“For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.” (Romans 8:2)
The LORD did not set us free to slavery but from slavery. However, today are we walking in the freedom intended for us?
Responsibility brings discipline
When we give our lives to Jesus, we are set free, free from sin and death, free from anxiety, fear and shame, free from the Law as Jesus fulfils the Law. But with that freedom comes various responsibilities: to love the LORD our GOD, [to love ourselves and] to love our neighbour as our selves… for who can truly love others who does not accept — love — himself?
But if we are set free, then is the Law still relevant?
Numbers 1 – 4 is all about the tribes and their duties to the LORD surrounding the Tabernacle.
Why did GOD have so many laws: such stringent detail to adhere to, such strict behavioural codes, if ultimately, we were to be set free? Of what benefit is the Law — then and now — to help us to draw nearer to GOD? Is the Law solely to convict us and to please GOD? Or is there more to this?
More than just obedience to Law
While all I’ve said above is true, I think there is something deeper at stake when the Father GOD created the Hebrew Law.
Food Laws: See especially Leviticus 11, Deuteronomy 12, 14. These laws are meticulously set out for the people of GOD. But why are there so many rules. One aspect is for health reasons. Pork is forbidden and of course, it requires much more cooking to ensure it is safe to eat.
Yes, the food laws were not only an adherence to the Law of GOD and to protect human health…. But they also provide an opportunity to look to GOD, demonstrating your faithfulness and your cultural connection to the other citizens as all celebrate together.
Cleanliness laws: See Leviticus 13 and Numbers 5 to read an outline of how certain illnesses are handled.
Yes, the contamination laws are for cleanliness and hygiene, not only to call the people to obedience, but to prevent the spreading of disease. GOD is a GOD of compassion.
List of feasts: See Leviticus 23 for the feast names and the outline of when each annual feast is held and what offering to the LORD is to be prepared.
Yes, the sacrificial laws and feasts are for cultural development and celebration, as well as honouring the Provider. But there’s more!
At the very heart of the Law
The boundaries set in the Law teach us more than the laws themselves. And they even teach us more than the reality of and our need to adhere to GOD. More than all of this, deeply embedded in practicing the Law is what reality following the Law will bring:
The knowledge of our humanity and GOD’s divinity.
There is a gulf
When we look at the Law and man’s inability and failure to keep it, we are brought to humility. When we are asked time and again — and fail time and again — to keep the Law, we see our inability to satisfy the Law. In our effort to keep the Law, we grow in responsibility and in character — or we drift away, giving up completely.
The task to keep the Law is for one central purpose which sums up all the rest:
GOD is always drawing us to Himself.
The Miracle and Satisfaction of The Cross
When Jesus came, He stepped into the gulf between GOD and mankind, which had begun when Adam chose wisdom and Eve over GOD. Jesus has fulfilled that which we cannot fulfill. He completes the Law we cannot ever complete, because He came to exchange His Law with His life. In allowing us to take this exchange, He shows us that although we cannot fulfil, He can.
And in that, He sets us free.
Jesus is unlike any other GOD
While other gods make demands, need placating, and are never satisfied, Jesus does the completion on our behalf. We only need to believe, and the rest is done.
If we truly believe, we are grateful and love. Walking in love, means we seek GOD and His humanity, we seek righteousness, we seek the holiness of GOD and so we fulfil His mandate.
Does it really matter to GOD how we wash, or dress, or celebrate with one another? Or did He merely design a tool to reveal to us how unable we are to follow, how much He loves to draw near to us, and how we, if we desire, can draw near to Him.
The Law reveals GOD
In the Law we see the creativity of GOD, the precision of GOD, the thoughtfulness of GOD, the protection of GOD, the standards of GOD and the love of GOD. But above all else, the Law reveals the gulf between man and GOD and the completion of the Law through Jesus reveals the sacrifice of GOD so that we can be free. In and through and because of that freedom, we can relate to GOD and to one another in a way superior to any other way, through the Spirit who is what gives us the very breath of life.