Freedom's just another word for...the law?

“169 Let my cry come before you, O Lord;


    give me understanding according to your word!

170 Let my plea come before you;


    deliver me according to your word.

171 My lips will pour forth praise,


    for you teach me your statutes.

172 My tongue will sing of your word,


    for all your commandments are right.

173 Let your hand be ready to help me,


    for I have chosen your precepts.

174 I long for your salvation, O Lord,


    and your law is my delight.

175 Let my soul live and praise you,


    and let your rules help me.

176 I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek your servant,


    for I do not forget your commandments.” (Psalm 119)

Law.  Rules.  Commandments.  Say them slowly.  Say them out loud.  How does your heart react to the very sound of these words?  How did the people who overheard you react to the sound of those words?  Now try these: Freedom.  Love.  Joy.  Slightly different notes being plucked on the heartstrings there I’m guessing.  I’m guessing if you stand up in your office and start shouting, “Freedom, Love and Joy!” and march out of the building, you might gain a few like-minded followers.  Shout the first list and you will probably only hear the door lock behind you.  And yet, the Word tells us the two lists are intrinsic.  Without the Law, we are slaves.  “34 Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.” (John 8)  And the Law is love, “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.” (Matt 22)  If the Law brings freedom and love then no wonder the Psalms call it their delight!

But does the Law bring freedom, love and joy?

Your heart is not wrong when it shuts down on the words, Law, Rules, Commandments.  It does so because in our experience, we know these words do NOT bring Freedom, Love and Joy but Oppression, Repression and Subjugation.  The more rules we labor under, the less we feel like free men and women and the more in common we have with slaves.  Rules and laws mean submission and as only the merest casual observation will tell you, humans do not submit!  The closest we come is the appearance of submission in order to gain something we want: order, peace, security, love, prosperity.  This isn’t submission, this is subtle, selfish manipulation.  I’ll do this for you if you do that for me. 

And this is the heart of the passage in Psalms above!  It is the angst of Paul in Romans 7!  God created us!  God has freed us!  God has provided for us!  God has protected us!  Even when we are so blithely unaware of Him.  Even more so when we are downright hostile to Him!  He does all this and more for us and the best we can do is subtle manipulation for our own gain?  No wonder Paul rails, “13 Did that which is good, then, bring death to me?”  It seems all the Law does is make us so much more aware of how far we fall short of God’s holiness!  Where’s the freedom in that!?  Where’s the joy?  All we got was a greater awareness of our sin!

Exactly.

“40 And Jesus answering said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” And he answered, “Say it, Teacher.”  41 “A certain moneylender had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. 42 When they could not pay, he cancelled the debt of both. Now which of them will love him more?” 43 Simon answered, “The one, I suppose, for whom he cancelled the larger debt.” And he said to him, “You have judged rightly.” (Luke 7) 

It was never the Law’s job to set us free but to show us how great a slaves we were!  God himself, through His Son, would set us free.  This was always the Plan!  This is why the Ten Commandments are immediately followed by instating the sacrificial system.  There can be no doubt when you have your bloody hands on the torn body of an innocent lamb how horribly violent God sees your sin.  If our hearts are freed by grace, we see, not a blood thirsty God but a God who sees clearly and wants more than anything to spare us, to save us from this, despite how wicked we are!  Remember!  All sin is inherently Pride!  Refusal to submit.  Me first!  Selfish!  The true antithesis of Love and as such is a destroyer of community, relationship, order, society.  The true antithesis of God!  You do not have an unselfish thought in your whole being!  If you do, it is truly, truly divinely inspired!  For God is Love.

“10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” (1 John 4)  Jesus completely submitted his own will to the will of the Father.  Don’t believe me?  Check out his prayer in Gethsamane.  He wasn’t itching to die.  He wasn’t looking forward to complete and total separation from God.  This would be the first time he would be cast from before God’s face!  This is true death!  This is what hell is!  But He endured!  For the glory of the Father and for the salvation of all who would accept his sacrifice on their behalf, all which would lay their bloody hands on him.  He modeled true love.  He washed us, stinky feet and all.  He modeled God.  Totally submitting himself to the Father for us, to free us from sin and death.  This is freedom!  This is love!  This is joy!