Hello All,
(Just a general disclaimer that I must insert here at the beginning. I am but a lay person, like most of you. And these weekly “thoughts” are but my own. Not the definitive word on this or any topic. Just my own conclusions derived from my own study and faith in God. The greatest hope I have for these weekly “thoughts” is to have them be a springboard for further study on your part. Not to be a weekly treatise to be blindly accepted. So, please read them with this intent, this motive in mind).
This week’s lesson from “The Adult Sabbath School Guide” is titled “Covenant Law”. It seems every so often, that we must address the “Law” and its purpose. This topic keeps coming-up in our quarterly. And sometimes, the principal contributor or editor make some rather provocative statements. Statements such as in Monday’s lesson, “Even if you say that you love this person and that love alone will decide how you relate to him or her, why is there still a need for rules?” YIKES!!! What a statement that flies in the face of, and contradicts, Biblical truth!! Sometimes I wonder why such statements are made in our quarterly!! Perhaps we need to be constantly reminded that “love is the fulfilling of the law” (fills full the Law). Or perhaps we need to be reminded that “…the law (all law including the Ten Commandments… see 1 Selected Messages pg. 235) was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor (no longer under law, no longer under the Ten Commandments, no longer under imposed rules)” (Galatians 3:24-25). According to the Bible, rules & commandments become unnecessary once we come to Christ.
This is one of the reasons we need to understand the “Covenants”. I keep looking for the quarterly to be very clear about the Old Covenant which spawned the emergency measure of speaking the Ten Commandments from Mt. Sinai, versus the Everlasting/ New Covenant based on Faith. As Adventists, we are so loath to admit this about the “Law”. Loath to admit that once we truly reciprocate Christ’s claim on each of us and claim Him as our life, then the “Law” as law is truly redundant. Because we now have the principles of the Law (love) enshrined in our hearts as our motive for all things. Such love-motive is the ultimate… not rules or law.
I love the EGW quote from Mount of Blessing pg. 109… “But in heaven, service is not rendered in the spirit of legality. When Satan rebelled against the law of Jehovah, the thought that there was a law came to the angels almost as an awakening to something un-thought of. In their ministry the angels are not as servants, but as sons. There is perfect unity between them and their Creator. Obedience is to them no drudgery. Love for God makes their service a joy. So in every soul wherein Christ, the hope of glory, dwells, His words are re-echoed, ‘I delight to do Thy will, O My God: yea, Thy law is within My heart’ Psalm 40:8”). In this quote we see again, that once we reciprocate God’s claim as His child and say, “Yes… you are my Father”, then “Law” as law is not even a consideration. We think and act as “family” where rules and law are absolutely “un-thought of” (quoted above).
Please remember all this. It is so important. We Adventists above all other Christians need to be so very clear about the Old/ New Covenants (Old/ New Testaments). So many, many Christians misunderstand law and therefore misunderstand grace. Law (all law) is to keep us safe and bring us to a place of intelligent understanding, heart appreciation and love motivation that springs from a proper, familial relationship between Father and child… God and me. As sinners, we are so estranged from the family of God. Just like the prodigal son. We have walked away from God. We have estranged ourselves from the “family”. On purpose. And the path we have chosen is a path leading to poverty of mind and spirit, heartbreak, and death.
So our God gives us rules and laws. But these rules and laws are not the ultimate in any way. When we have conformed to rules, we believe we have done our duty (this is the shortcoming of rules). But love for God and love for our fellow-man leads us to the principle behind the rules. Leads us to think, feel and do so many more things than any rule could encompass (this alone constitutes the “obedience” God seeks). The “rule” becomes a paltry shadow of the true life and blood substance of the principle of love. “…it is love alone which in the sight of Heaven makes any act of value. Whatever is done from love, however small it may appear in the estimation of men, is accepted and rewarded of God” (The Great Controversy pg. 487). Rules will never suffice for God’s children. They are a true emergency measure. Love alone is the only motivation fit for the children of our God of love. Therefore, God’s “grace” is but another way of describing the “love” He showers on us.
We have made “grace” into some legal arrangement between Father and Son. This is an extension of the misunderstanding about our God that estranged us from Him, and led Him to have “rules”. As if “grace” is a way to appease the broken rules. But “grace” is just another word for “love”. The same “love” that gives us rules. The same love that carries us and our sin to the cross with Christ, our Surety. Our Surety, that awaits our arrival on the cross with Him. To die with our Brother, our God, so that we can be born again as a true son or daughter, even as Christ our Brother is a true Son.
Let us make sure that we understand our loving “Dad”. And understand the need for rules. We need them until “Christ comes” into our lives. And even after we have accepted our “sonship” and Christ has “come”, the rules still become active whenever we stray. They become active in our lives in order to stop us short and keep us safe. But when we turn our face once more to the “Son”, love becomes the over-riding motivation in our hearts/ minds, and “rules” disappear into the murky mist. Even as the daylight of love shines on our path, illumines our way, and leads us aright.
With brotherly love (not from rules, because I am told to),
Jim
P.S. That wonderful 19th century man of faith, George MacDonald, once wrote, “It doesn’t take much faith to do what God says. How about doing what He never said?” How I interpret that comment is linked to our lesson this week. Following the rules, doing what God says doesn’t really take much at all. As Jesus said, “when you have done all those things which you are commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do” (Luke 17:10). Exactly. Rules are but for those who know not love. Who know not (and likely care-not to know) the grand overarching principle of love for God and for our fellow-man. Rules are for servants. But the motivation of love is for “sons”. “Nevertheless what does the Scripture say? ‘Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman’.” (Galatians 4:30). Doing what God never said is having the principle of love that motivates you to do so much more than any rule ever stipulated… more than God ever said. Because love finds ways of expression that rules can never supply. This is the true motivation of “Sons”. Rules are not needed, redundant, an impertinence… when agape-love guides. Love super-abounds over rules.