LAW OF THE SPIRIT—HIGHER
THAN THE MORAL LAW
Charles Faupel
There
is a great deal of discussion among Christian theologians and philosophers
regarding the tension that exists between the “positive” law, which is law that
has been enacted by legislators and other governing bodies, and “natural law,” or the “moral law,” which is
understood as God’s law that stands above all positive law. Most philosophers argue that the moral law should
serve as the plumb line from which to evaluate the “goodness” of the enacted law. This is the position taken by most church
leaders, and which is preached from most Christian pulpits. We recognize this distinction as a valid one. There is, however, a law that is of another
realm entirely, that governs the conduct of those who are truly called out as
part of the bride of Christ. This is the
law of the Spirit, and it is the
governing authority of those who live by the Spirit.
Before
we came to Christ we were under the tutor of the law, and most of us regarded
the moral law as the one to which we owed our ultimate allegiance. We even recognized this allegiance to be more
compelling than the enacted, positive law.
But having come to Christ, we find ourselves more and more compelled by another
law—the law of the Spirit.[i]
We are no longer under the old law; indeed,
we are dead to it. The higher law of
love demands our obedience. This
presupposes a relationship with the Holy Spirit who is revealing the will of
the Father to us and inscribing the mandates of this law upon our hearts. This, friends, is the operation of the law of
the Spirit.
The
recognition of the law of the Spirit is nothing new. Paul made frequent reference to this law as
he exhorted the believers in the churches he established to live in obedience
to the Spirit of God. Unfortunately,
Christian leaders have failed to understand the radical and totally “other”
nature of the law of the Spirit. Because
the church has been so immersed in a “law” paradigm over most of the past 2000
years, the law of the Spirit has been reduced to little more than some noble
expression of the “natural, or “moral” law. If you were to ask 100 preachers to define
the law of the Spirit, I would venture to say that 99 of them would give a
definition that would somehow juxtapose the law of the Spirit in relation to
the moral law. Many would recognize that
the law of the Spirit is that which is breathed by the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless, the plumb line will still be
the moral law as they understand it.
Stated more plainly, if what God reveals to sister so-and-so does not
conform to the “Word” (meaning their understanding of what the scriptures say), then the guardians of the faith will say that this
revelation cannot be of God. They
relegate sister so-and-so’s fresh revelation of God to a whim of a misguided
believer who does not understand scripture, or worse, who is intent on construing
her own fleshly fancy as the Word of God.
While it is certainly possible that sister so-and-so’s revelation could
be a fanciful whim, to dismiss it simply because it does not fit within a
particular framework of scripture that has been handed down to us through
centuries of tradition is to shut ourselves off to the Living Word that God
might have for us today. We do this
because we find it more important to maintain a logically consistent system of
moral law than to be in intimate relationship with Christ, and to conform our conduct to the demands that He places upon us
through the Holy Spirit.
The
fact is, attempting to maintain a logically consistent
system of moral law presents us with all sorts of dilemmas. If we think about it, there are any number of instances in which God contradicts or asks His
people to break His own moral law. Just
looking quickly at examples in the Old Testament, we see:
·
that we are commanded not to kill in the Ten
Commandments; then several chapters later in Exodus, Moses is ordered of the
Lord to have 3000 of his own countrymen slaughtered; and centuries later Elijah
is ordered to kill 400 prophets of Baal;
·
that despite the same prohibition against killing, the
Lord, through Samuel, ordered Saul to kill all the men, women and children—even infants and nursing
children—of Amalek,
as well as every sheep, ox, camel and donkey.
Indeed, God’s displeasure fell upon Saul and He rejected Saul as king
because he failed to kill all of the animals.
·
that despite the commandment to not bear false witness the
Hebrew midwives blatantly lied when asked by the Pharoah
why they did not kill the male children when they were born. The scripture says that “God dealt well with
the midwives” because of this.
These contradictions are made blatantly
evident in the New Testament as well.
For example:
·
Despite the Commandment to honor our father and mother,
Jesus commands us to hate our father
and mother if we are to be his disciple.
He is calling us to a higher calling than the moral law.
·
Jesus Himself violated the law of the keeping of the
Sabbath by picking grain with His disciples on that day.
·
Jesus then points out, when accused of violating the
law on this occasion, that David also violated the law by eating the holy bread
of the temple when he was hungry, and was held blameless for it.
·
The Lord ordered Peter in a vision to eat unclean
food, which was in direct violation of Levitical
law. When Peter protested that he would
never eat any unclean thing, the Lord responded, “What God has cleansed you
must not call impure.”
