Delighting in the Old Testament Law

With today’s installment of Christianity 201, we’re happy to report that Canadian pastor Clarke Dixon is going to be the first of a number of regular contributors here. (You won’t have to wait six months for the next appearance.) As always, you’ll be able to link back to read at source.

When I think of “the law” I think of something cumbersome or wearisome. I picture myself wading through Leviticus. Perhaps you know what I mean. But in Psalm 19, David was downright giddy about God’s law. Why the disconnect between us and David? Click the title to read at source…

The Torah and the Christian. Delighting in the Old Testament Law

by Clarke Dixon

Previously we saw from Psalm 1 the importance of God’s law for those who want to be “like trees planted by streams of water” (Psalm 1:3 NRSV). But the Christian might ask “Why would we take “delight” in a law that we do not even follow much of the time? Or should we start following all those rules and regulations we find in the Old Testament?”

Good questions, the last of which became important to the early church and was the concern of an important church meeting in Acts 15. The final decision was quite short and to the point:

For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to impose on you no further burden than these essentials: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from fornication. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell
(Acts 15:28-29 NRSV)

If only all church meetings could be kept so simple! You will notice that the “essentials” are essentially those matters in which Jewish ethics would be quite contrary to the practice of paganism that new believers were coming out of. So, no you do not need to become a Jew, but yes, you do need to pay attention to the God of the Jew. So how is the Christian of today to relate to the law as found in the Old Testament? Can we “take delight” in it, and so resonate with Psalm 1? Here are four questions to help us think on it.

First, what kind of instruction are we talking about?

Note the temptation to immediately think of law in negative terms as regulations. When you mention “law” I think of rules, and the first rule that comes to mind is that which limits the speed I can legally attain on my motorcycle. Now since downsizing to a 125, the speed I can legally attain is not so different that the speed I can actually attain, but no matter, some rule maker is trying to spoil my fun!

But what if, when we hear the word “law,” we think, not of rules and regulations, but of instruction. Let’s consider the motorcycle example again. If instead of thinking of speed limits and kill-joys, I think instruction, I will think back to my brother instructing me on the basics of operating the controls, changing the gears, and wot not. And I will think of the motorcycle safety training course which was an absolute hoot to be on. As someone learning to ride, the instruction was something I could take delight in, something I naturally wanted to meditate on. Where we tend to think of what fun we might be missing on by thinking of God’s law as rules, we ought instead to think of the joy it leads us into by thinking of it as instruction for life.

And so we can delight in the law of God as found in the Old Testament. Perhaps we will not set up cities of refuge as the law instructs, but we will delight in that example of God’s provision of justice and compassion, and will seek to be just and compassionate ourselves. We may not keep laws on leaving some crops unharvested, but we delight in learning about God’s love for the poor and foreigner those rules point to. We may eat lobster contrary to the Old Testament law, if eating ocean going bugs is your thing, but we will delight in the holiness of God that all those dietary restrictions point us to. Some of the law will not work in our time and place, but all of it will instruct us on who God is and what kind of people He wants us to be.

Second, what kind of a band is this?

Note the change that happens between the Old and New Testaments. The Old Testament law is like the score that a composer brings to an orchestra to perform. It is very specific, each note of each instrument has been chosen by the composer and if any one musician ditches the score, the piece simply will not work. But when the musicians get it right, it is a thing of beauty.

We must be sure to be thinking straight about this, for there is a temptation to say that the Old Testament law was a bad thing that badly needed replacement. Not so. The law of God found in the Old Testament is a beautiful thing, and had the musicians, Israel, kept to the score better than they normally did, then its beauty would have been much more apparent. It would have been seen as the masterpiece that it is:

5 See, just as the Lord my God has charged me, I now teach you statutes and ordinances for you to observe in the land that you are about to enter and occupy. 6 You must observe them diligently, for this will show your wisdom and discernment to the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and discerning people!” 7 For what other great nation has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is whenever we call to him? 8 And what other great nation has statutes and ordinances as just as this entire law that I am setting before you today?
(Deuteronomy 4:5-8 NRSV)

