God’s Law and Jesus’ love

Is it possible this myth heard ‘round the world is actually increasing in popularity? I wonder if even now it’s dead even with or even past the “Christians aren’t supposed to judge ever” myth?

Perhaps it’s best to leave this little lie alone. After all, it brings so many people together in agreement, doesn’t it? Many Christians want to be loving to their unsaved friends, or “worldly” Christians. Or they may want to correct for their legalistic backgrounds, and make sure they emphasize that God is all about love, not rules. The popular evangelical phrase remains, on a billion church signs: that “Christianity isn’t about rules, it’s about a relationship.”

So they present one side of a truth, to the point of half-truth: Jesus isn’t about the Law.

But that is not what Scripture says. This is clear not only from the epistles written by Paul and other apostles about Jesus, but from the words of Jesus Himself.¹

“Take a look, it’s in a Book …”

Ye have heard that it was said …

Jesus fought the Pharisees because they were all about the Law, and He was all about love.

AKA: Jesus wasn’t about rules, He was about love and personal relationship with Him.

AKA: “Christianity isn’t about rules, it’s about relationship.”

Figure A:

“The God of the Old Testament is a vengeful God,” says a popular professing Christian during a lecture circuit, named the same as his new book with a catchy, “outrageous” title. “He is all about the Law and following a system of rules. Then along comes Jesus, and His only law is the law of love! He accepts people just the way they are. He breaks down the barriers.” ²

Figure B:

[After agreeing that boundaries are in the Bible] Jesus is frequently breaking through those boundaries, challenging what the OT purity laws say about dirt and cleanliness, Sabbath and love…which is why Christianity has always had a bit of an iconoclastic streak. Add to this Jesus’ acceptance of the Other, be they of an enemy empire (the Centuriion)³, or heterodox (like the many Samaritans who held a different canon and worshiped at a different temple), or outright occult (the blessed Magi who visited the child Christ [. . .]), you see a relaxing of the boundaries and a universalizing of the Old Covenant’s YHWH into a God who brings “peace and glad tidings of great joy to all peoples[.]”

From an acquaintance’s Facebook post

Figure C:

All my religious training was in Sunday school, maybe 25 years ago, and the main thing I remember was that God was always smiting the Pharisees. At least I think it was the Pharisees[. . . .]

My wife, who has had bales of religious training, tells me that this was the Old Testament God, who was very strict, whereas the New Testament God is a genuinely mellow deity, the kind of deity who would never smite anybody or order you to smear goat’s blood on your firstborn son, which is the kind of thing the Old Testament God was always doing.

The otherwise hilarious author and humor columnist Dave Barry, from a 1985 column

What’s the truth in this?

While it is easy to make lovey-dovey Christians (or those who want or claim to be so) into easy villains, I hope to Heaven that Biblical Christians will not overcorrect the opposite way. We’re already needing to deal with overcorrection — from not-loving-enough views of God to a “love”-as-the-only-defining-attribute view of God. Let’s not swing the pendulum back again!

It is so true that Jesus came to Earth to exercise love. No informed Christian would deny this. He healed the sick, taught of His Father’s care for people, lived as a Man, comforted the hurting, and did not fight back when He was persecuted.

He did not specifically deploy punishments, like God the Father. At that point, it wasn’t His goal.

What’s the lie in this?

What Biblical Christians would disagree with is that “love” is so easily understood as simple healing from sickness, or acceptance of all other views, or especially making things easier for people who had suffered under the Old Testament Law for centuries. Rather:

1. Jesus doesn’t just release people from the Law’s burden. He increases it, by reminding us that true violations are in our hearts, not in our deeds! Only He Himself can remove its burden.
2. Jesus does not oppose the Law. He opposes false views of it. He decries the often-willing ignorance of some people, in particular religious hypocrites. Such people refuse to see that the Law pointed to Him as the One Who relieves its burden for those who repent and believe Him.
3. And Jesus did not come to overthrow the unfair, too-hard Law. He came to fulfill it.

What’s the Word?

One very relevant passage to explore⁴ is from Jesus’ “Sermon on the Mount.” ⁵ Many wrongly think Jesus only offers better ways to live, or moral encouragements for all who listen. But although His words may sound soft-spoken, the realities are much harsher.

Wow. Let’s be sure we don’t miss the profound truths buried in that paragraph. Nothing than less than an attempt at exegesis (my best, anyway) seems due here …

1. Jesus fulfills, not abolishes, the Law.

Lest anyone think Jesus came to offer anything different from the Law, He directly denied it. “I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them,” He said. I wonder: if I had been Jesus (scary thought), and I had wanted to tell people for sure that the true Law was not dead and gone or unnecessary for anyone in the present day, how would I have communicated this more clearly?

