We are all Hypocrates
When people think about “Law” they often associate condemnation. The reason we get a little antsy at the thought of law is because we all realize we are guilty of breaking them and therefore all deserve to be condemned. However we all still inevitability rely on law because we know it protects us.
This is even more true when we think about God’s law. We are even more scared of the condemnation and yet we instinctively use our morality to guide our decisions and color our perspective. God’s law shows us more than that though. It shows us we are vulnerable. The fact that no one can follow the law all of the time, and we have shown throughout history we fail consistently, we demonstrate our need for outside help. We prove that we cannot rely on ourselves. It helps us to understand that the most important thing for us to do is to trust in something outside of ourselves.
It also shows us that law is not redemptive. One pattern we tend to fall into is to rely on our actions to save us. We don’t like feeling helpless so we use the law to try to control our lives. In this way the law also blinds us to see our own depravity. It deceives us into thinking we are better people, we are following the rules, this moral superiority leads us to judge others. Then not only do we not see that we need God, but we are oozing with self-righteousness and condemning others.This actually pushes us further away from God.
It only makes sense that people get the wrong idea about religion and the Bible. It is natural to associate the legalism and judgmental attitudes with something you want to stay away from. It is natural for people to say, The God I believe in is kind and good, I don’t like the idea of a tyrannical God, without empathy. That is enough to make us stay far away from the Bible. So it is a shame that our natural reaction to the law is to either run from it, try to hide from it, rationalize it to fit our means, or to lean on it like a crutch using it to judge others and build ourselves up. So it seems that the law is kind of the death of us all one way or another. Either condemned by it being unable to follow it, or deceived by it thinking if it doesn’t condemn us it must save us! And heck we will use it to save others. We will manipulate it and supplement it until it suits our agenda and then we can both condemn and save people with it in our societies!
The law will never save anyone, first of all there has never been anyone who can really say they were able to follow it. It always leads to hypocrisy. So does this mean the law is bad? Not at all, the law is important, we all are built to follow structure and need the balance and order that laws give us. Law keeps our societies from falling into chaos and anarchy. So what are we looking for? We all seem to see the need for some kind of law in our own way, perhaps just not too much of an infliction on ourselves. We definitely speak up about justice and the way things ought to be when we feel we are the victim of injustice. Somehow the lines of right and wrong become more defined when we feel we were the ones mistreated. In a way we all want law for everyone else but not ourselves. We want protection and assurance but not consequence. Deep now we all see the reason and need for law, but because deep down we also know our own depravity we also don’t want to be condemned by it. So often we struggle between advocacy, pretending we are avid followers of it, and altering it, creating a relative sense of morality, adapting the rules so we can easily follow.
So we are lost in our struggle to maintain balance as we do with many other things. How are we supposed to see and use law the way God wants us to? Well whenever the Bible talks about law, the same idea is always emphasized. A softening of the heart. The process is always the same, God loved us first, saved us first, and the law came second. Following the law has to be reactionary. God knows we can believe something in our head all day long but unless it comes from our hearts it is irrelevant. It will always be false. The only way for a sincere understanding of the law is through faith in God from the depths of our heart. So there is always the same idea, God will save us no matter who we are, what we have done, but we have to let Him and trust Him, believe in Him. So we must first trust and learn to understand God before we can possibly understand the law, otherwise it will be a stumbling block and wedge in our lives forever. .
The Rabbit Hole 