Sunday, October 12, 2014

Law.

What if Moses on the mountaintop had stopped short and failed to bring down those tablets?  Would there still be the Law?  What if Newton had decided to become a farmer instead of pursuing his scientific career?  Would Gravity cease to be?  Like the laws of physics, the law of God remains truth whether or not it has been discovered or not.  That which the 10 commandments points to and reveals remain true inspite of their discovery and whether or not an observer accepts them or not.

“Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who sets the planets in motion.” 
― Isaac Newton


The Law of God is in fact, written on our hearts.  And while Thou Shall not Kill is an easy one to agree on, Honor thy Mother and Father becomes a little less clear, and Not making graven images seems almost ridiculous.  However, these Commandments live together in reality and in our hearts and cannot be separated.  In fact, if you do away with the 1st Commandment, Thou shall have no other Gods, none of the other Commandments have any relevance.  If there is no giver of the Law, there is no argument for it...not killing (and not dying) is a mere matter of preference without the existence of God.  

God's nature and his law, he gives for our discovery and for our betterment.  Gravity was just a mere observation of reality until Isaac Newton, among others, sought to understand it.  Then it became proclaimed as Law, although it had always been true.  In Moses, we have him giving the concrete expression of what the Israelites already knew to be true.  The difference maker is accountability.  

Gravity is a merely a novelty without the passion for discovery that ordinary men and scientists have lavished on it over the centuries.  It is impossible to understate how much we now understand that came from a simple curiosity: an apple falling from a tree, as the story goes.  Though we have come so far, the initial simple law remains true.  And now though our culture has advanced, and our understanding of human nature has expounded, we still cannot escape the heartbreak and broken-ness that comes from breaking God's Law.  Think of how much we know, how powerful the human race has become, how much wealth there is and yet the world groans and aches with all the suffering.  Not following the Law in it's entirety leads us to disorder.  Simply "Not Killing, Not Stealing" is not enough.  We need the fullness of the Law.  The Law of our hearts remains harsh and seemingly unlivable in it's entirety.  We, indeed, need another level of understanding to make it possible.

If Moses gives us The Law in specific revelation, Jesus is the Power to fulfill the Law.  Moses is the observation of the apple, Jesus is the Gravity.  Jesus is the reality.  

The Law is in a way the structure, and Jesus is the illumination of that structure to give it relevance.  In the Cross we have a symbol of the Old Testament Law, standing as a consequence rigid and unwavering.  Jesus allowed himself to be fused to the Cross, pierced, beaten, impaled and bound to the Cross by his blood, flesh and pain.  Previously the Cross was something to be broken upon,  Now in Christ's sacrifice it is something to be saved by.  The Law didn't change, it was just given to it's fullness of purpose.  And because he rose from the dead, manipulating the Laws of Physics that he himself had set into motion, he proclaimed his truth to all of creation in a very personal way.  All of history, the past and the future hinge on this event, the universe set in motion in all of it's vastness to give us Jesus, the reason for everything.  We humans, the pinnacle of creation, the observers, are not the reason for existence.  Yet we are called to bear witness and get the privilege of being saved.  We get to live, because he loves.  His Law and His Love are the mechanisms by which everything exists, for he is the purpose for everything. 

Colossians 1
The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. 17He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. 19For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
21Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because ofg your evil behavior. 22But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation— 23if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.

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