If Jesus actually did abolish the effects of the Law, here He was lying or obscuring the truth.

2. The Law won’t end until the world ends.

In case we missed the point, He makes it even more clear: the Law is still in effect “until all is accomplished.” Not a nano-piece of it will expire until that time.

Might someone think that has already happened — that at some point before now, the Law’s effects have passed as He predicted? No, Jesus’ context makes clear what “all is accomplished” means: the time when “heaven and earth pass away.”

I just looked out my window. Earth is still here, so I presume Heaven is too. He hasn’t yet redeemed, remodeled and combined them (Revelation 21).

Therefore I presume the Law’s iotas and dots are still un-passed.

3. We should not downplay the Law.

These seem like very strong words: those who try to downplay the Law and its truths aren’t just misguided, naïve or doctrinally wrong, but they “will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.”

That just makes me want to wipe my brow and pray I won’t be too cavalier about the Law!

God’s standards are just as holy today as they were back then. Jesus hasn’t lowered the standard; here, He has just made it higher and more strict than ever. If He hadn’t made it clear here and elsewhere that He Himself was the fulfillment of that standard, and died and rose again to prove it, people might still be calling Him a “legalist” today.

4. If we follow the Law’s commandments, we will be called great.

I’d much rather be placed in this group. And why is that? So we can be called “great in the kingdom of heaven.” Christians ought not do as I once thought deep down, that the best and most “spiritual” Christianity is disinterested devotion to religious duties. Rather, I should want to want the best reward He can give — Himself — in the Kingdom when it comes here directly.

5. Want Christ’s Kingdom? Then out-obey the Pharisees.

We might not see Jesus’ impact here without comparing it with a direct-opposite view: a “cheap grace” that assumes we don’t need to consider God’s holiness, only His love.

But here, Jesus doesn’t mention a word about God’s love. He talks about His great love at other times, and it’s absolutely essential to remember that as we seek to know Jesus and all of His character. But here, His focus is His Father’s holiness and the Law. Its standard was in effect then, and remains in effect today for those who don’t believe Him.

6. Christians are not under the Law, because of Christ’s coming and personal faith.

Years later, Christians in the Galatian church were being told opposite ideas of the Law, by very “spiritual” teachers who claimed the Christians were still under its requirements. But Paul wrote:

So Paul makes things even clearer to Christians: they are no longer captive to the Law. But the essential ingredients for the status change are Christ’s coming, what He did, and personal faith that brings forgiveness of sins and adoption as God’s sons.

Further in: Jesus vs. Pharisees

Yet the question remains: if Jesus actually defended the Law and insisted it was still in effect — and maybe worse than some people thought — why then did the Pharisees pick on Him so much? And why did He argue against them? Some people might ask: “Weren’t they the religious leaders who had no love and only the Law?” What was their argument truly about?

Mark 7: 1-13 is one of the best passages about this.

Here, in one of the clearest arguments with the Pharisees, Jesus did not base His arguments on anything close to “I am not about the Law; I am about ‘love.’” Some professing Christians (or real Christians who aren’t taught well on this topic) may assume that was His goal.

But instead He made three main points:

1. In all their “laws,” the Pharisees had no heart for the real God and worshiping Him.
2. The Pharisees were actually substituting their own made-up laws for the Law.
3. With their made-up religious rules, the Pharisees ended up denying God’s real Law.

Don’t miss the Mark

I think the scene sets itself here. Mark in his gospel has already described the religious leaders’ reactions to Jesus’ teachings and miracles. But when the Pharisees see the disciples violating a religious tradition, this encounter is so far the most clear about the exact nature of their conflict.⁶

Did Jesus oppose the Pharisees because they were only about the Law, with no love for people? My suggestion: ask this very question as we read …

This is a fascinating passage. Similar to last week, let’s draw out the points one by one, and ask even more specific questions before reading sections of the story up close:

1. Were the disciples really “defiled,” as in breaking God’s real Law?

The word defiled is crucial here. Some readings of this would hold that the disciples were being very cavalier about the Law of Moses. This assumption would say that somewhere in the Law is something about needing to wash hands exactly this way. And with all the laws in Leviticus and more (which often sound strange to us), that’s an easy assumption to make.

But how does Mark define this use of defiled? He says “that is, unwashed,” and goes on to say:

This understanding of defiled is not according to the Law, but means only “unwashed,” and according to nothing more than the “tradition of the elders.” If they are coming back from the secular marketplace, for example, they have decided it’s their rule to do ritual washing.

