Exploring the Law and Its Implications

LIVE from the Mecca of Mormonism – Salt Lake City, Utah. THIS is Heart of the Matter, where we do all we can to help people walk toward His love.

God’s love, Jesus love, The Fruit of the Spirit.

And I am your host, Shawn McCraney.

How about a word of prayer between us?

PRAYER

Lawyers or Lovers

20A Lawyers or Lovers
Taped December 10th, 2019
Aired December 17th 2019

Lawyers or lovers? What’s the difference? Does it matter? Does the faith need lawyers or even law?

Let’s begin by talking about lawyers. Generally speaking, a lawyer is a person whose profession is to represent clients in a court of law or to advise or act for clients in other legal matters. They are able to do this because they have studied and made a practice of understanding laws or what we call the Law. So, when we speak of lawyers, we understand a direct relationship to LAW.

So what is the Law? Of course, there are a number of applications and arenas around what we call, “the Law.” There are the systems of rules that regulate the actions of people by enforcing penalties on those who break them – these are present in cities, states, countries, governments, communities, housing, and almost anywhere where two or more people are gathered together in a communal sense. For instance, “California has a “no hand held cell phone while driving law but Utah does not. If you get caught by law-enforcement for driving while holding your phone in California you might get an expensive ticket (the penalty for breaking the Law established in California.)” This law has no bearing on, let’s say, parks in California. So because it is applicable in way in the state – driving a motorized vehicle – the law is not binding in California parks.

Types of Laws

Then there are natural laws, which tend to come into play by and through observations and are typically discovered through science or general observations surrounding human life. These laws say the very same thing will happen, without fail, so long as all the consistent conditions are present that back the law up. “So, for example, it seems to be a law that mammals, if held underwater and deprived of oxygen, will eventually die – usually within minutes.” And there are all sorts of these laws of nature at play around us.

Of course, there are corporate laws and laws and rules around sports which associated penalties for ignoring or breaking them: This is another almost universal truth about the Law – breaking them will almost always result in a penalty. A corporate leader will go to jail for insider trading if caught and a basketball player will turn the ball over for traveling again, if caught. So we get all of this in our world, don’t we? Children call these laws rules. Others refer to them as Laws.

Finally, there is another area of Law to discuss and that is in respect to divine commandments (also called, Laws of God). God says something to do or to avoid, this is His law, and people either keep His law (and avoid the associated penalties) or they break them and incur the penalty from their rebellion – whatever that might be.

The Law of Moses

In the Old Testament, the Nation of Israel was given what we call “the LAW of Moses,” and God told the Nation that if they kept His Law He would bless them, and if they didn’t, He would curse them. This was the economy that the Nation lived under – the Law. They did the same thing that secular lawyers do – they read, and studied, and made determinations relative to the Law of Moses, which is located in the first five books of the Old Testament, also called the Pentateuch, which consists of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

Collectively, these books laid out:

• the Ten Commandments (ten laws)
• Moral laws on murder, theft, honesty, adultery, etc.
• Social laws on property, inheritance, marriage, and divorce,
• Food laws on what is clean and unclean, on cooking and storing food.
• Purity laws- on menstruation, seminal emissions, skin disease, and mildew,
• Feasts Laws for the Day of Atonement, Passover, Feast of Tabernacles, Feast of Unleavened Bread, Feast of Weeks.
• Laws for sacrifices and offerings – the sin offering, burnt offering, whole offering, heave offering, Passover sacrifice, meal offering, wave offering, peace offering, drink offering, thank offering, dough offering, incense offering, red heifer, scapegoat, first fruits, etc.
• Lawful Instructions for the priesthood and the high priest including the purpose of tithes.
• Instructions regarding the Tabernacle, and which were later applied to the Temple in Jerusalem, including laws concerning the Holy of Holies containing the Ark of the Covenant (in which were the tablets of the law, Aaron's rod, the manna). Instructions and for the construction of various altars.

As men will do, these laws were then subjected to interpretation.

