Trash Talking the Law

Recently, a video entitled "Why I Hate Religion but Love Jesus" has gone viral and sparked many discussions on Facebook. While I won't point out the many flaws in this video's theology (many others have undertaken this and done a fantastic job -- I don't have much more I could add), I was struck by the widely-held view about the nature of the [Old Testament] Law. Ever since I was a little girl, it was ingrained in me that the Law of the Old Testament is bad, but Jesus is good and replaced the Law. I was taught that the Law was bad because the Israelites thought that they could earn God's merit by upholding it. Instead, the Law brought death and self-righteousness.

This perspective completely disregards the greater witness of Scripture. This past semester, as I was studying John, I was really impacted by what the writer of John had to say about the Law:

"From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ."
- John 1:16-17

The word that the NIV chooses for "blessing" is the Greek word for "grace." In other words, this is saying that "From the fullness of [God's] grace we have received one grace after another." I think that we have often made "grace" into an ambiguous "Christianize" word. What does "grace" even mean? (I griped a bit about this in this post.) At its core, "grace" means anything that is given. It implies "giftedness."
The author of John gives two examples of God's gifts: the Law through Moses and Truth through Jesus. The Law is not presented as something that was bad; it is presented as a gift from God.

A few weeks ago, my husband took me out to lunch at a really nice Asian restaurant. It was late in the afternoon and I was starting to become really hungry. As we were driving to the restaurant, I saw all these other restaurants and desperately wanted to stop anywhere to satisfy my stomach rumblings. In my mind, I developed a rating system of what restaurants sounded really good to me:

Restaurant	Rating
Red Robin	Excellent
Bob Evans	Really Good
Fazoli’s	Good

But then I got to P.F. Chang's and the food was sooo good. I was so glad that I had waited! The other restaurants could not compete with honey sesame chicken. Now, however, I had a dilemma. I couldn't rate P.F. Chang's fairly on the rating scale. Red Robin was rated much too high. I could rate P.F. Chang's as "really excellent," but that still would not do it justice. It would be too close in rating to Red Robin.

So, in order to fix my dilemma, I need to rate the other restaurants lower.

Restaurant	Rating
P.F. Chang’s	Super Excellent
Red Robin	Okay
Bob Evans	Fair
Fazoli’s	Bad

Do I really think that Fazoli's is "bad?" No, I would gladly eat there any day of the week. But now that I've tasted the awesomeness of P.F. Chang's even Fazoli's ravioli pales in comparison.

I think that this is what's going on for the New Testament writers. The Law was a beautiful thing to them. It was the revelation of God himself to his people. It was a wonderful gift. By following the Law very carefully, the Israelites were loving God the way they knew best.

But now God revealed himself through His Son Jesus. How could this even compete with God's revelation through the Law? This is why many of the New Testament writers (like Paul) seem to be "trash-talking" the Law. It was a wonderful grace, but it was nowhere near as special as the grace of Jesus.

I learning to think of the Law in the Old Testament much in the same way that the first recipients thought about it - as a grace. God loves us so much that he has given us "grace after grace." Studying and mediating on the Law, even though it has been fulfilled (not annulled) through Jesus Christ is a way that I can reciprocate God's love and better appreciate his grace.