Mark goes on to say that according to their religious rituals, they wash all kinds of things, not just to keep them clean physically, but to keep them clean (in their view) spiritually.

But though the Law is detailed, with many odd-sounding commands, it does not say to do that.

Answer: No. This is Pharisee-style “defiled.” God’s real Law doesn’t require this washing.

2. Did the Pharisees accuse the disciples of violating God’s Law?

Answer: No. They asked why the disciples didn’t obey man-made traditions.

If the Pharisees were honestly confusing the two — God’s Law and their own made-up laws — they didn’t say so here. Jesus didn’t seem to think it was an honest mistake on their part.

3. Did Jesus say the leaders needed to lighten up, love a little more?

Jesus could not make His reasons clearer. If the Pharisees had really asked why Jesus’ disciples weren’t obeying the Old-Testament Law — and the Pharisees’ problem was that they were all about God’s rules and not Jesus’ love — Jesus’ response here makes no sense.

He does not say “you must learn to accept and love others instead of talking about God’s rules.”

Instead, He says, quoting Isaiah 29:13: You are teaching your own rules rather than God’s real rules, and your worship of God is in vain and without heart.

Answer: No, Jesus did not argue from only “you must love people more.” Instead He said they were hypocritically ignoring God’s real Law in favor of their made-up laws.

Many professing Christians⁷ claim that Christians who defend God’s Law or holiness, or a plain reading of His Word, are automatically leaning toward hypocrisy and unloving attitudes in the same way the Pharisees did. But if the Pharisees were actually defending God’s real Law, why would Jesus call them hypocrites? He would have to mean they were claiming to adhere to God’s real Law, while actually ignoring it.

4. Was the Pharisees’ main problem only adding their own laws onto the real Law?

Answer: Not at all. And Jesus clearly says the Pharisees were not just naïvely confusing their own religious rules for the real Law. Even worse, they were actively rejecting the real Law and not just ignoring it — they were defying it, and teaching others to do the same.

I love His wording here: “You have a fine way … !” The sarcasm and outrage just blazes forth in His phrasing, with divine authority only He could have.

Again, Jesus doesn’t base His argument on “you must love more,” or even, “you are adding your own rules on top of God’s real Law.” He says “you are rejecting God’s real Law.” Here He cites a specific example: Moses, speaking for God, had commanded that people ought to honor their parents. But instead of following and teaching that part of the Law, the Pharisees had effectively thrown it out in favor of their own rule: you can avoid caring for your parents so long as you claim a Very Spiritual Exemption for your property, i.e., oh, well, this is “God’s money.”

Can you see it here? Jesus was disgusted. With the Pharisees’ very high-sounding, religious and “spiritual” idea about this, they were violating God’s real Law. They were making His word “void … by your tradition that you have handed down.” And that was just a small example, He added.

Conclusion

Many people have different reasons for wanting to make Jesus a dispenser of “love” apart from God’s Law. But such an approach simply isn’t found in Scripture.

The passages here and in part 2 are not isolated cases. For example, in Jesus’ righteous rant against the Pharisees in Matthew 23, He never talks about how they’re all about the real Law and He’s all about “the better way of love” or any of that. He laments and lambastes them because they have “neglected the weightier matters of the law.” What are these? “Justice and mercy and faithfulness.” All are important — and all are what God’s real Law was all about.

Anyone who believes Jesus even came close to opposing or overruling His own Father’s Law with love needs to consider the whole picture that Scripture shows us. Not one time does He play the “good cop” to God’s or His real Law’s “bad cop,” and contradict Himself in that way.

If this really sinks in, it should come as a shock! After all, we have always been taught that Jesus came not to just “make” the Law harder, but to provide a way of salvation.

And that’s true. Any of this emphasis on Jesus’ upholding God’s Law should not simply reinforce someone’s “well I guess we’d best try and obey the Law even harder” reaction! The only reaction this should bring us is gratitude, to Christ, for what He also did to fulfill His own Law.

This is the most important thing to know from busting this myth.

Christ fulfilled God’s real Law by sacrificing Himself as the ultimate atoning sacrifice (or propitiation, 1 John 4:10) for the sins of those who would repent of sins and believe in Him.

Knowing this, and that God’s real Law still applies today, helps us see our need for Christ even more. Instead of only reinforcing the Law and either calling people to obey it by themselves, or just to love each other better, His goal was to die, rise to life, redeem His people with His blood and start His Church. He fulfilled God’s Law so we would trust in Him, not in moral rules.

Thank God for His Law that shows us our need for Him. Thank God for His sacrifice that shows us His love. Thank God for the Bible that shows us both truths in perfect balance.