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Law! What does the word mean? How is it used in the Scriptures? More particularly, how is it used in the New Testament and in the writings of Paul the apostle? Does the word have applicability to me? As a son of liberty in Christ Jesus, am I under law, or is it an antiquated idea whose time has come and gone?

First, let it be known that I don’t like laws. When I am in a hurry, they get in my way. When I have purchased property in the past, laws were just a formality that had to be referenced and paid lip service during the closing. Laws are good for the other fellow, but not so much for me! Make him drive more slowly and carefully. Make him sign his life away so that my rights and property is protected. Law, by the nature of the beast, strikes a negative chord in many of us. Some seem to like law, but they are in the minority – way in the minority!

The word law or laws appears well over five hundred times in the Bible. The word implies authority. It also implies norms of behavior outside of which some penalty is to be exacted. It is not every mans right to enact laws; there are some who take that right by force, or who are granted that right by others. All joking aside, laws are an absolute necessity if man is to live in a civilized society. Laws establish boundaries that must not be violated; these boundaries are not so much physical fences as they are behavioral fences that are to the betterment of the greater part of society. Law - the idea of law – originated with God. He issued the first laws and He established precedents and principles that provide the basis and the framework for all other laws.

Perhaps one of the most famous sets of laws that man has ever known is the Ten Commandments. Granted there are a few “goofballs” out there, but almost everyone recognizes the need for law. One of the amazing things about the Ten Commandments is the fact that they still survive; they survive intact as one of God’s sets of laws, and/or they survive in bits and pieces where they have been plugged into scores of formal governments. These laws exist and are operative because the Ten Commandments existed as the product of One who had the right to act in the capacity of Divine Lawgiver!

The word is sovereign! He, Creator God, is sovereign. He needed no one’s permission to create the universe in which we live. There was no need to consult with anyone else regarding the myriads of “laws of nature.” He acted from within His own power and position; He spoke and there was no one to either condemn or condone His deeds. His power is unequalled by the combination of powers that exist past, present, or future. He wills things to be done, and they are done; He blushes at man’s sinfulness but yet is so powerful as to have enacted the very laws humanity struggles to keep. In the case of the law of God, we come face to face with Sovereign God! Either we recognize Him for who He is, or we add insult to injury.

“For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God——through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin..” (Romans 7.22-25; emphasis mine - jb).

Questions:

1. What/who is the origin of all law?

2. Who gave Him the right to make such laws?

3. What caused the laws of God to have applicability in our universe? Do we decide which ones do and which ones don’t?

4. What are the positive and negative sides of law?

"'Winging It" from Stan Smith

Moralism