The Role of Law in Religious Contexts

– Vast interpretations – which lead to infighting, divisions and non-love. Did you catch that? These laws lead to non-love in the hands of lawyers. And this was all among a people who had the Law specifically laid out for them along with prophets like Moses to interpret them and Kings like David to enforce them. It’s not surprising that by the time Jesus entered the scene – even well before – the world of Judaism – even Judaism itself, was filled with what were called Lawyers (or scribes) creating non-agape love everywhere they went.

Interestingly, Jesus appealed to these lawyers of the Law in his day – like in Luke 14:3 when he asked them: “Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath day?” Or when he asked another Lawyer what the Law had to say about what was required to inherit eternal life. And what specifically would these lawyers look to and cite to support their views – they would look to what was written. So, generally speaking, even though we have what we call unwritten laws in life, when we are talking about the LAW and LAWYERS, we have to also include the fact that Laws are typically recorded – WRITTEN – so that they can be found, cited and used to justify actions or to condemn them.

Jesus and the Written Law

Jesus cited to Satan “what was written” three times in the wilderness as the means to explain His code of conduct. Why? Because that was how a Jew lived – by what was written! And being Jesus was the Messiah first to the Jews, He would come and live by every written word – as a means to be obedient AND as a means to fulfill the Law and the Prophets without (what the scripture calls) transgressions, trespasses or sins. See, even though the Law was perfect and good, nobody could abide by its tenants – none. This caused Peter to say in Acts 15:10, when the apostles were discussing “circumcision for Gentiles:” “Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?”

Now think about this for a minute, especially you my LDS friends – Peter called the LAW a yoke that neither the apostles nor their forefathers could bear. How could God’s law be a yoke? It is perfect and right and good – no doubt. It’s not the law that was bad – humans are bad – and when the two meet, humans will fail in the face of it. That makes it a yoke, a burden, that no body could bear. But Jesus, the Son of the Living God. He could, and would bear the yoke. So why did God give the Law in the first place? Paul tells us, saying in Galatians 3:24: “Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster or a tutor (whose job is) to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

The Purpose of the Law

What that means is God gave the law to the Nation like He would give them a teacher or a tutor who would show them that they needed to believe on Christ and His obedience to the law on their behalf. And the teacher did this by being impossible to please. Image for a minute that you live in a rural area and you have to go to school in a one room school house that is run by a tastmaster. I mean that teacher demands perfect behavior, perfect answers, perfect dress, perfect diet, perfect interpersonal skills – and you have been in that schoolhouse for years suffering.

Then suppose the town announces that another teacher has show up and the kids get to choose whether or not they want to follow Him or not. And when they meet him he is kind, and gentle and patiently teaches the principles of agape love with the only requirement being to look to Him in faith. The choice would seem natural as to whom the children would want to follow. At least we would think.

But the point is the LAW (the strict teacher) was given by God to the students in the schoolhouse so that when Jesus (the second teacher) showed up they would be led to following Christ – by faith. So, after saying “Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster or a tutor (whose job is) to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. Paul adds: 25 But after

Faith and Freedom from the Law

That faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.

26 For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.

In other words, after Jesus came, nobody is under the schoolmaster any longer. FOR… we are all the children of God by FAITH. Faith in whom? Jesus Christ.

Now, I want you to understand that the LAW was not a series of individual demands. The LAW was one. That is why it is called “the LAW and the prophets,” not the LAWS and the prophets. Therefore, a person cannot think of themselves as “law-abiding” if they break even one command! That is a lie and if not a deception a self-deception. The LAW is a massive mountain and all of it must be lived to be right before God.

Therefore (Romans 3:20), by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

The Limitations of the Law

I hope my LDS and my legalistic friends heard that first line: Therefore, by the deeds of the Law there shall NO FLESH be justified in His sight. Why? Because the Law comes as a whole and nobody can bear it! Therefore, “BY THE LAW is the knowledge of SIN!” Meaning, one written rule put in our face has the capacity to make us sinners in one way or another, let alone ten or 361.

We gave you an example of this a number of months back when we said that the simple rule that Christians must wear socks to church would in the end make most Christians sinful. Remember? We said that even one written Law on the walls of a church: “All who enter here must wear socks,” would in the end make people lawyers, and put an end to love, and cause people to sin.

