Friday, September 07, 2007
The Law of Christ
It's mentioned by Paul as the law he is now under in 1 Corinthians 9. What do y'all think it is, as specifically as you can?
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7 comments:
Anyone?
How about you, reading this comment right now?
Ok, Dave I will give this a try. If I am wrong, correct me and I know you will. :) You love this kind of thing and then I look stupid but I love you for it.
I read the whole chapter from three different texts (KJV, NKJV and NIT) and I came up with this; that you become part of what you serve. This can mean financial support from your church (vs. 14) or physical changes (vs. 21 and 22). Either way the purpose is to serve God and give him the glory.
Am I even close to what you where thinking????
Erin
Hi sister!
Since you ask, that's not really what I was getting at, but it is both a true statement, and an interesting observation. And, in the end, I think it's a result of the answer I'm thinking of.
What I'm really looking for is "What is the Law that Paul considers himself bound by - the 'Law of Christ?'" Whatever it is, it's something he puts on par with God's Law,
If you Google the phrase "Law of Christ," you come upon a much more talked-about passage in Galatians: "Bear one another's burdens, and so fufill the Law of Christ."
But I still want more thoughts. C'mon people! My sister even posted for the very first time here to give it a shot. Surely you can, too!
It seems like Paul is talking about the law of Christ in Romans 6, although he doesn't name it. There's a nice phrase in Romans 5:17 "...the gift of righteousness..." The idea I get is that the law of Christ involves an internal compulsion to live righteously, rather than an external compulsion like the law.
Romans 7:6 discusses "serving in the new way of the Spirit" again contrasted with the old way of following the law.
The idea I have about it is that the Law of Christ is one of living righteously, which perhaps can only be delineated by saying we are to love one another as Christ did. But one of the big differences between the Law of Christ and the Law of Moses is that in the Law of Moses we MUST do the right thing or DIE, but in the Law of Christ we WANT to do the right thing because that's our true nature.
I think that you're heading in the right direction Kenny, but I'm going to go a slightly different direction.
I think the Law of Christ is to love. To follow the greatest commendment, loving the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. To love our neighbor as ourself. To love one another, even as Christ loved us.
This is not a wishy-washy "have warm feelings toward God and man" type of love, though. Touching on obedience, an expression of the love we offer to God is obedience - "If you love me, keep my commandments." In my thought, the "Inner Compulsion" you mentioned is this love - a desire to serve and become like the God that loved us and sent his Son to die for us.
In the letter to the Galatians, Paul mentions that bearing one another's burdens is a fufillment of this law. But it's not a cold, mechanical thing - if you are really helping bear someone else's burden, it has to start with love for them, or you will lack the strength and the tenacity to share all but the lightest load.
When Paul is becoming all things to all men, being free he makes himself a slave - he is willing to go to extremes to save them, I think, out of love. He is obligated to them, not out of duress, but out of love. He's willing to become as one without the Law, and he can do so while still under God's Law because he is following the Law of Christ.
He's following the Law of Christ by going to the sinner and meeting him where he is, in love for the sinner, and in love for the God who died on the sinner's behalf.
That, poorly stated, is sort of what I'm thinking. But I'd welcome a sharper mind to shape it into a more coherent thought.
I think it's right to basically state that the Law of Christ is to love. One of the thing that is so interesting about the command to love is how it can't be reduced to a finite list of do's and dont's, which is so different from the Law of Moses.
It is both liberating, and a surprisingly large burden. While the finite dos and don'ts give you the justification to say "This far I will serve/care for/love/forgive you, and no further," the Law of Christ demands your whole heart, your whole person.
It's not enough to be the Priest who walks by the beaten man, and avoids him so as to avoid becoming unclean.
Which, I think, is the starting point for a seperate blog entry. Coming soon....
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