The Law, a Delight and a Deterrence (A Series on God’s Law – Part 4)

For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. (Romans 7:22-25)

Introduction

In my previous article, I showed how the first and foremost purpose of the law of God is to point us to Christ, who saves us from the condemning power of the law. But however foundational that purpose is, it is not the only purpose of God’s law. Rather, God’s law continues to serve an important role both for the faithful and for the unfaithful. These second and third purposes of the law are what I will be discussing this month.

Loving the Law

To begin, one of the best places to go to see how God’s law is to be understood by the believer is Psalm 119. There, we find an entire psalm that focuses on the role that God’s law is to play in the lives of the faithful. Just consider the following section:

Your hands have made and fashioned me; give me understanding that I may learn your commandments.
Those who fear you shall see me and rejoice, because I have hoped in your word.
I know, O LORD, that your rules are righteous, and that in faithfulness you have afflicted me.
Let your steadfast love comfort me according to your promise to your servant.
Let your mercy come to me, that I may live; for your law is my delight.
Let the insolent be put to shame, because they have wronged me with falsehood; as for me, I will meditate on your precepts.
Let those who fear you turn to me, that they may know your testimonies.
May my heart be blameless in your statutes, that I may not be put to shame! (Psalm 119:73-80)

In this short section, we see how the psalmist places such a deep emphasis on the word of God, specifically on God’s law. This is, in fact, the entire theme of Psalm 119, which is the longest of all the psalms and serves as one continuous praise of God’s law.

Lest anyone suggest that the words of Psalm 119 are merely an Old Covenant perspective of God’s law – not to be carried over into the New Covenant – we see an equal respect and appreciation for God’s law presented in the New Testament. The Apostle Paul himself, who so eloquently described the condemning power of the law, declares in Romans 7:12 that “the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.” Paul is careful to point out in the very next verse that it was not the law itself that produced death in him. Rather, it was sin that brought about death. Paul teaches us that the law revealed sin for what it was, in order that sin “would become sinful beyond measure.”^[1]

So, instead of advocating for a dismissal of God’s law, Paul highlights the beauty of it. He says that he has a “delight in the law of God” in his inner being.^[2] Of course, Paul continued to struggle against his sinful flesh and admitted that he failed to do the right things regularly. Yet he ends that section with the declaration that he would “serve the law of God” with his mind even as his sinful flesh served sin.^[3]

To Love is to Obey

The idea that God’s law is to be a delight to Christians is not unique to Paul. Jesus himself taught the disciples the importance of obedience to the law throughout the gospels, most notably in John 14:

Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?” Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me. (John 14:21-24)

In this passage, Jesus draws a vital connection between those who claim to love him and their response to his commands. The two go hand-in-hand. Those who love Jesus will keep his words and commandments. Those who do not love Jesus will not keep his words. Yet the words of Christ are not alien, or separate, from the words of the Father. They come from the Father. For this reason, no one can say that the God of the New Testament is different from the God of the Old Testament. The two are not in opposition but are the one and the same God.

What does this mean for Christians today? Well, at the very least it means that we should, like Paul, delight in the law of God. And like the psalmist in Psalm 119, we should study and meditate upon God’s law in order to apply it to our lives. We should do this because we have become children of God and servants of Christ. To use Paul’s words from Romans 6, we who were “once slaves of sin” have now, because of Christ, “become slaves of righteousness.” And what does righteousness look like? It looks like obedience to, and delight in, the law of God, as Christ himself demonstrated.

To be clear, this does not mean that Christians are to understand the Mosaic Law without any reference to Christ. Rather, we are to seek to apply those laws in light of Christ and the New Covenant, since Christ himself is both the giver and the interpreter of the law. How we are to do this with specific laws is something that I will address later. My goal here is simply to encourage you to delight in God’s law and desire to apply it to your life. We need to cultivate a heart of obedience before we can get into the specific details of what that obedience looks like. In other words, we need to present ourselves before the king with bent knees and humble hearts ready for service before we start asking him whether we are allowed to eat bacon-wrapped scallops.

The Law Restrains

At this point, we have covered two purposes for God’s law: one to point us to Christ and another to show us how to live as Christians. Yet there is a third use of the law that we tend to overlook. It is the restraining power of God’s law over humanity. That is, the law serves to keep people from behaving as wickedly as their sinful hearts would desire.

While this seems a bit off-topic, just consider the COVID-19 situation a few years ago. During that time, my state of Pennsylvania took some radical measures in response to the virus. The governor issued a stay-at-home order and called for all non-essential businesses to shut down. He did not make any serious attempt to universally enforce these measures, though there were some businesses who ended up being targeted. But even if the governor had tried to enforce these mandates statewide, the number of Pennsylvanians and the sheer size of the state would have made such enforcement impossible.

