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TeacherAide Case For Freedom SESSION 7 ILLUSTRATING THE POINT The Old Testament contains 613 laws. Some of them seem so small and insignificant to us, but to God they really matter. Listed below are some seemingly silly laws from the United States. Today, they have almost no value, but when these laws were enacted they had a purpose. Have your students discuss the possible reasons why these laws were created. Frankfort, Kentucky, makes it against the law to shoot off a policeman's tie. Horses are forbidden to eat fire hydrants in Marshalltown, Iowa. In Denver it is unlawful to lend your vacuum cleaner to your next-door neighbor. In Devon, Connecticut, it is unlawful to walk backwards after sunset. In Greene, New York, it is illegal to eat peanuts and walk backwards on the sidewalks when a concert is on. In Lexington, Kentucky, it's illegal to carry an ice cream cone in your pocket. In Memphis, Tennessee, it is illegal for a woman to drive a car unless there is a man either running or walking in front of it waving a red flag to warn approaching motorists and pedestrians. In Seattle, Washington, it is illegal to carry a concealed weapon that is over six feet in length. In Tennessee, it is illegal to shoot any game other than whales from a moving automobile. It's illegal in Wilbur, Washington, to ride an ugly horse. Kansas state law requires pedestrians crossing the highways at night to wear tail lights. In Tulsa, Oklahoma, it is against the law to open a soda bottle without the supervision of a licensed engineer. THE MORE YOU KNOW With session 7 dealing with the purpose of the law, we wanted to give you some information to answer the question, are we supposed to keep any part of the law. This is a complicated question that over the centuries much ink has been spilt. Here is a short summary to that question. The question, “Are Christians obligated in keeping the law today?” is a legitimate question in one sense because as we have seen and will continue to see throughout this study is the truth that Christ has freed us. The second question we will try to answer here is: 1) Freed from what, and 2) Freed to what? Before we answer the first question lets sum up the defining nature of the law. The central theme of the law is the “shema” that was quoted by the Lord Jesus, which states, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as thyself.” This sums up the heart of the law, and is center in God’s expectations. Now, 1…..2……3……4……..5. In those short five seconds, you and I sinned enough to condemn us to hell for eternity. I am not saying that you lusted or coveted in that time, for neither did I, but we both did not love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, nor our neighbor as ourselves. If someone thinks they didn’t sin and kept the “shema” those five seconds or is keeping them right now, then he needs to spend sometime in the Scripture allowing it to convince him of his shallow view of God. Although we are under condemnation and are deserving of death, Christ Jesus frees us of that sentence of judgment. Next, we are freed in the sense we are given the ability to keep it. We will always fall short of keeping it to completion, but now because of Christ we are given a new nature that gives us the ability to love God and His Christ and to love our neighbor as ourselves. Our nature has been changed from keeping the mere externals of the law to desire and delight in the essence of the law and who it points to. Therefore, one of the relationships that Christians have today with the law is that they keep and its commandments not as a means to receive grace but as a fruit and response because they have received grace. There are other reasons, however, for our purposes we are trying to show that through Christ Jesus the law is not nullified, but rather established (Rom. 3:31). I THOUGHT I HEARD YOU SAY “Law never made men a whit more just.” Henry David Thoreau “Taste cannot be controlled by law.” Thomas Jefferson “The law is reason free from passion.” Aristotle “Moral principle is the foundation of law.” Ronald D. Dworkin “Laws can discover sin, but not remove it.” John Milton “It is not wisdom but Authority that makes a law” Thomas Hobbes |