26 March 2014 - the law of freedom

26 March 2014 - the law of freedom

The world tries to tell us that the law is burdensome.  It insists that it is restrictive, limiting, and opposed to freedom.  But nothing could be further from the truth.  The law is the central pillar that supports our freedom.  Listen to Chesterton:

The truth is that the curtness
of the Commandments is an evidence, not of the gloom and
narrowness of a religion but of its liberality and humanity.
It is shorter to state the things forbidden than the things
permitted precisely because most things are permitted and only
a few things are forbidden.

Scripture insists that the law is not burdensome:

For the love of God is this, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, for whoever is begotten by God conquers the world. And the victory that conquers the world is our faith.

The world suggests that God is holding back.  It suggests his commandments aren't a necessary part of fulfillment.  It suggests that they are arbitrarily imposed simply so that we might be subjugated.  It suggests that we could be "like God" without them (cf. Gen. 3:5).  But the commandments are not arbitrary.  They simply describe the truth of what freedom looks like.  The world tries to spin it because the commandments allow us to conquer the world.  The world feels its hold on us slipping.  It pulls on us using our fallen nature, the base animal parts of us subject to the material laws of a fallen universe.  The law gives us freedom from this power of the world and the world fights to hold on.

In fact, the results of the observing the law are so impressive that the presence of God is revealed in our midst.

For what great nation is there
that has gods so close to it as the LORD, our God, is to us
whenever we call upon him?
Or what great nation has statutes and decrees
that are as just as this whole law
which I am setting before you today?

This wisdom which God gives us is directed to our freedom.  No matter what the world says, this is what everyone wants.  This law is good and desirable.  We need to let the light of God's law shine.  We should not be afraid to reveal it as a secret of our happiness.  When people see us thriving in hard times and ask why we can tell them it is because God gives us the wisdom we need to do it in his law.

So it is no wonder that Jesus does not come to abolish the law and the prophets.  They are designed to allow us to enter the promised land and take possession of it.  They are ordered to making us fit for the Kingdom of heaven.  They are designed to bless us, both now and into eternity.  Jesus does not just come to uphold the law which points the way to the promised land but does not have the power to take us there.  He comes to fulfill it.  He comes to fulfill the law because he comes to fulfill us with his very self, united to him, his Father, and his Spirit for all eternity.