The Law: Guardrails and Values

A good working definition for “law” is that it is a set of binding rules or regulations that govern a person or a people, and that are enforced by a controlling authority.  For instance, your county has a law that regulates just how many feet your septic tank can be from your water source. The government then enforces that law with a system of courts, inspectors, and police who can extract money, time, or other precious elements from your life if you breach those laws. Your state sets the speed limits for its highway system via written laws, and enforces those limits with a Highway Patrol. If you disrespect those laws, the government can use a system of courts and agencies to extract money, time, or other precious elements from your life as a means of ensuring that those highway speed rules are respected. So the law serves the purpose of setting boundaries for the people who live in and share the society organized around them. In an ideal world, the law also stands as an example of what the governing authorities of that society value. For instance, the septic tank laws reflect how that society and its governing authorities have a value for the health and well-being of the general population.  The speed limit laws demonstrate how that society values reasonable safety and consideration for all the people who use its roads.  Therefore, the overarching purpose of law is to govern the behavior of the people in a society, as well as to establish the values of the people governed by it. This is also the case for The Ten Commandments and the biblical law of the Old Testament – The Torah – or the instructions of the Mosaic teachings.  These were designed to be guardrails for God’s people so that they did not wander into a behavioral sea of sin.  The law served as a barrier against sinful powers who always seem to be crouching at one’s door, ready to take control of a person’s life (Genesis 4:7 NLT). The Old Testament biblical law also served the purpose of setting God’s people apart from the pagan world of the nations around them (Leviticus 18:1-5). God’s people would reflect his values by acting differently, worshiping differently, and living in such a way that it magnified him as the highest possible good. But Paul makes a very counterintuitive statement in Romans 7:4-6. He says that the law also provokes our sinful passions.  Whenever it tells us not to do something, the sin inside of us rears its ugly and persuasive head and attempts to control us by pushing us toward the very things the law forbids. In so doing, it demonstrates what we really value.

Paul tells us that this sin problem was solved by Jesus when he died on the cross, and when we trust him for our salvation.  The bible teaches that when we trust Christ, we are released from a law of sin and death that kept us captive. The sinful flesh was our controlling authority, and it enforced upon us a rebellion against God and a drive to do those things that he hated. But those who follow Christ have crucified that sinful flesh with him on the cross (Galatians 5:24). In other words, even though we may still sometimes succumb to sinful passions, we no longer live by them. Instead, we recognize what Christ has done to free us from the heavy chains of those passions, and we are enlivened to his goodness. We serve him by doing good things in his Spirit.  In fact, his Spirit becomes our controlling authority, and we are so increasingly occupied with Jesus that we become increasingly less chained to the passions that lead us astray (Romans 7:6). No written law is now needed to keep us from a sea of sin because our orientation is less and less in that direction. But most importantly, the pagan world can’t identify us as much by what we don’t do, as much as they can by the good fruits we produce (Galatians 5:22-24). This is because the new Law of the Spirit establishes what the follower of Christ really values, and what sets him apart from the rest of the world (Matthew 22:36-40).