Law, or Training Wheels and Guide Ropes? Part 1

Law, or Training Wheels and Guide Ropes?

There is much confusion about "the Law" when we read the Bible. In the Old Testament, "the Law" often referred to the first five books, called the Books of Moses. Of those books, Exodus and Deuteronomy contain most of what God revealed to Moses: the Ten Commandments, the rules for worship and the rules for various social interactions such as sexual conduct, dietary, economics, care for the poor and widows, etc. The question arises when we read the New Testament and find that it may seem St. Paul is downplaying "the Law" in favor of grace. But perhaps the best part of the New Testament to clarify this is the Epistle to the Galatians. It has been one of my favorite texts ever since as a teenager I memorized it for our Bible Quiz Team (our team won the Denver city championship), and I've been re-reading it in the past few days.

St. Paul writes - "Now I say this. A covenant confirmed beforehand by God in Christ, the law, which came four hundred and thirty years after, does not annul, so as to make the promise of no effect" (Gal. 3:17). God gave Abraham the Promise to bless "all nations of the earth" 430 years before God gave the Law to Moses, and the Promise isn't cancelled by the Law. What is that Promise? The Messiah! Verse 16 explains - "Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He doesn't say, 'To seeds,' as of many, but as of one, 'To your seed,' which is Christ [the Messiah]." So the Promise to bless all nations through the coming Messiah, not just the offspring of Abraham, takes precedence over the Law of Moses.

Well then, what is the Law good for? "But before faith came, we were kept in custody under the law, shut up to the faith which should afterwards be revealed. So that the law has become our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith is come, we are no longer under a tutor" (verses 23-25). Faith in Christ, the Messiah, is the goal and purpose of the Law! The Law is not merely a long list of rules: don't do this, don't do that, don't do the other, ad infinitum. Rather, it is like a tutor, or a "schoolmaster" in the King James Version. It gives us support, like training wheels when we're learning to ride a bicycle, or like guide ropes when we're learning to swim in a pool. They keep us moving without falling over, or going off track in a slightly wrong direction. A child needs explicit rules, positive and negative reinforcement, to learn how to behave. But as the child grows into adulthood, hopefully those rules will have been internalized, and he/she keeps on track without needing to have someone tell him/her the rules every day. Faith, St. Paul explains, makes us God's adult children -

"For you are all sons of God, through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to promise" (verses 26-29).

Whoa! Wait a minute! Didn't Abraham have two sons: one by Hagar the slave-girl who bore Ishmael, and the second by Sarah who bore Isaac? The Jewish nation, including Moses and the Law, came from Isaac. What about Ishmael? Here St. Paul identifies Ishmael with the Law given on Mount Sinai -

"It is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the handmaid, and one by the free woman. However, the son by the handmaid was born according to the flesh, but the son by the free woman was born through promise. These things contain an allegory, for these are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children to slavery, which is Hagar. For this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and answers to the Jerusalem that exists now, for she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem that is above is free, which is the mother of us all" (Gal. 4:23-26).

Christians are Abraham's true descendants through Isaac according to the Promise that preceeded the Law by 430 years, not "Hagarenes" or "Ishmaelites" who are in slavery to rote legalism. We can either treat the Bible as a book of laws and rules that we follow precisely by rote and if we take one mis-step - "Whack!" - an angry god chops off our head, or we can treat the Bible as God's love letter to His Bride, the Church, and His promise to His beloved children born of this blessed union.

An excellent blog article "Has Your Bible Become A Quran?" on this very theme just appeared. It speaks about the debates over the centuries between Christians (descendants of the Promise) with Muslims (sometimes called "Hagarenes" or rote legalists). Muslims call Christians and Jews "People of the Book." But this is not quite true, as the blog continues -

"Thus, at the outset I will state:

1. The Bible is not the Christian Holy Book.
2. Christians (and Jews) are not People of the Book.
3. Submission to God is not a proper way to describe the Christian faith.

Further, any and all of these claims, once accepted, lead to fundamental distortions of Christianity. An extreme way of saying this is that much of modern Christianity has been "Islamified." Thinking critically about this is important - particularly in an era of renewed contact with Islam."

Without going into great detail or quoting huge sections of this excellent blog article (read it yourself!), let me condense it into just a few words: Christians are not merely People of the Book; rather, we are primarily a Chosen People, members of Christ's Body, the Church, and thus God's beloved children. Our primary relationship is the Promise, becoming part of the koinonia-community of faith. Another great blog article on this topic is "Protestants and a Churchless Tradition: 'Sola' vs. 'Solo' Scriptura" - also worth your reading!

(Linked to www.Hosken-News.info of 04 Oct. 2014.)