective place of relationship; yet we have been created to live within the environment of His love.
Such statements as 'God doesn't care for me,' 'other people are more important' and 'God hasn't really forgiven me' (when we have come in repentance and faith!), are all contradictions of His word. They can reveal an underlying assumption that our life and our experiences define what God is like, and not His word.
Throughout scripture we see that one of the great dangers was in failing to see God as a loving Father and assuming that His laws were about curtailing true freedom.
In doing so we damage, and at times destroy, the very person we believe we are looking after so well - self. Apart from anything else, think of the unnecessary stress in all this.
God always takes the initiative:
You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:8
We love because he first loved us. 1 John 4:19
"Knowing the meaning of a sentence is not merely being able to replace it with an equivalent sentence. Knowing the meaning is being able to use the sentence, to understand its implications, its powers, its applications. Imagine someone saying that he understands the meaning of a passage of Scripture but doesn't know at all how to apply it.
Dr J.M. Frame in ' The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God', p 67
So Why Do Some People Struggle with God's Law?
People who have been in abusive relationships where they are continually told what to do by those who have no regard for them can find it difficult to submit to God because submission often speaks of oppression. True submission is not like this. If you submit to the dentist you get back, to being your real self. God wants us to be our real self in Him.
People who have been under controlling church leadership can shy away from obedience to God, thinking that
God has no real interest in them and is simply a cosmic killjoy
Castiglione in 'A History of Medicine' 1958
It is clumsy teaching concerning which says that 'dying to self' is about losing our identity or individuality. It is about dying to the self we have become. But what is this 'self'?
Ultimately it is our own self-centredness along with all the flaws and traits of the fallen nature. We cannot become what we are meant to be so long as we are self-centred.
Losing our 'life' - that which we have become - is not the antithesis of selfhood, but of self-centredness. In dying to what the self has become I actually find self because I die to selfishness and the vulnerabilities in me that make me build walls of protection around my life, exploit others and cause so much hurt and confusion.
God's laws do not stifle our true self. They breathe strength and vitality into hurt and damaged lives.
We don't like to feel uncomfortable.
Many people have become so hurt in life that they walk through life as if treading on eggshells.
They spend so much time trying to feel good that when anything comes along that makes them feel slightly uncomfortable they think it must be wrong and avoid it. In other words they are ruled by their emotions.
There are some people who avoid church because they are not used to mixing with other people and equate their discomfort (when doing so), with 'it must be wrong'.
Because the laws in the O.T. make it seem as if law has no real bearing on our lives today.
Many laws in the O.T. seem strange and peculiar and as if God were simply getting His people to go through empty, rather weird rituals.
Thinking this way often fails to see that many laws, for example, involved such things as education concerning sanitation and diet at a time when germ warfare was not understood as it is today.
Biblical sanitation laws were unique in ancient literature. They were given without scientific error well over three thousand years ago, a time when the technology of the day was incapable of making such discoveries.
Note that many of these laws came through Moses, a man who totally rejected the teaching and sanitation laws that he had been taught in the supposedly most sophisticated nation on earth at that time.
Then a man who is ceremonially clean is to take some hyssop, dip it in the water and sprinkle the tent and all the furnishings and the people who were there. He must also sprinkle anyone who has touched a human bone or a grave or someone who has been killed or someone who has died a natural death. Numbers 19:18-19
Hyssop is a type of marjoram plant. S.I. McMillen writing in 'None of These Diseases' (p24) says...
The sweet-smelling oil of marjoram.contains about 50% carvacrol. Carvacrol is almost identical to thymol,
an antifungal and antibacterial agent that is still used in the practice of medicine.
Arturo Castiglione (an expert in tropical diseases) writes:
"No one can fail to be impressed by the careful hygienic precautions of the Mosaic period. The extremely
stringent quarantine rules very likely did a great deal of good."
Other laws for Israel, such as "Do not cook a young goat in it's mother's milk." (Exodus 23:19) and only understood when it is realised that this practice was a Canaanite fertility cult practice.
Apart from the above we need to recognise that much of O.T. law applied to a nation (this is the way to live) does not apply to the N.T. Church. However what they do reveal is the heart of a loving Father who shows His people how to live.
Because, due to the fall, man is a rebel!
Law and Gospel
The gospel is contrasted with the Law throughout the N.T on the grounds that it offers a subjective deliverance from the incapacity we have to obey.
For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit. Romans 8:3-4
For us the outworking of the law is the work of the Holy Spirit within us, through us and with us. Note Gal 5:22-23.
God's intervention does not reduce the scope of free will but enables us to respond to the real confrontation of all that it means to be a son or daughter of the living God.
Freedom, for the believer speaks of participation in all that Christ has done.
If we are to really love with God's love and not merely prop others up with our own love then we cannot act independently from God.
"Agape cannot express it's own creativity independently of God's creativity, which has gone before it and given the universe the order to which it attends. To imagine otherwise would be a new form of delivery back to 'the flesh', no less imprisoning for the fact that the fetters of autonomous isolation were forged in the false confidence that they would be tools of freedom."
Prof O'Donovan, 'Resurrection and Moral Order', page 25
Everyday life cannot be lived independently of God because the world we live in is not made up of indiscriminate raw material that we can do what we like with. All belongs to God.
We need to continually remember that all of God's commands proceed from His love. If we don't then we deceive ourselves and make God into something that He is not, such as a cosmic kill-joy who treats me as a pawn (regardless of my feelings) in His game of life.
In doubting God's word we doubt His very character and move out of the protective place of relationship. We are like the small boy who cries out 'You're not really my mum and dad,' when things go wrong at home, or 'I'm running away because you don't care about me.'
God is always interested in the very best for each one of us. But do we realise this?
We must insist that religion in itself - even Christianity - is never the means of salvation. The reason for this is that no human being can be 'saved' by the quality of his life, the rigours of his asceticism, the fervency
of his devotions, or the orthodoxy of his convictions.it is only when we come spiritual naked, to the cross where God himself in the man Christ Jesus, revealed not only sin as it really is but also the love which prompted him to go to such an incredible length to redeem men and to extend to them all the riches of his grace, that we realise that there is, in fact, no other way.
Prof N Anderson, Christianity and World Religions p 30.
Please review you answers to the questions at the beginning of this session. How would you add to them? What does this session tell you about God?