CYPRESSWOOD CHURCH OF CHRIST
November 15, 2009
25424 Aldine-Westfield, Spring, TX. 77373
www.blakehart.com/cypresswoodbulletin.htm
PRAYER AND PETITIONS:
God’s
will for our congregation Various
friends, relatives, and co-workers
Our
nation, leaders and co-workers The
persecuted church
LEGALISM AND THE LAW
“So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and
good” (Romans
7:12).
When
we lived in Illinois, one of the members of the church there was studying at
the University of Illinois law school.
One day he invited me to come to the library of the law school. It was a three story structure. What amazed me was the amount of law books
found in this library. Since the
founding of our country, laws have multiplied.
Today there are all kinds of laws: corporate, traffic, federal, state, and
local, insurance, home owners, tax, business, criminal, marriage, etc. We have so many laws that few, if any, can
understand all of them. One congressman
complained about reading a bill; that it would require two lawyers to try to
interpret it - a bill he was involved in!
A police officer once stated that every time we get into a car we break
a law. Tort reform, so we are told,
could save hundreds of billions of dollars in medical expenses.
Not
surprisingly, Jesus entered a world where six hundred and thirteen laws found
in the covenant with Moses had been interpreted and detailed into the
traditions of men, that is, into more laws on top of laws so as not to violate
the Law. Is it any wonder that Jesus
pronounced woes on the Pharisees and teachers of the law who piled burdens on
people yet refused to lift a finger to help them? We understand this aspect of legalism found
in the Gospels but what we have done is read this back into the six hundred and
thirteen laws found in the covenant of Moses.
We have made the covenant a legal document and assumed that this was a
form of legalism. That is not what it
is. Let’s take a look.
When
I wrote the articles on the covenants of the Old Testament earlier this year, I
used an illustration I heard in a class at the Pepperdine University
lectures. The law is like a father who,
while putting a bicycle together explains to his child the dos and don’ts of
riding a bike. This is stated not as a
legal statement but as a loving father concerned for the safety of his child
(1). What we see in the Law of Moses is
God developing a relationship so that He, the holy God, could dwell among His
people. They were to be followed but
there were provisions for repentance, God knowing that they could not keep it
perfectly. It was given out of grace and
love.
Did
the Law of Moses cover every detail of every situation that would come up? “When you think of a ‘legalist’ you think of
someone who insists that every matter of the law is of equal importance and
should be given equal time and concern” (2).
What we find out reading the Law closely is that the Law did not cover
every instance and needed judges to apply the Law to each situation, especially
those not in scripture. “Because there
aren’t enough verses in the world, spelled out with exhaustive precision, to
settle every dispute, Judges -- who loved the whole community as well as each
individual -- were needed to give a definitive interpretation of the Torah”
(3). Moses appointed leaders or judges
to help with the disputes, complaints, and understands of the Law (Deuteronomy
1:9-18; 17:8-13).
“Then
there is a lack of rigid consistency in the writings of or connected with the
Torah.” Here are a few examples that Jim
McGuiggan gives. Nehemiah was angry at
his people for trading on the Sabbath thus dishonoring God and ignoring the
Torah, yet the guards had to “work” on the Sabbath keeping the gates to
Jerusalem closed (Nehemiah 13:15-22).
Nadab and Abihu died offering strange fire on the altar (Leviticus 10)
yet their father and brothers violate the covenant in the same chapter and do
not die (4). When the Ark of the
Covenant was being moved on a cart by David, Uzzah reached out and touched the
Ark to keep it from falling and died immediately, yet David and company, also
violating the covenant, did not. The Ark
was to be carried by priests, not on a cart in a pagan way (2 Samuel
6:1-11). Miriam and Aaron rebel against
Moses but do not die but Korah and his friends rebel and are swallowed up by
the earth and fourteen thousand more die as a result (Numbers 12 and 16). Hezekiah enlists unpurified priests and
Levites to participate in the Passover, and extends it, both violations of the
Torah, yet in seeking God and asking for forgiveness, God forgives him (2
Chronicles 30).
“The
Torah doesn’t call for a legalistic response because the God of the Torah is
not a legalist.” The Torah leaves room
to exercise various options. That is
something legalists have problems with.
What if one who accidentally kills a friend, instead of fleeing to a
city of refuge, instead went to the friends family in sorrow, seeking
forgiveness, and they forgive him? What
if instead of requiring compensation for a stolen sheep, the owner forgives the
thief? You see, options are available
within the Law, something we need to see.
The
problem with legalism is that it cannot see the options. When one gleaned the crops during the
harvest, they were to go to the edges, but how much was considered an
edge? Each could determine that but even
in this, grace and compassion are seen; the people were to be like God (see
Exodus 34:6). Giving a tenth to the
priests was just one part of giving; others involved caring for the poor and
the alien. It was to be open, free, and
joyful. Just consider what the seventh
year was about, the forgiving of debts, and the year of Jubilee as well. Is this not echoed in 2 Corinthians 8 and 9. “God
loves a cheerful giver.” Giving is a
very personal matter between the giver and God.
The idea of what is called the “tithe” was to support the priests and
Temple of Israel but there was much more involved.
When
some read the covenant of Moses as a legal document, we should not be surprised
that some also read the New Covenant as a legal document as well. Just consider any number of ideas that we
often express. We have matters of
expediency that have been turned into laws.
We need a building to meet in we reason, so we build a building with all
our creature comforts, but then the building becomes a holy place; eating in
the auditorium is a no, no. One Sunday morning
a preacher stated that he had not prepared a sermon and wasn’t ready to preach
(that was an opening to a sermon) and an elder stated to me that he was ready
to get up there and preach because -- we have to have a sermon! He thought he was legally obligated to make
sure it was done. People read various
translations but some congregations have bound only one or two to be read and
taught from in the congregation. Singing
during the Lord’s Supper is a no, no for some because we have no example of anyone
singing at that time in scripture. Yet
when we understand the Passover context, we find that singing was a part of the
process. While we must be careful in
arguing from silence, one reason it might not have been mentioned is that it
was a common process in the Lord’s Supper, which also could be centered around
a meal (5).
There
are many more examples of such legalism, some very sad. We, like the judges of the covenant of Moses,
interpret scripture and apply the best understanding to it. It could mean that as we study more, we will
come to a better or different understanding and change. Both covenants, old and new, are based, not
on legalism, but on love and grace. Reading
it this way will give us a different view of both.
George B.
Mearns
(1)
Rick Marrs gave this illustration in his class, Did We Throw The Baby Out
With The Bathwater, a class on Deuteronomy, 2009. Jim McGuiggan has a similar though longer
illustration in Franky and Jennifer: Torah’s Family Law, www.jimmcguiggan,com Copied 9/8/2009
(2)
Thoughts for this article comes from Jim McGuiggan, Torah and an Eye for an
Eye, www.jimmcguiggan.com
Copied 9/7/2009.
(3)
All quotes from McGuiggan, Torah…
(4)
It appears that whatever type of fire it was that they offered, Nadab and Abihu
were also drunk, which was a no, no.
(5)
See John Mark Hicks, Come to the Table, Leafwood.