But now things are different and since the advent of Jesus and the gift of the Spirit God has been doing a new thing. As a follower of Jesus Christ I am less like the bass player I was in Grade nine music class trying to follow a score provided by the teacher, and more like the bass player I was in my former rock bands working on original songs. We never had musical scores, instead I had freedom to come up with my own bass lines. However, I was never free to do anything I wanted. I had to keep in time, play in the correct key, and come up with lines in a style appropriate to the piece. Likewise as Christians we are free from the law, but we are not free to do whatever we want. We need to keep in step with the songwriter. He is not helping us with our song, we are serving His purposes as He composes His song: “If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.” (Galatians 5:25 ESV)

We are given the wonderful privilege of being invited to make music with our Lord. While we have freedom, we do need to keep in step with the Great Bandleader, so that our part fits in with His masterpiece. But in getting to know our Bandleader, we do well to spend time listening to that great masterpiece He has already provided, the Old Testament law. There is a wonderful “trademark sound” that can be discerned in both the Old and New Testaments. Though we are not required to keep the law in all its rules and regulations, knowing the law helps us know the Lawmaker, the Composer of the greatest masterpiece. And that is something we can take delight in!

The Righteousness We Don’t Earn

Chad Hendley is in student ministry and blogs at A Servant Named Chad. This article is packed with different insights and takeaways. For today’s post title I chose to look at the difference between the righteousness we work for versus the righteousness imputed to us through Christ’s atonement. Chad’s post title emphasized the atonement as fulfilling the righteousness that the teachers of the law in the First Testament knew to be God’s unchanging requirement; he called it Not A Dot Shall Pass Away. You’re encouraged to read C201 posts at their original source.

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. (Matthew 5:17 ESV)

The Jewish religious leaders of the day had made a strict set of rules and traditions beyond the Law of God given to them by Moses. They kind of put a fence around the Law saying you can do this, this, and this, but not this, this, and this. The problem with this was that it had taken all the heart work out of their religion. While all the Laws were strict and hard to follow, it made it easy to follow God in a sense because it boiled down the whole thing to a list of do’s and don’ts. It completely ignored the greatest commandment of “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” It just became, “Do all these things right, and you’re fine.” Isaiah prophesies of this saying:

And the Lord said: “Because this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men, therefore, behold, I will again do wonderful things with this people, with wonder upon wonder; and the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the discernment of their discerning men shall be hidden.” (Isaiah 29:13-14 ESV)

Isaiah prophesied of time when the fear and awe and love of God were replaced by heartless obedience to commandments of men.

Because Jesus did not hold to the strict traditions of these religious leaders, and because he just upset a lot of leaders due to their jealousy, he was accused of throwing out or causing people to disobey the Law. Jesus makes a point here to expressly say, “I have not come to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it.”

It is helpful to recognize that Christ fulfilled the Law in 2 different ways.

Christ perfectly upheld the Law. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. (1 Peter 2:24 ESV) He perfectly completed the Law living without sin. The only person in history to do so. By no means did he come to do away with it, for he himself is the only one to perfectly complete it.

Christ himself was the very fulfillment of all the Law pointed to. Much more than that, he himself was the fulfillment of the Law, that is all that Law pointed to. Remember? The sacrificial system that was set up, where, when you sinned, sacrifice must be made to atone for your sin reminding you that God is just and that sin must be punished? Christ fulfilled the Law in that he himself completed once and for all what the Law was pointing to.

And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying, “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws on their hearts, and write them on their minds,” then he adds, “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.” Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin. (Hebrews 10:11-18 ESV)

For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. (Matthew 5:18 ESV)

To emphasize how permanent the Law and word of God is, he explicitly indicates that they will remain until the end of time as we know it. An iota referred the smallest letter of Hebrew alphabet that resembled an apostrophe. The dot refers to small marks in the written Hebrew language that helped distinguish some letters from others. Jesus is saying that not even a single letter, nor even a single stroke of a letter shall pass away from the Word of God, much less the its propositions and content.

Jesus, later equating the duration of his own words with the duration of the Law says, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” (Matthew 24:35 ESV)

So if there is one thing you may be certain of, it is that the word of the Lord endures forever. What does this mean for us?

