Law and the Spirit

Some years ago William Golding wrote The Lord of the Flies, a story about children marooned on an island with no adults among them. How did they cope? Not very well, as it turned out. But it was striking that their first impulse, when they gathered on the shore to assess their situation, was to make laws. They did not keep their own laws but they did feel the need for them.

So the early biblical emphasis on law was a human impulse. When the Israelites found themselves out of Egypt and free of their masters they wanted laws and the book of Deuteronomy records them. They too were not successful at keeping their own laws, but they saw the point of them and wept when they discovered how they had failed (Neh. 8:9).

Every society has devised its own laws and the purpose always is to preserve order and good relationships between the members. The law gives protection: people can appeal to it if they feel wronged. But the purpose of law in the bible was never to be just a list of prohibitions and commandments. It looked forward to a fulfilment that it could not give by itself.

Paul explained to the Romans that he ‘dearly loved God’s law’ (Rom. 7:22) even though he found it incapable of giving him the ability ‘to do what is good’ (v.18).

The law was like a pedagogue (a slave in Roman times who accompanied a child to his teacher). Once the pedagogue has done his job he has no further purpose (Gal 3:24): the teacher (who is the Christ) takes over.

In Paul’s thinking the law was a preparation for the gift of the Spirit which Jesus would give once he had been glorified. The Spirit would give power and freedom, which the law could never give. Not only did the law, at its best, fail to lead a person to this goal, in practice it was often distorted so that it served the narrow interests of the leaders. Jesus was furious with the Pharisees for doing just this. They not only failed to use the law for the limited purpose for which it was intended, they actually distorted it for their own purposes of buttressing their power and control over the people.

We would be short-sighted if we stopped with the Pharisees and did not turn the spotlight on ourselves. How easily we appeal to ‘proper channels’ and ‘correct procedures’ as a way of avoiding taking courageous decisions. We wonder why our country is at a standstill. Why doesn’t someone do something about it? Well, it is easy to see how the Pharisees went wrong. It is another matter to see where I am missing opportunities every day.