·
Paul declares that it is not necessary to maintain the
law regarding circumcision (and other Old Testament commandments such as those
pertaining to the food we eat). He
defends this freedom vigorously in his letter to the Galatians and elsewhere.
So
is the Bible a bunch of contradictions?
If we approach the New Testament through the lens of an Old Testament
law still in operation, ignoring Christ’s sacrifice that has now taken it out
of the way—obliterated it—it is indeed
a bunch of contradictions. And most
churches today approach scripture exactly that way. Hence, church leaders are left having to attempt
to explain these inconsistencies. I am
very well aware of many if not most of the “explanations” that have been given in
an attempt to reconcile these and other moral contradictions found in scripture. They are all made in an effort to salvage the
integrity and relevance of the moral law to those of us who have been ushered into
the Kingdom of the Spirit and now live by the law of the Spirit.
This
higher law of faith dictates that we give allegiance to Christ and Christ
alone—not to the old letter of the law that Christ came to fulfill. This allegiance comes about through a deep
work of the cross applied to our lives, a work that nullifies or at least effectively
diminishes all other loyalties in our lives.
As this takes place, and as we grow ever closer to Him in our walk, we
learn to live and breathe His Spirit. We
learn to live by the law of the Spirit and to move and act at the impulse of
this perfect law of liberty. Most of us encounter
circumstances that require a response that may seem totally contrary to the
moral law. Yet, as we search scripture
in response to the prompting of the Spirit, almost inevitably, scripture itself
will be quickened to us that challenges the
understandings of traditional interpretations of scripture that have been
imposed upon us over the years, and confirms this response of the Spirit.
An
example of how the Spirit speaks in fresh and unique ways, and might even
require very different, even diametrically opposed responses to different circumstances
is provided by Richard Wurmbrandt in Tortured for Christ. In one example, he tells of a doctor who
posed as a Communist officer in order to infiltrate a prison to free him (Wurmbrandt). The
doctor’s family did not understand his “abandoning” his faith and even disowned
him. But the doctor, acting in obedience
to the Spirit of God, knew that he had to do this. He found Wurmbrandt
and was able to set him free. The result
of this was a life-changing testimony of the gospel under persecution that
powerfully impacted the world for Christ, and would not otherwise have been
told. Wurmbrandt
tells another story, however, of a young son who was being tortured in the
presence of his father. The father was
given the opportunity to deny his faith to save the young son. He did not, again in obedience to
Christ. From the perspective of the
moral law, these behaviors are diametrically opposed. In the first case, the doctor “denied” his
faith to save an underground Christian; in the second, the father refused to
deny his faith to save his son, also an underground Christian. Despite the contradiction, both actions were
obedient to the law of faith and law of the Spirit. They were both responsive to the dictates of
the Spirit upon them at the time.
It
is this higher law of the Spirit to which we are called. The apostle Paul makes this clear:
·
Those who live in accordance with the Spirit have
their minds set on what the Spirit desires (Romans 8:5)
·
He has made us competent as ministers of a new
covenant—not of the letter, but of the spirit; for the letter kills but the
Spirit gives life. (2 Cor. 3:6)
·
No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and
circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written
code (Romans 2:29)
·
But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been
released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in
the old way of the written code
(Romans 7:6)
·
…the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the
law of sin and death (Romans 8:2)
I sometimes
wonder if the Bible may purposely express otherwise contradictory moral laws so that we cannot accept or
be satisfied with any life based on maintaining a moral code. Jesus made it clear: “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of
the Pharisees, you cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.” Was Jesus proclaiming that we needed to keep
the law more diligently than did the Pharisees?
Hardly! He was proclaiming that
we can never achieve the righteousness He requires by keeping that law! He
is our righteousness, and we walk in that righteousness as we are obedient to
Him, through the Holy Spirit. It is
almost as if the Bible is crying out, “Can’t you see…if you try to live by the
law, you can’t succeed because in keeping one code you break another!” Ironically though, this misplaced allegiance
to the moral law rather than to the Holy Spirit is the message either openly
proclaimed or at least implied by most Christian leaders today, even those who
claim to be Spirit-filled! The message I
am proclaiming is the same one Paul so adamantly and passionately defended to
the Galatian churches. We must not insult the Spirit of grace! We begin by the Spirit and must not revert
back to the law from which we have been freed. For Christ has come to free us
by His Spirit from the law of sin and death! He
is the fulfillment of the law. Our
faithful response is to His Spirit. But
be warned: faithful obedience to this perfect law of liberty will invite the
scorn and even persecution of others who can look only on the written moral law
as the highest law. If it was so with our Master, so it will be with His
disciples.