It means that the word of God is trustworthy and true. In the New Testament, time and time again, Jesus and the authors point out instances where something happened in order “that the scriptures might be fulfilled.” They are indicating here that the scriptures are totally true and therefore must be fulfilled. That is exactly what Jesus is saying here. “The Law and Prophets will not pass away until all is accomplished.” The assumption here is that scripture is without error; therefore, we may be certain that all it says will be and must be accomplished. The fulfillment of all that is written then verifies the completeness of truth of the scriptures.

This, in turn, means that scripture MUST be the ultimate authority in our lives. Everyone has an ultimate authority. What’s yours? For many people it’s self. “I am my own ultimate authority. I am the only one I am responsible for, and I decide what’s best.” For other people it’s the culture. “Society defines what is right and wrong, so I’ll do whatever society and the culture says is ok.” For some people it’s science and reason. “I only believe what I can learn scientifically.” But there are a few problems with these: 1. You are a single individual with limited knowledge and understanding, and with a tiny view of the world limited by your experience which gives you little authority to determine for yourself what’s right and wrong. 2. Society is ever changing thus is no solid base on which to form a worldview. Does what’s right and wrong change? It shouldn’t. 3. Science is not a broad enough in scope to rests one’s life on. Science tells us nothing of right and wrong or love or purpose or emotion. It is a tool, but not a foundation.

And if scripture is the one true ultimate authority, we must submit our lives to it. Many people choose not to give Christianity serious consideration, because deep down they are scared of what they shall find. They know that if they dig and find that it is true, there is no option but to surrender one’s whole self to Christ. The worse sin that we often find, is those who claim to believe, but have not totally surrendered, still playing with the world. You have not dug deep enough either. YOU CANNOT  TRULY BELIEVE THIS AND LIVE AN UNCHANGED LIFE. When you come near the person of Christ you will find that there is no middle ground. It’s all either all in or nothing. We are to have child-like faith, but this is not a faith for children.

Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:19 ESV)

Jesus makes another practical conclusion as well from the fact that God’s word shall never pass away. This is the responsibility not just to obey but also teach others to obey his word. This is not a hard principle right? If God’s word is true and the ultimate authority for our lives and shall never pass away, if they are the measure by which our reward shall be doled out, if they are the works which reveal the fruit of God’s work in our lives, and the means by which we can honor him, then we must definitely be careful to be obedient to it and to be careful in teaching others to do the same. It only makes sense right? If God takes it so seriously as to say it shall never pass away, we should take his commands just as seriously right? For his name sake and for his glory.

Whoever loves him less and thus obeys him less shall be lesser in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever loves him more and thus obeys him more shall be greater in the kingdom of heaven. Note here Jesus is talking about believers, for both attain to the kingdom of heaven, but Jesus says some shall be called greater than others. It is a matter of reward, not a matter of salvation.

Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. (Revelation 20:11-15 ESV)

God or no God, heaven or hell, is determined by the saving work of the Holy Spirit and genuine faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, but there will be varying levels of reward in heaven. The Apostle John, also the author the Revelation text we just read, said “Watch yourselves, so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward.” (2 John 1:8 ESV) But be careful of your heart here. Our obedience must not be fueled by this desire to be great in heaven, for that is pride, but for those who humble themselves and seek to honor him, Jesus says, “And whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.” (Matthew 10:42)

For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:20 ESV)

Jesus stresses the importance of the Law and the word of God, the importance of keeping and teaching the word of God to others, then he drops the doozy! Unless your goodness is better than the most religious, rule-keeping person you know, then you won’t get into the kingdom of heaven. At one point, Jesus said, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.” One of the commands is to tithe. To give a tenth of all that you receive from the Lord. So you know what these guys did? They tithed, they gave a tenth of the herbs they received to cook with. They did everything right! How in the world can my righteous be better than that of the most strict religious person I know???

Because, through faith in Christ, God gives us a righteousness that is not our own. Our righteousness must not just be a little better than the scribes and the Pharisees, our righteousness must be that of Jesus Christ! The Pharisees tried it, and it didn’t work. They worked and worked and worked trying to be perfect on the outside when Jesus told them they were dead on the inside. YOU CAN’T DO IT! You cannot work your way to heaven. If you could do that you wouldn’t need Jesus! Remember…King David? Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.

~Chad Hendley

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Practical Christian Living:  Looking for books that are suitable for giving to non-Christian friends, neighbors, fellow-students, co-workers or relatives? Check out the blog Books for Evangelism to familiarize yourself with resources that do more than preach to the choir.

