Commentary: The law as an Instrument of Diagnosis
What can we define the word "law?' It is a word often used and pretty much understood, but never defined. When you look at a dictionary, you find that one word can be defined differently depending on the context it is used. Law can be generally defined as the body of rules and principles governing the conduct of a system. So, what is law in nature or the physical world? It is a generalization based on a recurring fact or event. This generalization is expressed in a statement that describes invariable relationships among phenomena under a specified set of conditions. Another definition is: A statement describing a relationship observed to be invariable between or among phenomena for all cases in which the specified conditions are met: the law of gravity. Gravity is a force that exists everywhere and always. These nature laws are called laws because they have been observed to exist everywhere and at all times. They are also laws because they cannot be broken without negative consequences.
What we have discovered is that these properties and laws in some cases are described in the Bible. For example, Psalms 19 says that the sun has a path. This path is constant and predictable. So much so, that every Sabbath sunset can be predicted way in advance. Since we believe that God created nature, then we must believe that God created nature with the set of properties we observe. We must conclude that God created nature to work in a similar that He works.
God is giving and generous. Plants give to animals and humans the oxygen they do not use; we in turn use the oxygen and give to the plants the Carbon Dioxide (CO2) we do not use. So, there is a circle of beneficence in nature; indeed, interdependence. The moment we do not have oxygen we die. The moment plants do not have CO2 they die. When you break the law, something negative happens.
Same happens in the health field. You transgress the law of health, you get sick. You transgress any physical laws you get injured. The laws of health were created to keep us healthy. But, once you are sick or injured the laws of health cannot really get you well. They will tell you are not well. They are good for diagnosing. (Other laws now must be practiced, the laws of healing and curing.) The laws of health when compared and contrasted with your symptoms tell us there is something wrong.
The same goes with the moral law: when broken negative consequences will happen. (For Christians the Law is the body of principles or precepts held to express the divine will, especially as revealed in the Bible.) Once broken, the law cannot do anything for us, but give us a diagnosis: "you are selfish, you are a sinner. " Paul says that the Law told him he covets. Let us read Romans 7:7
Rom7:7 What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.
Paul adds in verse 8, "For without the law sin was dead." In fact with the law, sin appears to be Sin and become exceedingly sinful (Romans 7:13). "Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound: (Romans 5:20). The law is holy (Romans 7:17). The law is a transcription of God's character – which is Love (1 John 4:8). Just like we need physical healing when we are sick, we need spiritual healing when we are spiritually sick. The sad news is that we all born "sick." "As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one" (Romans 3:10). So, we all need a remedy, less we die. That remedy is given to us in Christ.
The remedy is for Christ to dwell in us and to write His law in our hearts.
Ezekiel 36:26 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.
Ezekiel 36:27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.
When we allow Him to do this, the law cannot diagnose us as being sick. We are healed in Christ.
Originally posted on Friday, August 12, 2011
Raul Diaz
www.wolfsoath.com
