The Law of Christ

What do you think of when you hear the word “law”?

Very often in contemporary Western society, we hear the word “law” as stifling, as constraining and restricting. It is stuffy old words on a page that are far removed from the reality of us—only there to limit us. It is an external imposition upon our individual and personal freedom.

And then we read that sense of restriction and suffocation into the biblical texts that we’re encountering today.

And we come up with crazy schemas about how the Old Testament is all about Law and the New Testament is all about Grace; and the God in Exodus is completely different from the God in the Gospels. And we hear Jesus overturning the tables as an overturning of the law and the prophets; and a creation of a whole new way of understanding God, when in fact it is a call to God’s people to live in God’s Law; a call to go back to what God intended; not forward into a completely different life. In this story of Jesus being disgusted by the desecration of the temple into a marketplace, Jesus is prefigured as the new Jeremiah—the prophet who proclaims to the people that God’s Law must and will be written on their hearts because they have failed to live up to the covenant made with them by God. This new covenant will indeed be cut into their very being; but its essence is the same old Law, the Law of God—a law to be imbued and embodied, not taught and learnt (cf Jeremiah 31:32-34).

Jesus call in the temple is a call of the people back to God’s Law which is not just stuffy old words on a page, or in this case a scroll, and not just a set of restrictions upon their freedom, but a way of life, a way of living in keeping with the will of God—not just spoken or written words, but profound action. And that is thoroughly in keeping with the nature of God where God’s word is God’s action: “And God said… and there was…”

God’s Law is not about any set of words. It’s about a way of being, a way of being in relationship with God, with each other, with the stranger, and with the whole of Creation.

Anna Grant-Henderson puts it this way:

God's grace happened before any requirements were set out in Exod[us] 20 [the 10 Commandments]. It is expected that in response to God's saving acts people will want to respond and stay in relationship. God identifies [God’s] self as belong[ing] to the people , "I am the Lord your God". The Hebrew word, Torah, is often translated as law which can be a negative quality for many people. Torah is more about teaching… the commandments are positive instruction to enable the people, both to stay in relationship with God, and to behave in right ways with each other… the law and story [of liberation] are not separate entities, but an integrated whole… the law is a gift and not some deliberate hardship… if we all lived by grace knowing the right way to treat each other from our relationship with God we would not need any laws at all. [But t]hat is simply wishful thinking. As Christians we need reminding about who is the centre of our worship… [God’s Law] is part of a living relationship and is given to enable the people to stay in covenant relationship with God as a gracious gift. (http://www.oldtestamentlectionary.unitingchurch.org.au/2012/March/Lent3Exod20_12.html)

In the temple, Jesus is reminding the people whom they worship and what is expected of them in that relationship. Listen to the passage from Jeremiah that Jesus quotes (God is addressing Jeremiah):

²Stand in the gate of the Lord’s house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the Lord, all you people of Judah, you that enter these gates to worship the Lord. ³Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your doings, and let me dwell with you in this place. ⁴Do not trust in these deceptive words: ‘This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.’

5 For if you truly amend your ways and your doings, if you truly act justly one with another, ⁶if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own hurt, ⁷then I will dwell with you in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your ancestors for ever and ever.

8 Here you are, trusting in deceptive words to no avail. ⁹Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, ¹⁰and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, ‘We are safe!’—only to go on doing all these abominations? ¹¹Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your sight? You know, I too am watching, says the Lord…

²²For on the day that I brought your ancestors out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to them or command them concerning burnt-offerings and sacrifices. ²³But this command I gave them, ‘Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people; and walk only in the way that I command you, so that it may be well with you.’ ²⁴Yet they did not obey or incline their ear, but, in the stubbornness of their evil will, they walked in their own counsels, and looked backwards rather than forwards. ²⁵From the day that your ancestors came out of the land of Egypt until this day, I have persistently sent all my servants the prophets to them, day after day; yet they did not listen to me, or pay attention, but they stiffened their necks. They did worse than their ancestors did.

Sitting here in our temple, it is easy to think that we are safe, we are okay, we are the people of God, we are in relationship with God; but Jesus’ challenge in the temple is also a challenge to us… Are we living God’s Law: the law that honours God and has compassion for the stranger, the outcast, the marginalised?

God’s Law is the basis for how a liberated people live in God. It is “not intended to restrict the people, but to free them from all the things that would have been destroying them in [captivity in] Egypt [and then in Babylon]: idolatry, oppression,” conflict, self-interest, social fragmentation. God’s Law is a structure for “peace, justice, freedom, compassion and love” (http://sacredise.com/blog/?p=1122).

But when “the Rabbi Jesus comes to the Temple which is the national and religious centre of God’s liberated people, he finds that even though the slaves have been taken out of Egypt [and out of Babylon], Egypt [and Babylon] ha[s] not been taken out of the slaves. [In w]hat should have been a sign of a liberated people—in spite of Roman Occupation—a place where God’s grace, compassion, generosity and justice [would be] daily on display, Jesus [finds] a corrupt and oppressive place where the love for God and neighbour had all but been forgotten… As Jesus angrily overturn[s] the tools of corrupt[ion], he quote[s] … Jeremiah. His hearers would have known what the rest of of the prophecy was—an indictment on the people of Israel for breaking [God’s Law]… for trading love of God and neighbour for power, wealth and self-interest.” (http://sacredise.com/blog/?p=1122).

God tells Jeremiah to tell the people that the temple will be taken away from them because they have gone away from God’s Law. Jesus challenges the people at the temple to give up the temple for the sake of God’s Law because they Law is not in the temple, but must be written on their hearts, embodied in their lives, embedded in their very being.

What would Jesus say if he came into this temple today?