One Story: Law

Grinding Halt

Today marks the halfway point in our series “One Story,” in which we are looking at the Bible from a really zoomed out view and trying to see how it all fits together as one story that leads to Jesus. If you are a thinking person, you might be wondering… how are we half way through the series when we are only on the second book of this thing? Well, things are about to accelerate quickly. And so today we are going to fly over the rest of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

So where we are right now in the story is that we have reached a very important turning point, not only in the life of God’s people the Israelites, but also in our own relationship to our Bibles. We’ve talked about God’s creative activity, his covenant loyalty to one family for the purpose of blessing the world, and his redemption of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. There’s some tough pieces to get through if you start reading your Bible from page one, but for the most part the story is compelling and you can get through it. Its actually pretty thrilling at times. And then you get to where we are today. Exodus 19. And things kind of start to slow down. Actually they come to like a grinding halt at the foot of Mount Sinai.

It is here, at this mountain that God gives the Israelites our most confusing, misunderstood, and tedious biblical material: The Law. And its here, at this point that we have to come face to face with the Question - “What is my Bible?” Is it a divine rule book? Because if it is, then this part of it truly is going to set for us some nearly impossible standards to live by.

You can feel free to disagree with me on this, but I’m going to tell you that I don’t think the Bible is a rule book. I think the Bible is a story. It teaches us how to live, and certainly tells us things that we should do and things that we should not do. I mean the very beginning of the Law is the 10 commandments. Certainly these are still relevant rules that we are called to live by today. But even to ancient Israelites who were expected to abide by these laws in a more strict sense than we could, they were never meant to be disjointed from the story of God. I know this, because the word for “Law” in Hebrew is the word Torah. And the word Torah is what they call all of the first 5 books of the Bible. From Genesis to Deuteronomy. And as you recall from the last 3 weeks of sermons, the majority of the word count in the Torah is a story!

But even if you don’t count Genesis and the first half of Exodus, if you read these 3.5 books of the Bible as a story rather than as a list of laws that make no sense because we are over 3 thousand years removed from their context, what you will find is a pattern that is no much unlike how modern laws come to exist. God gives direction, the people mess up, so he gives more direction. And on and on this goes until there are 613 Laws — that are recorded. There’s likely more. But first lets just read how this whole “law” section of our Bibles starts off. So here’s the beginning of it, Exodus 19:1-6.

On Eagles’ Wings

Exodus 19:1–6 NRSV

On the third new moon after the Israelites had gone out of the land of Egypt, on that very day, they came into the wilderness of Sinai. They had journeyed from Rephidim, entered the wilderness of Sinai, and camped in the wilderness; Israel camped there in front of the mountain. Then Moses went up to God; the Lord called to him from the mountain, saying, “Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the Israelites: You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples. Indeed, the whole earth is mine, but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the Israelites.”

I want to look closely at the way that God’s words are structured here. Because, particularly in verses 4-6, we are given a very important understanding of what the function of the Hebrew law is.

You have seen what I did — God is creating this foundation based on the very real experience that the people have had with God up until this point.

I bore you on Eagles’ wings and brought you to myself — I saved you, and I brought you to me. This is incredibly important. Because when we talk about the consequences of human iniquity, of sin in our world, the greatest consequence is the separation that it caused between humans and God. So God is saying “I took care of the problem, I have healed the rift between us.” In our Christian language — God SAVED them.

Because of that, if you keep my covenant (these laws) you will be a treasured possession, a priestly kingdom, a holy nation. — This conditional statement is not “if you break my covenant you won’t be my people any more.” This statement is “if you keep my covenant you will fulfill my purpose for you in this world.”

The purpose of the law was to teach the Israelites how to fulfill God’s purpose for them in the world. Their purpose was to be a priestly nation. Do you know what priests did? Priests mediated the relationship between God and humans. The purpose of Israel was to be a nation that brought other nations closer to a relationship with God. And the way to do that was to act differently. To be different than the nations around them.

And there’s going to be a number of different types of laws that God gives to Israel to help them accomplish this task of being different, or in other words — being holy. So here’s a basic run down.

Ancient Ritual Symbols — these set Israel apart. They made Israel distinct from the neighboring countries, and kept them away from things that symbolized death, disease, and moral corruption.

Animal Sacrifices — things we are really glad we don’t do today. But essentially these animals and other offerings that were burnt were a means of coming to God and asking for forgiveness. The smoke from the offering went into the presence of God and you knew that you and God were good.

But there was a lot more to the law than these religious ritual things. Most of the law is about Justice. On the first page of the Torah, Genesis 1 we find out that every human is made in God’s image and is worthy of dignity. And what much of the law is doing is instilling that ethical understanding into the day to day life of these people. Even in laws that to us seem barbaric, like laws about slavery.

What we have to understand is that the law was given to Israel just as they were. The law was a means of pushing Israel towards justice. It didn’t abolish slavery, but it stripped slavery of its power. And in the law was a provision that every 7 years slaves would go free. The law also provided for the poor, for widows, for orphans, for foreigners. This was revolutionary in its day. None of these practices were heard of in the ancient world.

The point of the law was to create a new kind of society that more closely reflected God’s will for all of humanity. A society that was saturated with God’s wisdom and ethics. But as the story tells us, its not going to go well.

The Cycle Continues

I’ve already said that the giving of the law is inserted into narratives of Israel being disobedient. This continues all the way through Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. And finally, at the end of Deuteronomy, just before Moses dies, when the Israelites are camped out just outside of the promised land, Moses basically tells the people that they are going to need new and transformed hearts if they are truly going to follow God’s law.

