Posted on 10/31/2015 9:28:00 AM PDT by Salvation
Question: Our priest recently said that love does away with the law. I am sick of all this mushy talk about love and relationship with God. We were taught the commandments, and it is time to get back to them.— Name withheld, location withheld Answer: Since the fuller context of the sermon is not here, it is difficult to know what he means. There are people today who substitute a vague “love” for any parameters or rules, and this is incorrect and a form of self-deception. Love does have parameters. However, there are very reputable theologians who would agree that moral theology over the past 500 years has become too solely focused on obligations, laws and rules and, as such, has become disconnected with grace and the moral renewal that is offered to us through relationship with Jesus Christ. The biblical, patristic and scholastic tradition all emphasized that the heart of the Gospel was a transformative union with Christ that liberated us from sin and death. Therefore, the moral dimension of the Christian life flows from this transformative union. As such, the moral vision of the Sermon on the Mount, and the epistles and early Church discipline were describing (not merely prescribing) what the transformed human person is like, if they have met Jesus Christ and received the healing power of his saving grace. How does a moral vision flow from relationship? Consider that we have all met people who have changed our life. Maybe it was a teacher who inspired us and who opened new ways of thinking for us or showed us gifts we didn’t know we had. Maybe it was someone who hired us or opened career paths for us we never imagined. Maybe it was a spouse who has helped to complete us. The rules or disciplines of the new things they showed us were not first — the relationship was first, and then we gladly moved forward in the new paths they opened. If mere human beings can have this effect on us, why not the Lord? Yet sadly, today, many are not presented the Gospel in this manner. In terms of moral theology, most people hear “rules” and “obligations” and not a powerfully inspiring and transformative relationship with the Lord who loves them, died for them and can now raise them out of the slavery to sin to glorious freedom of the children of God. Rules and laws are important because they describe for us what this new life is like. It is a life increasingly free from idolatry of things and people, from greed, lust, anger, resentments, lies and perversions and so forth. As to the concern that returning to a relational model will minimize the Christian life or make it vague, actually, and properly understood, it is the opposite. Consider that a man who loves his wife surely follows the Fifth Commandment not to murder her. But he does far more: he loves and cherishes her and does not wish to be rid of her. Thus, law points to what is minimally required but love asks “What more can I do?” Jesus’ moral vision in the Sermon on the Mount is far more vigorous than the Law of Moses. For example, Jesus says it is not enough to refrain from the act of adultery or illicit sexual union; even our thoughts are summoned to purity (Mt 5:27-30). Thus the love of God, rooted in a transformative relationship with Jesus, requires more not less, and grace will accomplish it, if we actually walk with Christ.
Monsignor Pope Ping to OSV column.
Focus on the law can turn you into a good lawyer, able to calculate exactly at what point on the spectrum does sin become not-sin and vice-versa, and the result is your focus is always on sin. It doesn’t immediately follow that you know God.
Focus on God, keep your eyes on the Father, and its a completely different way of seeing and living.
If you’re walking with God, you will still make mistakes, you’ll still fall short, but the nature of your falling short is different from simply trying to avoid sin. Its like changing the oil in your car. You need to change the oil in your car, but that isn’t why you bought it. You weren’t put on this earth to avoid sin, but to walk with God. Follow God and avoiding sin more or less just follows.
Good article.
With the law comes the knowledge of sin.
Romans 7:8-12 But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.
Galatians 2:15-16 We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.
Galatians 5:1-6 For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.
A person can whine all they want about hearing about relationship, but that is exactly what was broken when Adam and Eve sinned, and that's what Jesus came to restore.
And someone can demand to be put back under the law, but putting himself under the Law is putting himself under a death sentence.
The Law will judge all as condemned and it shows no mercy.
The believer who has been reborn by the Spirit is no longer under the Law or the condemnation of the Law.
Romans 6:14-15 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!
Paul states clearly here that we are not under the Law but under grace.
Whine away, mr. anonymous, about hearing about love and relationship and try to keep the Law by obeying the commandments, but since it has already been broken and no one can keep it anyway, you stand condemned by it.
Turn to Jesus now and trust HIM to save you, not yourself through your own puny, sin stained, corrupted efforts.
Colossians 2:13-14
Colossians 2:13-14 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.
"I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain." - Galatians 2:21
"For you have not come to a mountain that can be touched and to a blazing fire, and to darkness and gloom and whirlwind, 19and to the blast of a trumpet and the sound of words which sound was such that those who heard begged that no further word be spoken to them. 20For they could not bear the command, âIF EVEN A BEAST TOUCHES THE MOUNTAIN, IT WILL BE STONED.â 21And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, âI AM FULL OF FEAR and trembling.â 22But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels, 23to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the Judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, 24and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks better than the blood of Abel." Hebrews 12:18-24
In Hebrews, we see the mountain of the law (Mt. Sinai) and the mountain of grace/calvary (Mt. Zion). Salvation cannot and will not come through law. We are saved by grace alone through Christ alone. THERE IS NO SALVATION IN THE LAW!!
He could not be charged with that crime again from the state's viewpoint.
Motivated by the Spirit, Paul drew on this when he wrote Colossians.
AMEN!!!
Christ, and Him alone.
Happy Reformation Day, Met!
Hoss
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