SatNav

My good friend Ricky is having a go at finding the place of the Old Covenant in Christian thinking over at his Doubting Thomas blog. Basically, he doesn't find much place for it - and I disagree. But I do think that an awful lot of Christians would start from a place of agreeing with a lot of what Ricky says. So I posted a (very) long comment on his site, and I offer here an edited version of it.

The problem many people have when faced with the Old Covenant, is a misunderstanding of the concept of "The Law".

There are 613 laws within "The Law" in the Pentateuch, and about two-thirds of them are about how we relate to God. The remaining third are about how we relate to each other. Strangely, we focus massively on that latter third, as if it's the stuff that really matters (well it's about us so of course it's more important - hmmm...) and that is symptomatic of the problem, but there's an even deeper issue at stake.

Some Christians want the Old Testament Law to be viewed as obsolete; and Ricky voices this opinion clearly by writing "The laws in there do not apply to us", and I think at this point what we have is a view of the Bible that works like this:

In the beginning God created everything and it was glorious. But people sinned, and spoiled it all. So God pondered what he could do to restore poor fallen humanity - and came up with plan A - The Law. The only problem was - it didn't work; no-one was good enough to keep it. So then he came up with plan B - Jesus and the cross, and this time because it didn't depend on us being good (but sneakily on us being bad) it worked a treat. And all lived happily ever after.

Am I right? Is this (albeit in simplistic form) something like how you think it all works? And now that we have the cross, grace, forgiveness, PLAN B, we can ignore the vastly inferior plan A?

Respectfully, this is theological tosh.

The cross is plan A from all eternity. Always. But here's the thing - without the Law and the Prophets, it cannot be understood. They are signpost and guidebook to the destination of salvation, teaching how to get there, and what it will look like when we see it. Without them, we are tourists on the Gare du Nord thinking we have seen Paris.

The Old Covenant is given that we might have a world view that comprehends the New Covenant. At the birth of the New Covenant, the Old becomes obsolete in the way that the SatNav (that's "GPS" for US readers!) in your car is obsolete when it says "you have reached your destination" at the end of a long and arduous trip. But it still shows you the journey from death to life, the key route points along the way, and crucially major things to see now that you have reached "Life".

Would you agree that the Christian life is to be a life marked out by regular acts of worship in which we encounter God, and that our lives in between these acts are to bear the marks of having met with God and having been transformed by him into his likeness? Hey presto, you've just agreed that Leviticus is relevant for Christians today. And I agree with you.

Now - beyond that, there are fascinating conversations to be had. Not because The Law can be wiped away, but understanding The Law not as a moral code to inflict misery on humanity, but rather as a map of salvation to point us to Jesus, that map needs to be studied and understood. It has gold for the treasure seeker. Ricky in his blog brings up the whole issue of the principal of "Sabbath for man" and this is a crucial issue for us as Christians, because the whole Law works that way: God working to make people's lives better. Eternally better, for sure, though I wish we weren't so hung up about that - the OT really doesn't make a secular/spiritual distinction, it just seeks to make life better, presuming that this means everything. And if Jesus catches The Law being used to make people LESS, he gets angry.

Children.

Sinners, tax collectors.

Prostitutes.

Women with a menstrual flow who are forbidden to touch him - but then, his touch heals; so she had no flow by the time her finger left his robe.

Philip Yancey has a great phrase: "Jesus, the sinless friend of sinners". We in the church have made the Old Covenant so obsolete we haven't the foggiest idea what it's for anymore. So some ignore it (and become friends of sinners, but sinless? Nonsense - they are indistinguishable from the people they befriend) and some think they keep it (trying to be sinless, they point at people who they consider to be "less", and so are no-one's friends) and The Law is broken to a thousand pieces and stamped upon and ground into the soil in a torrent of abuse and an ungodly fight for power in the church.

If only we had kept sight of the best signpost and guidebook to the destination of salvation God in his wisdom saw fit to grant us, and to learn its wisdom and its lessons. We might have a little more understanding in our contemporary debates. For sure, the Law without the Cross can be bitter, but the Cross without the Law is weak - both ways we are incomplete. And there's really no need.

The Psalmist says: "O how I love your Law!" (Psalm 119.97) and we think him slightly strange. But it is we who are odd - we who have lost the beauty of The Law and find something given as a precious gift to lead sinful, broken people closer to God as being irrelevant and even to be despised. The Law is given that we might understand Jesus, who comes not to abolish the Law but to fulfill it; or, as the Psalmist goes on to say just a few verses later:

103 How sweet are your words to my taste,
sweeter than honey to my mouth!
104 I gain understanding from your precepts;
therefore I hate every wrong path.

And again:

111 Your statutes are my heritage forever;
they are the joy of my heart.
112 My heart is set on keeping your decrees
to the very end.

Though perhaps it is that well-known verses inbetween that will help make my case best of all:

105 Your word is a lamp to my feet
and a SatNav for my path.

I confess, I may have changed a word in there.

St Paul himself argues that: "The law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good." (Romans 7:12) for this reason. It's not enough - but it was never meant to be (which is kind of the argument of Hebrews - taking all sorts of details of the Law it shows how they point to Jesus and says along the way that these details were always and ever supposed to have this role: "The Law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming", Heb 10.1) for that is the role of Jesus. But if you try to get Jesus without understanding the Law, it's like trying to make pancakes without flour.

Or me driving from Pontypridd to Warwick in two hours without using SatNav.

So I'm with the Psalmist. I love anything that points me to Jesus. And if people want to use this stuff to make life harder - I think Jesus would be quite stern about that, because that's not what it's for. Truth is truth: and truth here is purpose. The Law exists to point us to Jesus. That was its raison d'etre from day 1 (Heb 11.39-40, anyone?) and remains so now. I'll drink to that. Deep, and long, and often.