Yet, despite all of this, most Pennsylvanians complied with the order. And even as time went on and people began to disagree with the restrictions, they generally continued to obey things such as mask-mandates. Why was this the case? Why would they obey rules they disagreed with that were practically impossible for the government to enforce universally? Well, it is because of the restraining power of law.

You see, when any laws are given, they have an inherent restraining effect. If you inform people that a certain behavior is against the rules, the general tendency among them will be to comply (even if they disagree with the rule). And while there will always be those who want to immediately try to test the boundaries, the rules will have a constraining effect on the overall behavior of the group. This is true for both righteous laws and wicked laws. Consider the psalmist’s words in Psalm 119:115, “Depart from me you evildoers, that I may keep the commandments of God.” And again, in verse 134, “Redeem me from man’s oppression, that I may keep your precepts.” In both examples, the Psalmist wants to obey God’s law but is in some way being prevented, hindered, or restrained, from doing so by wicked men and their oppressive actions.

Now, it is important to point out that even in a society that rejects God, the law of God maintains its restraining power. This is because God’s law remains enforced by God himself. He upholds his law, although the consequences for breaking it are not always immediately perceived, for he is merciful and long-suffering, withholding judgment for years, decades, and sometimes even generations.[4] Yet even when we do not see the consequences of law-breaking right away, God’s law continues to have a restraining power over our consciences due to the fact that we are made in God’s image. Consider the Apostle Paul’s words in his letter to the Church at Rome:

For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus. (Romans 2:14-16)

Here, Paul highlights how God’s law continues to work on the hearts of people, even upon those who never received the written form of God’s law. For without the written code, they sometimes end up doing what God’s law requires of them or, at the very least, recognize the existence of a higher moral standard.

For example, people from all societies and cultures know that murder, rape, and theft are wrong. They might not be consistent in their views and apply the same rules to everyone, but those concepts remain in their minds. Yet mankind’s moral understanding has been so affected by sin to the point that people now continually suppress the truth.^[5] The result is that while all men have a moral compass, it does not accurately point north. This is where the law of God comes into play, since one of its purposes is to point north and restrain men from going the wrong direction.

Law for the Lawless

In a way, then, the law’s third use is for those with a broken moral compass, not for those who have one that has been restored to functionality. Paul makes this point in his first letter to Timothy:

Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully, understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine, in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted. (1 Timothy 1:8-11)

While much could be said regarding this passage, there are two aspects that I wish to highlight. First, Paul recognizes that the law (i.e. God’s law) is good if it is used properly. This implies that there is such a thing as using the law wrongfully. The law is a tool or an instrument established by God to be used for specific purposes. To misuse that tool, as the Pharisees tended to do, would itself be an unlawful act. In other words, it is wrong to use God’s law in a way that God does not allow.

Second, Paul makes it clear that the law was given for the lawless and disobedient. The implication here is that people who have a desire to obey God, by loving him and loving their neighbors, do not need the threat of the law to keep them in line. Rather, those who are lawless and disobedient – unable to govern themselves – need the law to restrain them. As an example, people who truly love their neighbors do not need to be told not to murder them. It is those who are prone to hatred against their neighbors that need to be restrained by the Sixth Commandment and its companion case-laws.

Conclusion

The contrasting purposes of God’s law for both believers and unbelievers are perhaps best summarized by the Reformer Martin Luther in his work Secular Authority: To What Extent It Should Be Obeyed. And so, I will end by quoting his explanation as to why the law is for the lawless and not for the righteous:

Why is this? Because the righteous does of himself all and more than all that all the laws demand. But the unrighteous do nothing that the law demands, therefore they need the law to instruct, constrain, and compel them to do what is good. A good tree does not need any teaching or law to bear good fruit; its nature causes it to bear according to its kind without any law and teaching. A man would be a fool to make a book of laws and statutes telling an apple tree how to bear apples and not thorns, when it is able by its own nature to do this better than man with all his books can define and direct. Just so, by the Spirit and by faith all Christians are throughout inclined to do well and keep the law, much more than anyone can teach them with all the laws, and need so far as they are concerned no commandments nor law.^[6]

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[1] Romans 7:13.

[2] Romans 7:22.

[3] Romans 7:25.

[4] Romans 1:18.

[5] Romans 1:18.

[6] Martin Luther, Secular Authority: To What Extent It Should Be Obeyed.

[Note: This article was originally published on Eric Luppold’s Substack page. It is reproduced here with permission.]