What is the Law?

If we're going to spend time learning the law, we might as well spend some time understanding just what the law is and what it's supposed to accomplish. You might be surprised.

Part of the curriculum in getting my undergrad business degree and MBA was Business Law, and I don't recall where I heard it, but I heard it clearly. The law does NOT exist to proscribe behavior, and the courts do NOT exist to enforce fairness. This may come as a surprise to those who believe that all behavior that is "bad" should be outlawed. Be my guest, go crazy, add any law on the books at the local, state or national level to alter behavior and compel change. It won't work, because that's not what the law was intended to do.

In today's court system, justice sometimes occurs, but the ultimate goal of the courts is RESOLUTION. They want the issue, be it a tort or criminal, decided, and whether both sides are happy is irrelevant. That's why plea bargains are rampant, class actions suits are filed and charges are plead down. 

With that, God's law is a guide to living, but look very closely at what is being described in Chapter 21--it's redress, or what happens AFTER something goes wrong. That, my friends, is the ultimate goal of the law, both in the secular world and in our relationship with God. It's the standards by which we are judged, and the punishments that will be meted out if we  fall short. The law doesn't change behavior as much as tell us what will happen if we don't change.

And we know what we did and what the consequences are. The wages of sin IS death, and we would have no recourse whatsoever without the intervention of Jesus to absolve us of our sin and to continually forgive us for our new ones. So as we read the law, remember what it is--the standards by which the Israelites will be judged, and when you ponder this, you'll find it quite comforting. There is nothing more frustrating than being found guilty of something when you didn't know what the rules were in the first place. We're in for a rough 2-3 months when we see a fairly savage time in Israel's history--they're constantly at war, sometimes even with foreigners, and death and mayhem leap from almost every page from Judges to 2 Kings. God metes out judgment, and it might even seem harsh to us, but with the background of the Law, we understand what is truly happening--divine punishment for not following the law. The law may or may not tell us how to live, but it clearly tells us what will happen if we don't follow it.

Scott