The Christian's Relationship with the Law of Christ
The Law of Christ is even more challenging than the Law of Moses. How can we ever succeed?
This article is the fourth of a series. Catch the first three articles here:
here:
and here:
Alright, last time I explained the Law of Christ. I made a few points:
Long ago, the prophet Jeremiah promised the coming of a New Covenant. (Jeremiah 31:31–34)
Jesus didn’t come to abolish the Law of Moses, but to fulfill it. (Matthew 5:17)
Jesus established a New Covenant, sealed in his blood on the cross. (Luke 22:20)
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus doubled down on the Law of Moses and expanded it to cover not just people’s external actions, but also their internal thoughts and motives. (Matthew 5:17-6:4)
We know from looking at God’s other covenants that each covenant comes with a set of commands to obey or a more expansive Law.
Where the Mosaic Covenant is governed by the Mosaic Law, the New Covenant is governed by the Law of Christ.
In Matthew 5:48, Jesus says, “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
I left you with that crushing burden of Jesus commanding you to be perfect. I asked you whether you were up to it? I surely am not.
But, there is good news! And that’s what we need to talk about today. Fundamentally, we’re going to answer the question, “What is the daily working relationship between Christians and the Law of Christ?”
Let’s dive in.
A Call to Obedience
First, let’s be clear that in the gospels, Jesus calls every Christian to obedience in a very unambiguous fashion. Jesus makes it clear that obedience to his commands is not optional, it’s required.
I’ve written about this more deeply before in “Loving God = Obedience.” In that article, I made the point that Jesus demands obedience from his followers and promises blessings for those who obey him.
Do you notice anything about that formula (demanding obedience and promising blessings if we obey)? Yea, it’s pretty much the same formula used in all the covenants God makes with humans that we discussed in “Why Don’t Christians Follow the Law of Moses?”
Here’s what Jesus says in John 14:
John 14:15–27 (ESV)
Jesus Promises the Holy Spirit
15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, 17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.
18 “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 21 Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” 22 Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?” 23 Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. 24 Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me.
25 “These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. 26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. 27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.
Jesus says that if you obey his commands, the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, will come and live in you (v23). Think about that for a few seconds. Take that in. That’s a HUGE promise! At the time of Jesus, God might be met in the Holy of Holies in the center of the Jerusalem temple, but that was it. Here, Jesus is saying that you, yourself, become the temple.
Freedom Within the Law of Christ
“OK, so Dave, I get it. But you’re starting to bum me out. You said the Law of Christ is more expansive than the Law of Moses. And you’re saying that Jesus said we must obey. So, aren’t we up a creek without a paddle? If the Jews couldn’t obey the Law of Moses, how can Christians obey the Law of Christ?”
Great questions.
The answer, of course, is “the cross.” The cross changes everything for us. Jesus died for our sins, for every transgression of God’s laws, whether those are the Law of Moses or the Law of Christ.
Paul put it this way in Galatians 5:
Galatians 5:13–15 (ESV)
13 For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. 14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.
So, Jesus gave us freedom from the law. When you get to heaven, you won’t be refused entry because you didn’t keep the Law of Christ. Jesus is well aware that you can’t keep it. If you could have kept it, he wouldn’t have needed to come.
But notice that Paul makes it extremely clear that freedom from sin is not license to sin.
What does that mean?
It means that while Jesus paid the price for your failure to keep the Law of Christ, he still expects you to try to keep the Law, not simply dismiss it as unachievable and therefore something to discard.
Remember that the Law is God’s perfect system for human living. If everybody kept the Law of Christ perfectly (an impossibility), then the world would be wonderful. This is why King David talks about “delighting” in the Law (what we discussed in “Delight in the Law”). The Law is good. The Law is wonderful. And infinitely more so when we don’t have to worry about being held to account when we fail to keep it. We simultaneously should rejoice that the Law exists and rejoice that Jesus’s blood pays for all our transgressions against it.
The Practical Reality of the Law of Christ
So, given all that, what’s the day-to-day reality of living with the Law of Christ? What should we do right now, today?
Jeremiah make it clear that this new covenant that the Messiah was going to bring would be “written on our hearts,” that God would put his law within us.
Jeremiah 31:31–34 (ESV)
The New Covenant
31 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. 33 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
So, when Jesus commands us to obey him and says that if we do it, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit will live in us, that’s what he’s talking about.
The prophet Ezekiel echos Jeremiah in chapter 36:
Ezekiel 36:26–27 (ESV)
26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.
When you obey Christ, God transforms you from the inside. And the more you are transformed, the more you will embrace the Law of Christ and want to obey it. Obedience, in other words, allows God to transform you so that you become even more obedient.
Now, about this point, there are some of you out there, the rule following types, that want a concrete summary of everything you have to do. You want a list with checkboxes next to each item. You want to make sure you’re doing what Jesus commanded of you.
It’s here that Jesus steps in and says, “Let me make it easy on you. Sure, there are bunch of commands I gave to you, but if you want to boil the whole thing down, everything that I told you, it would come down to these two things…”
Matthew 22:34–40 (ESV)
The Great Commandment
34 But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
Here is the list. Here are the rules that need to be written on your heart:
Love God
Love other people
Always.
God reiterated some of this in Micah 6. There, God contrasts following religious rules with having a real relationship with him.
Micah 6:6–8 (ESV)
What Does the Lord Require?
6 “With what shall I come before the Lord,
and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
7 Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
8 He has told you, O man, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?
Do what is right. Do justice. Love kindness. Walk humbly with God.
The Law of Christ is written on your heart. You know what God requires. Be obedient to his commands.
The apostle James puts it bluntly, as always.
James 1:21 (ESV)
21 Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.
Follow the Law of Christ that is written on your heart. Love God. Love people.
That’s it. Simple. But not easy. Impossible, even. You will surely fail.
And that’s why the cross is so important. If you try to follow the Law of Christ without accepting the free gift of the cross, you will fail. You cannot do it. But if you accept the free gift, you are free to pursue the Law of Christ imperfectly with Jesus simultaneously forgiving you and transforming you more and more. You can leave stale religious liturgy behind and embrace Jesus fully. The Law is no longer something to be feared but something to be embraced, something that brings joy.
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Well done brother - good read and an interesting series that explains the true simplicity 😎 of Christianity.
Thank you David. Happy Resurrection Day. God bless.