So here in lies the problem that Israel faces. They have what they need, but in their humanity they can’t live out. They continue to mess up. All though the rest of Israel’s history they fail. But God sends prophets who speak and remind the people of their fundamental problem. The prophet Ezekiel comes and gives this word from God:

Ezekiel 36:26–27 NRSV

A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you, and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances.

And the prophet Jeremiah takes this one step further:

Jeremiah 31:31–33 NRSV

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Ezekiel and Jeremiah make both the problem and the solution very clear. Humans have a heart problem. Our hearts are hardened. They are made of stone. They need to be replaced. So God promises that someday he will provide a fundamental change of the human heart. That he will remove their hard hearts, give them a heart of flesh, put his spirit within them, and write the law on their hearts.

But how. How will this be done. How can people, these people, you and I, possibly have a fundamental change of heart? How can this ancient law code that we find in our Bibles possibly be written on our hearts, and why would we want it to be? Half of it is irrelevant.

Fulfillment

Jesus was born into a culture that deeply needed new hearts. They had the law, and they really tried to follow it, but they still had hard hearts. So their attempts to follow the law were cold and legalistic. Out of the hardness of the human heart comes the ugliest parts of human nature, even when people think that they are doing the right thing. The law became this oppressive thing that was used to exclude people from experiencing a life transforming relationship with God.

But Jesus came and changed everything. This is what he says as part of his famous sermon on the mount:

Matthew 5:17–18 NRSV

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.

This seems contradictory, until we recall what the original purpose of the law was. Remember, it was a means by which God’s wisdom and ethic was given to the people so that they could live out their mission to mediate between God and the nations of the world. Jesus came and fulfilled that on our behalf, because we were fundamentally incapable of doing it. The law doesn’t pass away, the law is not irrelevant, but rather the law is fulfilled in the person and work of Jesus. It is fulfilled because Jesus is the perfect mediator between God and humans, well because Jesus is both God and human.

It’s fulfilled in the person and work of Jesus because the whole point of the law is this: To love God and to Love others — check this out from Matthew 22:34-40

Matthew 22:34–40 NRSV

When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

Jesus taught us how to do this. He taught us what this looks like. And what this looks like is a fundamentally changed heart. The law says “do not murder” but Jesus says if you are even angry with someone, harboring resentment, then you are just as guilty of murder. This points to the reality that the human heart is God’s concern still.

When Jesus ascended into heaven, and the Holy Spirit came to live in our hearts humans were finally given the ability to truly follow the law. Our hearts are transformed, stone is replaced by flesh, the law of God to love him and to love others is written on our hearts. We are given a new life, and the ability to live into our purpose to bless the world.

What’s Our Part?

So what? What’s the point here. What is our relationship to the law today. How does it define who we are called to be and guide the way that we are called to live as people and as a church?

Well I think that if we look at the grand arc of the biblical story, it’s pretty clear. God’s entire program in the Bible is to recover what has been lost, redeem it, and renew it. God’s desire for this world is for it to be a just place that sustains life. So the law for us is meant to drive our understanding of what God wants for this world.

The law says feed the poor. Take care of widows, orphans, and foreigners. Bring people who live on the margins of society into the middle of our community. Jesus says do this, not because the law says do it, but do it because it is the natural outpouring of our love for God and our love for neighbors — the driving point of that law which has been written on our hearts.

And these things are easy to say, but harder to put into practice. Especially when the people who live on the margins of society are also involved in the modern day political debates and divisiveness that make up our world. We begin to see people as political issues.

But God doesn’t see people this way. God sees people as those who bear his image, as people who have sacred worth. So what we need to do is we need to divorce ourselves from seeing people as parts of political agendas in order to justify our neglect of them. We need to be people who rise above the noise of CNN and FOX news, who rise above blue and red, elephants and donkeys, and live out the law that Christ has written on our hearts rather than the false law that comes to us wrapped up in divisive language, rhetoric, and opinion echo chambers. We need to rise above all of that because we follow a higher law, given to us by a higher authority than any authority we find in this land.

So we need to ask ourselves: does the law that I follow resemble the law of Christ? Or does it look more like the law and ethic of this world?

The reality is that if the law you follow allows you to justify mistreating, excluding, or disparaging people made in God’s image, even if you think you’re just telling them the truth, then you might need to take a minute to check out the words and actions of Jesus.

The apostle Paul, whose words have been most used by Christians to create some new kind of law that they can use to disqualify others had this to say on the matter in Romans 13:8-10

Romans 13:8–10 NRSV

Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet”; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.

I know that for some this might be a difficult concept. And I’m not saying that there are not moral and ethical standards that we want to see all people live by. What I’m saying is that those things are not a requirement to being included in God’s saving and redemptive work. Remember those words to Israel, I brought you out of Egypt, and brought you to myself, therefore live in a new way.

All I am asking is that you, that we as a church, not impose ourselves between God and the people he is bringing to himself. Let us be the Eagles’ wings, carrying the hurt, the broken, those who live on the margins, those who have been told that their very identity is incompatible with Christianity to the very presence of God. Help us to be a nation of priests who will stop at nothing to bring the light of Christ’s love to the places where darkness has veiled itself as “the church.” Let us show this world what the church really looks like, introducing it to the God who looks at them at says “I will be their God, and they will be my people.”