Word of Salvation – November 2018
B.C.25 – The Christian And The Law
Sermon by Rev. John Westendorp
Scripture Readings: Matthew 5:1-20 & Hebrews 10:1-18
Text: Hebrews 10:1
Introd: Many Christians struggle with the proper relationship between the LAW and the GOSPEL.
Or if you like – between the Old Testament (OT) and the New Testament (NT).
Let me mention some examples to highlight the problem.
Many Christians throw out the law on the basis of Romans 6:14
“We are not under law but under grace” ….a verse they have taken out of context.
On the grounds of that text they have rejected the O.T. almost entirely.
They say: It’s only valuable to teach us moral lessons… or some ancient history.
So in the debate over the relationship between law and gospel – the law is rejected.
The Worldwlde Church of God, founded by Herbert W Armstrong, went to the other extreme.
They kept strictly to the O.T. – for example they celebrated the Passover and kept the food laws.
Many other O.T. rules and regulations were rigidly adhered to,
More recently there have been great changes in that church.
Teaching after teaching of its founders has now been rejected.
They came to see that in all the emphasis on the Law the Gospel lost out.
Today they readily admit that their focus on the Law obscured the Gospel.
Maybe we could also think at this point of the Roman Catholic church.
With all their emphasis on altars and priests… vestments and incense.
Much of it still has very strong O.T. overtones.
What then is the correct relationship between law and gospel… between O.T. and N.T.?
A] LAW DEFINED.
- To begin with we need to be very clear about just what we mean by “law”.
Our B.C. speaks of the “ceremonies and symbols of the law”.
Hebrews 10 speaks of “the law” as being a shadow of the good things to come.
So what do we understand here by “the law”?
Traditionally we have divided the law of God up into 3 areas.
First, there was the civil law – the laws which were meant for Israel as a nation.
Laws that applied to taking a census and about war and the army.
Second, there was also the ceremonial law – which regulated Israel’s worship.
Laws to do with the tabernacle and temple… or with the Day of Atonement.
Thirdly, there was also the moral law – relating to behaviour and morality.
The ten commandments… and the duty we owe to God and our neighbour.
So we can neatly divide things up and then say what applies today and what doesn’t.
Of course the civil rules no longer apply because we are not the NATION of Israel.
eg. A man married less than one year should not serve in the army but enjoy his marriage.
That law doesn’t apply anymore today.
The ceremonial laws no longer apply… they finished when Jesus died.
eg. Bringing a bull or a lamb for a sin we have committed last week.
With a sigh of relief we pass by all those hundreds of ceremonial regulations.
But of course the moral law regarding our BEHAVIOUR is still needed.
Today it is just as wrong to kill as it was at the time of Moses.
So we neatly divide it all up and we put some laws aside as being irrelevant.
And other things in the O.T. we hang on to as still being important.
- The problem is that we are then not doing justice to the LAW OF GOD.
The Hebrew people had a far more unified view of “LAW”.
They didn’t break it all up like that… because for them the whole of the O.T. was the law of God.
They called it the TORAH… a word that has to do with giving directions.
Quite literally it means “to point”.
So they saw the whole of the O.T. as POINTING to God. It was their TORAH.
So we should be a bit cautious about dividing the law up into different segments.
We are speaking not just about the moral… or the civil… or the ceremonial laws.
We are speaking about the whole O.T…. the Torah… the O.T. Word of God.
So for Israel “the law” was a revelation of God’s will for the whole of life.
The Torah pointed to God.
It gave directions how He was to be worshipped and served.
And then not just in one or other of those 3 areas of life but in all of them.
God’s will for all of life…
In private behaviour… in national affairs… and in religious worship.
Here was God’s law… Israel’s Torah!
B] LAW’S TEMPORARY FUNCTION.
- All this doesn’t solve our problem of the relationship between law and gospel.
We know that the O.T. is not the N.T…. and the gospel is not the same as the law.
So we need to examine the differences… and Hebrews 10 will help us to do that.
Verse 1 tells us: “The law is only a SHADOW of the good things that are coming…”
The law is a shadow and not the reality itself.
It is like the rough outline of a thing and not the real thing itself.
We’re all familiar with a silhouette of something… it’s just a figure in outline… a shape.
And here God’s word tells us that the law is like that.
Imagine I cut out a silhouette of an elephant… with the tusks and the trunk all clearly shown.
I show it to a child and the child immediately says: That’s an elephant!
Of course it isn’t an elephant… it is only a picture of one… not even a picture… only an outline.