So what did Jesus do? He took the LAW – all the ordinances of it – and nailed them to His cross. So when you walk into a church, there ought to be no commands written – except the commands Jesus gave: Faith and Love. This is why Paul said: (LISTEN)

“The LETTER (law – what is written in ink or stone) KILLETH, but the Spirit (whose fruit is LOVE) GIVETH life.” Jesus helps to support the foundation for these four points when He said in John 6:63: “It is the spirit that gives life – the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.”

This life by the ministry of the Spirit is considered the better covenant as the writer of Hebrews says (8:6): “But now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises.”

The New Covenant of Faith

What better promises? The promise that the Law would end, that Jesus would pay for all sin and death, and that God would write His Laws upon the hearts and minds of those who are His – by faith. Paul wrote in 2nd Corinthians 3:6 and speaking of God said: “Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.”

He added in Romans 2:29: “But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.”

And added: Romans 4:15: Because the law worketh wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression.

And again: Romans 7:6: But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.

Romans 8:2: For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.

Galatians 3:10: For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.

And this brings me to my point tonight. As Christians, are we Lawyers or Lovers? Understand, you cannot be both in the way that I am using them. Oh, people try. Don’t they try. But whenever they choose to be a lawyer, love dies. But whenever they choose to be a lover, the Lawyer dies.

But we…

The Spirit and the Letters

We have got ourselves a problem that for some reason we refuse to admit or address.

Jesus said:
“the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.”

Paul said that he was an able minister of the new testament (which refers to when God would write on hearts and not paper, and Paul adds); “not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.”

Got all of that?

And so Jesus dies and ascends to heaven, promising to return. And the apostles write letters to the churches to encourage them to hang on until he comes as promised. And those letters get circulated far and wide. And then He comes as promised and the full New Testament is in gear with God writing on hearts and minds of believers. And some 200 plus years pass and someone or someones start collecting what? Those letters that were written to the believers then. And what are letters made of? Exactly! They are made of LETTERS which form words, which form sentences, which form LAWS, which create LAWYERS – and put an END TO LOVE.

Everytime.

Jesus teachings.
Letters from the Apostles written to the churches (then).
Letter spread.
Jesus Return (God, in the New Testament, writes on minds and hearts).
200 years pass.
Men start gathering EPISTLES.
Made of LETTERS.
FORM WORDS.
FORM SENTANCES.
FORM LAWS.
CREATE LAWYERS.
END LOVE (which is written on the hearts of those who are His).
LAWYERS AND LOVERS CANNOT CO-EXIST!
BY OUR LOVE WILL HIS DISCIPLES BE KNOWN!

The Original Intent of Apostolic Letters

See, human beings – typically groups of MEN thinking they are doing good – decided to take the apostles letters and call them “THE NEW TESTAMENT.” Now, don’t get me wrong. Reading, studying, understanding the contents of the Old Testament and the Apostles' letters is a great blessing to the world. But those writings were NEVER supposed to serve as letters of LAW – which is what they have become.

They were meant to be direct instructions for the church then, and spiritual maps for every individual thereafter to consider in their subjective walk with God through Christ. Because MEN have taken the LETTERS (which kill) and made them LAW, we have become LAWYERS instead of LOVERS: finding fault, dividing, excommunicating, hurting, pointing fingers, excluding, ostracizing. Which is the opposite of what we are to be known for: LOVE, patience, longsuffering, forgiveness, joy, peace, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance: against such there is NO LAW.

Understanding the Spirit's Role

For this reason, we strongly suggest and maintain that in Christianity today, ever since the wrapping up of that former age, THAT:

• The Spirit is Primary and preferential,
• The written word is secondary and referential,
• Church history is tertiary and at best deferential, and
• Material religion with all of its rules and laws is unnecessary and inconsequential.

Understand this and you will be on your way from being a lawyer to a lover not only for God but also for others all the time.

So, write your thoughts below and we will read them tomorrow night at 8PM mountain, here on Heart of the Matter!