A Biblical View of Law

There are several different categories of "Law" that we could talk about, but I want to talk about the topic at a very high level here. What I am not talking about here would be "The law of the land" kinds of laws that are passed by legislatures or by the edicts of kings, dictators, monarchs, etc. Instead, I'm talking about things that are the rules by which we see the universe operate which we can observe through science (like the Law of Gravity) and laws which we cannot observe but we know to be true like the laws of logic or mathematical laws like 1+1=2. In both cases, the law that I'm talking about is independent of the one observing the law. It is not true because the observer acknowledges that it is true, it simply is true because it is. You don't have to agree with the Law of Gravity for it to have an effect on you if you were to jump off of something.

There are two big categories that I’d further like to divide these kinds of laws into. The first would be laws that came into existence at the time of creation. They are "natural laws" that describe the way that objects within this creation interact with each other without outside interference. It is these laws that are suspended when we see something that is truly miraculous happens. Other laws predate creation and will be around forever because they come from the very mind of God Himself. These would be laws like the laws of logic and mathematics that I referred to earlier. In both cases, the source of the law comes from God, the Lawgiver, but the first category are laws that are temporary (as this creation is not eternal, and we have some evidence that the laws of nature will be different in the New Heavens and New Earth) and can be suspended by God to do miracles. The second category is so intertwined with the nature and character of God that they cannot be violated. (God can't make a round square or a rock too big for Him to pick up because these things violate the laws of logic that are a part of who God is. He must be true to who He is at all times).

Because we see miraculous things happen, we know at a minimum that there exists something or many somethings outside of our universe that don't obey the same laws that we do. They may have other laws that they have to obey, but only a creature outside of our system of natural laws could walk through walls, disappear from one place and appear in another place at will, control the weather, turn water into wine, feed more than 5,000 men, women and children with only five loaves and two fish, or raise men from the dead. Of course, I speak of the "signs" that John speaks of in the New Testament that are things that only God could do which tell us that Jesus was no ordinary man. He had to be God in the Flesh because no man could simply calm the storm and sea by saying, "Peace be still." Only God could do that. It is logical that creation must obey its Creator and that if Jesus exercised power and authority over creation that only the Creator should have, that He must be the Creator and the Lord of all Creation.

However, there is another category of Law that comes from God —the Moral Law. People like to try to argue that morality comes from the mind and heart of man (that it is relativistic), but it does not. It comes from the mind and heart of God. When God finished creating, He called everything "very good", and he placed man (Adam) in the Garden of Eden and He gave Adam one particular moral law--"Do not eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil." There was other law that existed before this, because the LORD had commanded all creation to be fruitful and multiply and to fill the earth. However, this was the first commandment that came with a penalty attached to it, "For in the day you eat of it, you will surely die." The one who makes the Law is the one who must also judge those who are lawbreakers. So, God must not only be the Lawgiver, but the Judge. Only one who sees all and knows all and is Righteous and Just in all His was is qualified to make and enforce such law. The Law (we usually mean the Mosaic Law when we say this, but really it refers more broadly to all the laws given in the first five books of the Old Testament) is a reflection of who God is. I will not try to parse the Law into laws that we need to obey today and laws that have been superseded or abolished. Maybe that is a conversation for another time, but the very existence of such Law-and we know such law does exist, for it is part of our conscience to know not to murder--necessitates the existence of God, the Lawgiver.

So, if we study and understand the laws that God made, we might better understand the God who made those laws. It is for that reason that so many people who have studied theology have also studied logic, mathematics and science. They desired to better understand God by understanding the laws of God.

Only now that we have discussed the Moral Law and Natural Law are we ready to talk about civil laws that are derivative in nature because the authority of the civil governments is delegated to them by God Himself (the civil government is not the supreme arbiter of Law, the LORD is). The civil authorities are to make law that promotes good and punishes evil as defined by the LORD, and, in all ways possible, make a culture where it is more likely for people to worship the LORD and less likely for them to worship false gods. That gets more into the discipline of Politics though. As I said, that is not the topic of the day. Because man is sinful and rebels against the Moral Law and Natural Law of God, we have to have many layers of a legal system to make and enforce these laws and punish those who break these laws (and hopefully all this is done justly and in accordance with the Moral and Natural Law). We wouldn't even have such ideas as justice and equity (fair treatment under the law and one law for all) if it were not for the existence of the Lawgiver and Judge of the Law that judges all men without partiality (favoritism).

The Law is not bad--in fact, if you read Psalm 119, you see that it is very good. It teaches us who God is and that we are not Him. It reveals our inadequacies, and it shows a way of salvation--the need for substitutionary atonement. The Law gives blessing to those who are God's people who obey Him and punishes those who break covenant with the LORD and live in rebellion against Him. There is no lawyer that can get you off on a technicality, the only way for the guilty to be forgiven under God's system of law and justice is for someone innocent to be punished in the place of someone guilty. That is "penal substitutionary atonement." Since all of us are guilty under the Law, God Himself had to come down and live as a man without sin so that He alone could be the one to take our place. All men "fell" when Adam sinned, and we were born as sinners who naturally did what was evil and wicked. Through Christ we can be made new so that we might not sin, and one day we will be freed from the very presence of sin.

I spent most of my time on the issue of moral law and sin because it is at the center of the gospel. The other kinds of law are important, but it is the Moral Law that condemns all of us to eternal death and punishment if Jesus did not take our place. This is what it means that Jesus is the propitiation for our sins--He satisfies God's Law and Justice.