July 20, 2011

Law and Freedom

F
rom the very beginning of the great controversy in heaven,” wrote Ellen White, “it has been Satan’s purpose to overthrow the law of God” (The Great Controversy, p. 582).

Why? Because the law, as the foundation of God’s government, expresses the moral integrity of the cosmos, and to overthrow that law would be to overthrow the moral order of creation itself.

Think about it. If no god existed, and no life either, the universe would be amoral. Not immoral, as in bad morals, but amoral, as in no morals, because nothing in it—such as lifeless rocks hurling through a godless cosmos—could manifest moral qualities.

However, God exists; humans do as well, and we have been created as moral beings with the capacity to give and to receive love. For this love to exist, however, freedom, moral freedom, must too, because love is a moral concept that couldn’t arise in an amoral universe (such as one composed of only rocks and cold space).

Morality, though, means the ability to choose right or wrong, good or evil. And the only way for the universe to be moral, to allow the potential for good or evil, for right or wrong, would be for it to have a law that defines them.

2011 1520 page21And, of course, it does.

“What shall we say, then? Is the law sinful? Certainly not! Nevertheless, I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, ‘You shall not covet’” (Rom. 7:7).

Is it sinful to have red hair? Why not? Because God’s law doesn’t forbid red hair. If it did, as the law forbids covetousness, then red hair would be sin. But it cannot be sin if no divine law defines it as such.

Morality without law is as impossible as is thought without mind. Our universe is moral because God created free beings answerable to His law. If there were no law against coveting, there would be no sin of covetousness; if there were no law against red hair, there would be no sin of redheadedness—no matter how many red-haired coveters populated the cosmos.

Paul, using metaphorical language, brings out this idea again: “Once I was alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death. So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good” (Rom. 7:9-12).

Though the context is that of salvation through faith in Jesus apart from the works of the law, Paul’s point is that the law reveals sin. Photons, palm trees, commas, computers, and rocks hurling through dead space don’t need moral laws because they are not moral entities. Humans are, and what defines our morality is God’s law, the Ten Commandments.

Look at the logic: God created humans as creatures who can love. Love, though, can’t exist without freedom, moral freedom. And moral freedom can’t exist without law, moral law. Love rests on freedom and freedom rests on law. Hence, the core of God’s government, the foundation of that government, a government of love, has to be His law. Thus the prophet wrote what she did about Satan’s desire “to overthrow the law of God.” His attack on the law is an attack, not just on God’s character, but on the creation itself.

“This is love for God: to keep his commands” (1 John 5:3). The link between loving God and keeping His commandments is stronger than we realize, until we realize that we can love God because we live in a universe where love exists. And it exists because the universe is moral, and that morality is based, at least for us as created beings (as opposed to the Godhead and the love within Itself), on the Ten Commandments.

Ironically, love, morality, and freedom are rooted in God’s law, which explains Satan’s hatred of that law, and God’s command that we keep it.

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Clifford Goldstein is editor of the Adult Sabbath School Bible Study Guide. This article was publoished July 21, 2011.

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