The Laws of Life

     This summer I was tasked with writing a paper with the topic "The Laws of Life". I started to write down ideas and came up with a list that could take me in several directions. Once I decided on how I wanted to approach it I sat down and started to type. That's how I often start essays (and how I start a lot of my blog posts). This time, though, I was hit with a problem: I had to write a narrative about the topic, which meant a story. That would not have been a problem, but for the topic and my thoughts on it. The way I had started led to something like this blog, an essay in which I discuss my own take on the subject, not a story. My problem was taking my thoughts on the idea and looking for stories in my life which showed that I knew what I was talking about and lived it out.
     As I thought, I just couldn't think of any significant times in my life in which I had used the laws of life I had set for myself. (I had some minor things, but writing about them just seemed like trite bragging.) So I stopped writing and stood back. Often we set rules out for ourselves and we make them as easy to follow as possible, yet still we break them and end up feeling guilty. This problem (termed akrasia by philosophers) is the very problem Paul struggled with in Romans 7.

"I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?"

     Luckily he approaches it from the same angle I have to. (I wrote these verses down in my original list) In Romans 8 the first thing Paul does is compare the Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus with the law of sin and of death. The two different laws are at war with each other: akrasia. More and more I realise that submitting to one law is rejecting the other. And I can never follow both at once.
     When I first got this assignment I was staffing at the Bible camp that I have grown up going to and staffing at (after I turned 14). One theme that the staff has been focusing on this summer is the enemy Christ came to defeat (what we are really freed from). I have always thought of Christ's motives in terms of heaven and hell, and a long time ago God vs. Satan, but the real enemy is sin! Not to say that Christ didn't defeat the devil or free us from hell, but these were all minor battles in the war against sin. Sin is the sting of death; it is the cause of death, it is the problem introduced into the world by Adam's rebellion. John writes:

 "Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous; the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil. No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God."

In the past I always read this passage as "the Son of God appeared to destroy the works of the devil", now the emphasis I see is "the works of the devil". And just before that he tells us what those works are: sin.
     Look through all the passages you associate with Christ's mission on the world (He came to seek and to save that which was lost, etc.). These passages all point back to the problem philosophers, politicians, religious leaders, teachers, parents, employers, and every day people deal with: sin. John talks about it, Peter talks about it, David talks about it, and all of them have only one answer: God.
     The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus is the only alternative to the law of sin and of death. The Old Testament Laws were all inspired by the Spirit and given by God. Jesus did not come to destroy the law, but to fulfill it. This is the Gospel we spend so much time talking about. This is the Gospel we need to share. God created men in His image, an image which was marred by man's choice to allow sin in his life. But God didn't let that get in the way of His plan. He sent the Law to show us that we need Him. And He sent grace to save us from the Law of sin and of death. He sent His sinless Son to become sin and to die on our behalf, that His justice might be done, and that He might show us His love. The old path was set. We left it. The boundaries were set. We moved them. And after getting lost and finding we had led ourselves to death's door, He brought us back and showed us the boundaries He had set before time.

"The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."

Taking a Walk

Amos 3:3 "Do two men walk together unless they have made an appointment?" NASB "Do two walk together unless they have agreed to do so?" NIV

These two traanslations of Amos 3:3 are intriguing to me. They are both rhetorical questions to which the answer is "Not normally", but what implications can be drawn from this verse. (I'm going to take this out of context, but the question leads to its own answer so I'll use the question and the answer to base the rest of my musing on.)

When I said not normally, I assumed that someone would come up with an example of people walking on the same sidewalk who are going to the same place, but I guess the answer should really be "no". In reality, people don't walk together unless there is some sort of communion with each other. There would be no communion if the people didn't consent to the others' company, or if they didn't acknowledge others, so we can safely assume that the people intend on "walking together".

What about the appointment? Well as you can see the word appointment is also translated to be an agreement between the two. The appointment doesn't necesarrily have to be premeditated from days or hours before, it may be a spontaneous appointment. (Often when I go to lunch I'll make an appointment to go with a friend as I'm walking out the door.) The appointment, in a way, is like saying, "Hey, do you want to walk to lunch with me?" Now, the other way of looking at the word is the agreement, which is really the reply to the appointment, "sure, when are you going?"

All this is to say, I think that, as per my previous post, as we walk with God we need to make sure that we don't miss the appointment, and that we are agreed with Him. It is easy to blame someone for missing their appointment, but God is omnipresent, so if you're not walking with Him, you can guess who's fault it is.

Galatians 5:16-18 says, "So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law." Here I'm going to merge this post with my last. Our walk with God should be according to His Word, but we should also be walking by His Spirit. This passage says we are not under law, that is because, though we should be walking according to His Word, we are being led by the Spirit. So the parts of the Word that are the Law, which condemn our flesh, (Romans 7:6-8, 12-13) are now no longer applicable "for sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace" and "He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit." (Romans 6:14 ,8:3b-4 ) So make an appointment with the Spirit and keep walking by Him.

Blessings, Justus
 Amos 3:3, Galatians 5:16-18, Romans 6:14, Romans 7:12-13, Romans 7:6-8, Romans 8:3-4