Did you have any ridiculous House Rules?
Ping pong, pool tables, pick-up basketball… everyone knows the reality of House Rules.
House rules are a way of saying, “That’s just how we do it here.” There doesn’t need to be a larger purpose, logic, or plan… in this house, this is how it is done.
God doesn’t make House Rules. God never makes pointless rules.
This fact inspires worship when we compare God to most (all?) other authorities we’ve encountered in our lives.
Even the best bosses, officers, judges, and parents mix their preferences and whims with their principles as they wield authority.
It is easy to find teachers who dismiss God’s commands in Scripture as nothing more than “House Rules.”
Who are we to expect unbelievers to care about God’s commands? What use would Christians have with Leviticus?
The Old Testament, especially the Law, is sort of like reading someone else’s mail. It’s interesting, but don’t come around trying to apply what you’ve read.
These teachings rob God of His authority over creation and rob large sections of Scripture of their usefulness for the Church.
We live in an anti-authority culture and we fight an anti-authority flesh. There are serious dangers and enemies who are actively exploiting anti-authority impulses against your spiritual health.
I think it is important that you have proper categories for the commands of God.
Here are some Uses of the Law1 –Two Improper and Three Proper.
Improper Use #1: The law cannot make you right with God.
Obedience to the holy expectations of God is out of reach for every human. No one can undo their lawbreaking. No one can succeed in law keeping. Further still, No one can outdo their lawbreaking with law-keeping. The whole person and heart level righteousness which God requires will not be obtained by keeping God’s commands.
27 Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. Because of what law? The law that requires works? No, because of the law that requires faith. 28 For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.
Romans 3:27–28
Improper Use #2: The law cannot kill your sin.
The commands of God cannot kill sin. Without God’s intervention, your sin rises to the occasion of God’s commands with greater rebellion!
11 For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death.
Romans 7:11
Proper Use #1: The law can clarify sinfulness.
The commands of God create a clear outline for sin. God draws a clear line so that the sin hiding in each heart would make itself known. Some make their sin clear by hating God’s lines. Others make it clear by crossing God’s lines. Others still make it clear by rejecting God’s right to draw lines. As humans hate, cross, and reject God’s lines they make it clear that they deserve judgment and need a Savior.
20 The law was brought in so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more,
Romans 5:20
Proper Use #2: The law can restrain wickedness through fear of punishment.
The commands of God can present a pragmatic reason for a sinful person to be less destructive. The penalty of clear sin is a mercy that can help bring fewer victims of sin. Refraining from sin out of self-interest is not righteous but it is less destructive.
8 We know that the law is good if one uses it properly. 9 We also know that the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, 10 for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine 11 that conforms to the gospel concerning the glory of the blessed God, which he entrusted to me.
1 Timothy 1:8–10
Proper Use #3: The law can guide the believer in obedience.
Jesus Christ loves the commands of God. The Spirit of God loves God’s commands. The true believer delights in God’s commands. This can be seen across the Scripture. Believers who have been set free from condemnation for their disobedience now see God’s commands with a desire to run in obedience!
Believers mediate on God’s law.
1 Blessed is the one…
2 but whose delight is in the law of the Lord,
and who meditates on his law day and night.
Psalm 1:1–2
Believers take principles and apply God’s law to their daily life with joy.
17 The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honor, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching. 18 For Scripture says, “Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain,” e and “The worker deserves his wages.”
1 Timothy 5:17–18
This is a very challenging idea for many Christians to bear. Having trained in trusting their own works all their lives outside of Christ, now they cannot comprehend reflecting on the commands that constantly dogged their conscience or fed their self-righteousness.
And God forbid that any return to taking the commands of God on their shoulders again as a path to earn their salvation or a self-righteous tool in their destruction of the flesh!
The Christian reflects on all the commands of God given in Scripture with the delight of one who looks at an arrow, not a measuring line. They aim to run fast in the direction of God’s commands with the strength that the Spirit supplies. They aim to point out the perverse direction of the flesh with the arrow of God’s authority and run the other way with Christ!
But beware, in reflecting on and delighting in the law, you will be regularly confronted with your sin. All the wise and blessed reflect in the law (cf. Psalm 1:1–2). But as we reflect we must constantly let the grace of Christ rule our hearts because we know that we are not under that law, but learning from the law because of the boundless mercy of God!
“Nor should we be alarmed that the law demands a more perfect holiness than we can attain as long as we are in the prison of the body, with the result that we end up abandoning its teaching. For when we are under God’s grace the law is not so severe as to drive us to the ultimate extreme, so that it is only content if we fulfill all that it asks of us. In urging upon us the perfection to which it calls us, it shows us the goal at which we should aim all our lives. Provided we persevere in that aim, that is enough. Our whole life is like a race; when we reach its end the Lord will bless us by letting us reach the goal we presently pursue, even though we are still a long way off.”
John Calvin, Institutes p. 177.
Discussing the commands of God will require proper knowledge of a commands audience, content, and intention. We must always reflect on what God was trying to accomplish with His command in the life of His people for His glory. If we approach God’s commands without reflecting on this, we are vulnerable to falling in either direction–creating burdens that obstruct the Gospel or neglecting to apply God’s instruction to our discipleship.