The Essence of the Gospel

In certain circles it has become, if nothing else, fashionable to discuss the question, “What is the Gospel?” to the point where I am beginning to think that non-believers will simply know it when they hear it.   I just worry that sometimes we over-analyze something we should simply be living.

That dismissiveness aside,Tullian Tchividjian has been busy on Twitter compiling short statements expressing various aspects of the gospel.  Apparently, the gospel can’t be contained in a single statement.   Blogger Barry Simmons assembled a couple of lists at his blog The Journeyman’s Files both here and here.   I linked to it today at Thinking Out Loud, but thought we’d spell out a few of the statements here for C201 readers…

• The gospel reminds us that we become more mature when we focus less on what we need to do for God and more on all God has already done for us.
• The gospel tells me my identity and security is in Christ–this frees me to give everything I have because in Christ I have everything I need
• The gospel tells us we don’t need to spend our lives earning the approval of others because Jesus has already earned God’s approval for us
• When you understand that your significance and identity is anchored in Christ, you don’t have to win—you’re free to lose
• Christian growth doesn’t happen by working hard to get something you don’t have. It happens by working hard to live in light of what you do have
• The world says that the bigger we become, the freer we will be. But the gospel tells us that the smaller we become, the freer we will be.
• The gospel explains success in terms of giving, not taking; self-sacrifice, not self-indulgence; going to the back, not getting to the front
• The gospel empowers us to live for what’s timeless, not trendy–to follow Jesus even when it means going against what’s fashionable
• Because of Christ’s finished work, sinners can have the approval, acceptance, security, freedom, love, righteousness, & rescue they long for
• The only antidote there has ever been to sin is the gospel—and since we never leave off sinning, we can never leave the gospel.
• Because of Christ’s propitiatory work on my behalf I no longer need preeminence, prosperity, position, promotions, praise or popularity.
• The vertical indicative (what God’s done for me) always precedes horizontal imperative (how I’m to live in light of what God’s done for me)
• When you are united to Christ, no amount of good work can earn God’s favor and no amount of bad work can forfeit God’s favor
• Jesus came not to angrily strip away our freedom but to affectionately strip away our slavery to lesser things so we might become truly free
• The irony of the gospel is that we truly perform better when we focus less on our performance for Jesus and more on Jesus’ performance for us
• The gospel tells us that what God has done for us in Christ is infinitely more important than anything we do for him.
• Isn’t it ironic that while God’s treatment of us depends on Christ’s performance, our treatment of others depends on their performance?
• We need God’s gospel rescue every day and in every way because we are, in the words of John Calvin, “partly unbelievers until we die.”
• Daily sin requires a daily distribution of God’s grace
• The hard work of sanctification is the hard work of constantly reorienting ourselves back to our justification.
• Grace can be defined as unconditional acceptance granted to an undeserving person by an unobligated giver.
• The law tells us what God demands from us; the gospel tells us what God in Christ has done for us because we could not meet his demands.
• Paul never uses the law as a way to motivate obedience; He always uses the gospel.
• When you understand God’s grace, pain leads to freedom because deep suffering leads to deep surrender!
• When we depend on things smaller than Jesus to provide us with the security and meaning we long for, God will love us enough to take them away.
• The gospel is the good news that God rescues sinners. And since both non-Christians & Christians are sinners, we both need the gospel.
• The gospel grants Christians one strength over non-Christians: the strength to admit they’re weak.
• The gospel isn’t just the power of God to save us, it’s the power of God to grow us once we’re saved.
• When we transfer trust from ourselves to Christ, we experience the abundant freedoms that come from not having to measure up.
• The gospel makes wise those who know they’re foolish and makes fools out of those who think they’re wise.
• It never ceases to amaze me that God’s love to those who are in Christ isn’t conditioned on how we behave but on how Christ behaved for us.
• In the gospel, God comes after us because we need him not because he needs us. Only the gospel can free us to revel in our insignificance.
• Mt. Sinai says, “You must do.” Mt. Calvary says, “Because you couldn’t, Jesus did.” Don’t run to the wrong mountain for your hiding place.

Remember these is only about half the list; click on both of the above links to get the full list; and thank-you Barry for compiling this.