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Under the Law |
Dear Brethren,
On his television show last week, a
very popular and well-known TV personality had a Jewish rabbi, a theologian, a
Protestant minister and a few other religious men as guests – and they all agreed that one
of the basic problems in America today is that the Ten Commandments are not being kept.
The host asked his audience if they could name any of the Ten Commandments.
Hands went up in the audience. The first man to respond started off with, “Thou
shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal…” He got four or five of the Commandments
correct. Finally, a lady in the audience recited a memorized version of all ten –
including, “Keep the Sabbath holy.”
What struck me as fascinating is that
all the men sitting at the roundtable agreed that American society would be a much better
place if people would just know and obey the Ten Commandments. I found the comments
of these informed men to be outstanding because, at least since the reformation of Martin
Luther in 1517, a major doctrine of Protestantism has been that abiding by the Law of God,
including the Ten Commandments, is unnecessary because Jesus kept the Commandments
perfectly in our stead. Martin Luther used Scripture like, “But if ye be led of
the Spirit, ye are not under the law” (Galatians 5:18) to “prove”
that the Law of God has been done away with.
But on TV, all those men of different
backgrounds were in solidarity with the notion that the Law of God – the Ten Commandments
– would be good for the nation! I would suppose that at that point most supportive
viewers were feeling all warm and fuzzy inside. On the other hand, I would also
suppose that the cohesion of the dissimilar guests was rather superficial. After
all, Mormons hold a divergent view on the nature of Jesus Christ from that of the
Protestants. With regard to the Sabbath, the Jewish rabbi would confess the Saturday
Sabbath while his compatriots would insist of a Sunday Sabbath. A foundational tenet
of Protestantism is that a “Christian” is not required to keep the Law of God – especially,
the Sabbath Day as found in both the Old and New Testaments.
When the Jewish rabbi returned to his
synagogue, some Jews probably gave him grief for not differentiating between Saturday and
Sunday. And by the same token, the Protestants probably returned to church to suffer
some misery for saying the Law of God must be obeyed. They are correct; the Law of
God must be obeyed, but what is it that none of these men understand? What does "under the law," mean?
Paul very subtly distinguished
between “under the Law,” and “under law.”
When Paul wrote in Galatians 5:18
he used the saying “under law” (without the specific article - "the") to
refer to the works of any kind of law, including circumcision and sacrificial laws, or the
subsequent ritual laws of Judaism. Paul never wrote anything about abolishing the
Law of God or the Ten Commandments.
The correct understanding and
translation of Galatians 5:18 is this: “But if you be led by Spirit, you are not
under law.” God’s Spirit in us leads us to live by God’s Law, we are not "under
law" – we do not fall under the authority or jurisdiction of circumcision, sacrificial
laws, or the ritual laws of Judaism.
"He that says, I know [God], and
keeps not His Commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him." (1John 2:4)
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Sermon:
"Under the Law"
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