So too the law is only a picture of something… not even a picture… only a silhouette.
The law is but a rough outline of something.
So we are told that the relationship between the law and the gospel is this:
The law is the rough outline… the gospel is the reality.
That is why in verse 4 of Hebrews 10 we are told:
It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
O.T. sacrifices could no more remove sin
than a paper cut-out elephant could lead an elephant stampede.
Imagine that on a sunny day a helicopter hovers over a park.
Right in the middle of the park is a shadow of that helicopter.
So you get all the boys and girls in the park to stand on the shadow.
You call them over and say, “Come on kids… get a free ride on the helicopter.”
You could stand there all day and you would never take off at all.
It is only a shadow – the reality is hundreds of meters above you.
So too the O.T. the law is something quite powerless in itself.
It is a shadow of the good things to come… a shadow of a great reality… the gospel.
- It’s tempting to say: Okay, the law… the O.T… is all finished with because Jesus has come.
After all we now have the reality… so forget about the shadow.
Why mess around with a cardboard outline of an elephant when you can have the real thing?
Why worry about the law when you can have the gospel?
So it seems that those who throw the O.T. out are right.
It’s only of interest as a bit of history and maybe some moral lessons.
But not so! In Matthew 5 Jesus specifically said, “I came not to abolish the law.”
Instead He came to fulfil it. Not to supersede it… but to complete it.
So rather than doing away with the law… Jesus poured new meaning into it.
The idea behind that word “fulfil” is literally to pour something in until it is full.
So Jesus – as it were – fills up the emptiness of the O.T. forms.
Or if you like: He fills in the rough outline.
He takes the crude cut-outs and fills them out into beautiful images.
Today we could give many examples of Jesus – in that way – fulfilling the law.
How He fills in the shadow until the outline becomes a reality.
Take for example the O.T. PASSOVER with rules and laws.
An animal had to slaughtered…. blood must be smeared on the doorposts
And as that was done the angel of death PASSED OVER that house.
Paul says in I Corinthians 5 that Jesus Christ is our PASSOVER LAMB.
He was slaughtered on the cross of Calvary… His blood was shed over our lives.
And now God PASSES OVER the sins of all who by faiths come under His blood.
So in the O.T. we have a shadow called the Passover.
A rough outline… and we see what it means… God passes over… there’s no judgment!
But in Jesus Christ the shadow is filled in and we have the reality.
And the reality is that God passes over the sins of all those who believe in His Son.
We could do the same with many other O.T. regulations that Jesus fulfils.
- At this point the B.C. tells us that therefore the ceremonies and symbols of the law must be abolished.
Among Christians they must stop.
Here we are specifically singling out the ceremonial aspects of the law.
That which has to do with worship… the subject Hebrews 10 is also dealing with.
Those O.T. shadows must be abolished among us as N.T. Christians.
Why play around with the shadow… the silhouette… when the real thing has come?
It’s stupid to try to catch a ride on the shadow of the helicopter
especially when the machine is willing to come down to take you up.
Here we recall that our confession was written at the time of the conflict with Rome.
It seems to be saying: forget about the vestments and incense… the altars and priests…!
We have the reality.
Jesus has made the sacrifice which all the O.T. altars foreshadowed.
Jesus is the great High Priest of which all O.T. priests were only an outline.
The vestments were only silhouettes of His purity and righteousness.
And the incense a shadow of the fragrance of Christ’s offering.
Forget the shadows… stick with the reality.
So Jesus does not just do away with the O.T. laws… not at all.
What He does is that He fills them full of new meaning.
Because they were only a silhouette of His saving work in the first place.
C] LAW’S PERMANENT PLACE.
- What then do we do with the O.T. now? Jesus has now fulfilled it, has He not?
If these things are to be abolished among us as Christians why not do away with the O.T. altogether?
In fact often we feel we’d like to do just that.
So much in the O.T. is terribly difficult to understand.
Why bother with hundreds of rules for the priesthood in Leviticus?
All that stuff belongs to the shadow and we have the reality.
We have the gospel… so forget the law.
The answer is “NO!” and that for two reasons.
First of all because the O.T. still has a teaching role.
The law is a good instructor… whatever else it might.
In fact that has always been the role of the TORAH… it is a teacher.
That’s why Paul in Galatians calls the law a “teacher to lead us to Christ”.
Today it still has – just as it always did – a teaching function,
The point is that the O.T. is much more than just a book of ancient history.
It is even more than just the story of a very special people – God’s people.
