“What? That’s an odd question to ask,” you say. We all admit that the law is good, but, hey . . . love it? Get serious. I don’t know about you, but any interactions I had with the law were met with more trepidation than any warm embrace of love. Yet, at least one person of God seems to take a different perspective. David says,
Ps 119: 97 Oh how I love your law!
It is my meditation all the day.
It seems a little dry to sit and meditate on the Ten Commandments for any length of time. Yet there was something about the Law that David took such pleasure in, he couldn’t think of anything else. For someone who was a pretty egregious law breaker himself, you might have thought he had more to fear than delight in. What was it that so excited him? What was it that he had learned that swallowed up all fear and anxiety of the law to the point of loving it?
For sure, it was more than meditating on the written words of the Law. He knew that the Ten Commandments were much more than an external code of conduct to live by. There was a deeper meaning underlying these words, something that God was trying to tell us about Himself. Throughout the Bible, God communicates to us things that are spiritual, things that are in heaven, the only way He can – in simple earthly terms. The Ten Commandments are no exception. David knew that the written law was spiritual, that it was telling us the essence of who God is and that it is the exact representation of His nature. In the simplest words possible, GOD IS THE LAW!
To really understand what that means, we need to develop this a little further:
If God IS The Law
And we know that:
God IS Love
Then we can also say:
The Law IS Love
If these are hard sayings, it is only because of the inside out perspective we have the Law. We see the Law outside of us, engraved on stone, something cold and hard and unforgiving. Though we know that love fulfills the law (Rom 13:10), we may not get the connection how the law fulfills love because it is love.
That may sound good in some nebulous way, but what does it all mean? Why do I need to know this and what is wrong with the written code? There is nothing wrong with the written code, but it served its purpose. It was only meant to be temporary, our schoolmaster (Gal. 3:24) until it was replaced with something better. Its purpose was to show us who He is, who we are, and the insurmountable chasm between us. If we were like God, then we would take to the commandments like a duck takes to water. It would be natural. But in our lost condition, in the weakness of our flesh, it isn’t. The law is there for the lawless revealing our inability to keep it. We needed something better and God did that by sending His Son to us.
Rom 8: 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
Now that we have Christ, we are no longer under the law (Rom 6:14). It is passé. Yet, somehow without it, the scripture says we can fulfil the righteous requirement of the law. But we have to walk according to the Spirit, not the flesh. How does that work? God tells us through Jeremiah:
Jer 31: 33 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
Now we are getting close. God says I will put my Law IN you. It becomes part of you – internalized. It is now who you are, not something you “try” to be. It happens in your spirit. Paul explains this in Christ:
Colossians 1: 27 To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Jeremiah and this verse are one and the same. Christ is God. God is Love. God is The Law. The Law is Love. And now all that indwells you. Your spirit joins in union with Christ and they are one spirit:
1 Corinthians 6:17 But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.
If you are one with Christ, then you are one with the Law, one with Love. This is the Gospel, the Good News. We love the Law because we love God. We no longer have to pretend to keep the law, we are the Law.
If that is such good news, why do so many Christians hang on to the external law with its dos and don’ts knowing it never worked then and it doesn’t work now? It is because they still consider it from distance, not realizing how close it is. Whereas it should be the love of their life, it only brings condemnation. As long as you focus on the external law, you will be forever under its spell and can be assured that you will cast yourself in prison and not come out until you have paid the last penny (Matt5:25-26).
Instead of “trying” to fulfill the Law, BE the Law! Know that the Law indwells you, that Christ lives in you, through you, as you. Paul couldn’t be clearer in Galatians:
Gal 2: 20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
Christ is the only one that can fulfill the Law. But that is only if you “let” Him. The only thing that hinders is unbelief. Therefore believe!
Read The Lost Coin by Samuel Hayes Sherwood. A young man’s journey takes him on a path revealing Total Truth, understanding the mystery which is Christ in us.