Rather it is the book where we already see the Lord Jesus Christ.
And even though we see Him there only in rough outline… in shadows,
Yet He is there… and He is teaching us things about Himself.
So I read Leviticus 16 – the story of what happened on the Day of Atonement.
How they would take two goats – slaughter one on the altar.
And send the other away into the desert.
I see in that two things Jesus does with MY sins:
He pays the penalty for my guilt by His sacrificial death.
And He also removes those sins far away from the presence of God.
Today you and I may not reinstitute the shadows of the O.T. as though they were realities.
But we may not throw away our O.T. either.
Nor may we neglect it in our Bible reading and in our study.
Because it confirms to us the great doctrines of the grace of God.
Over and over I see my Saviour already in the shadows of the O.T.
It is first and foremost a book about Him and I read it that way to my profit.
- However there is yet a second reason why we may not discard or disregard O.T.
Notice that the “fulfilling of the law” is a progressive thing.
It has not happened once for all to the whole of the law…. full stop… finished!
It has already happened but it is still going on too.
Let me show you that from two Scriptures.
In Hebrews 10:1 we read that the law is a shadow and not the reality.
But we read that it is a shadow of the good things that are coming.
It is NOT just a shadow only of the good things that have already come
But also of the good things that are still to come.
In other words there are still shadows that have not yet been fulfilled…
Outlines that Jesus has not yet filled in.
Eg. – the O.T. teaches an age of perfect peace when the wolf will lie down with the lamb.
That is a shadow… a rough outline for which we do not yet have a reality.
That is still a good thing to come… and Christians long for that day.
Jesus said the same thing in Matthew 5….
When He told us that He did not come to abolish the law but to fulfil it….
Jesus went right on to add that it would not pass away…
until every “t” of the law was crossed and every “i” dotted.
In fact He specifically said that this would not be until heaven and earth itself would pass away.
So again there is still much about the future in the O.T. law.
And we can also learn about those things still to be fulfilled.
- However there is yet another way in which the law is still to be fulfilled.
Another way in which the rough outlines are to filled in.
And here I want to go beyond the B.C. – the B.C. hints at it but is not specific.
And that is in the area of the MORAL aspects of the TORAH.
The area where it touches your behaviour… my relationships with others.
I would affirm that Jesus also fulfilled the law at this point…. morally!
He filled in the rough outline by His total and perfect obedience.
But at the same time the N.T. also leaves room for further fulfilment.
And then not by the Lord Jesus Christ directly… BUT BY YOU.
You and I are called to be a part of the ongoing process of the fulfilling the law.
Let me ask you to turn with me to ROMANS 8:3 & 4.
Paul says there is a sense in which we share in the work of Jesus in fulfilling the law of the O.T.
And indirectly its a reason why we may not and cannot do away with the O.T.
<<< READ – ROMANS 8:3 & 4 >>>
Paul is actually saying:
You and I are working with Jesus to fill in the rough outlines of the Torah – the O.T. law.
Now you may ask: OK but how do I actually fulfil the law?
How do I… in that sense also help change the shadows into realities?
Or to put it another way:
How do I help to bring about the good things that are still to come?
We find the answer to that in two places in Paul’s writings: in Romans 13:8 and in Galatians 5:14.
In Romans 13:8 the apostle says: He who loves his neighbour has fulfilled the law.
In Galatians 5:14 he says:
For the whole law is fulfilled in one statement, you shall love your neighbour as yourself.
I believe that this is what the B.C. is hinting at when it says that the law is still valid for us.
Not only because it confirms us in the gospel.
But also to regulate our lives with full integrity for the glory of God according to His will.
So let me ask you:
Is the O.T. still for you a living book?
Do you see Jesus your Saviour in its pages?
Jesus is there already in its shadows.
By His death, resurrection and ascension He fulfilled the law.
But now He also asking that you help fulfil that law by loving God and your neighbour.
Let’s work at doing that in thankfulness for what Jesus has already done for us.
Amen.
BC stands for Basic Christianity. What are the fundamentals of the faith?
BC also stands for Belgic Confession – a document in which the Christian church (in a time of great persecution) spelled out the basics of what she believes.
When Christianity is a mile wide and an inch deep it needs to grasp again the basics of the faith and confess them in a world where the faith is increasingly under attack.
Those who drew up the BC declared that they were ready to obey the government in all lawful things, but that they would “offer their backs to stripes, their tongues to knives, their mouths to gags and their whole bodies to the fire” rather than deny the truth expressed in this confession.