The Law is Not Burdensome

For the past few centuries, since the Reformation of the the 16th century, the predominate theological understanding of the Bible as it pertains to the Old and New Testaments has been a distinction between law and grace.  Law begin the duty of the Old Covenant and grace being the joy of the New.

Essentially, this system of theology comes to dominate our interpretive lens and renders law, thought of as the commands of God, to be primarily an Old covenant thing but that it is no longer in effect because 'we are under grace.'  To be sure, this amputates the reality of the New covenant from its history and tragically severs the Scripture, cutting it up into law and grace.  But the text does not support this understanding of the history of redemption.

Consider this:

Israel had been enslaved for some 400 years at the hands of the Egyptians.  God hears the cries of the Israelites, whose forefather Abraham He had promised a land and a nation to, and determines to save the people.  He calls Moses to be the representative.  Some plagues ensue until finally the Egyptians release the Israelites to leave, giving them treasures and riches fro their journey away.  However, as the people approach the Red Sea, Pharaoh decides that this arrangement is unacceptable and sets out with his forces to kill Moses and claim Israel back for Egypt.

God tells Moses to strike the sea.  As Moses does, the sea parts and the Israelites walk through the sea floor on harmed.  Once on the other side, God tells them to turn back to watch as God releases His power over the waters and they come down upon the Egyptians.  God leads the people to valley below the Mount of Sinai, where He gives Moses the Law, the commandments for how the people of God are to live.

The Law does not redeem the people of Israel from the Israelites: God does.  The Law is not meritorious, as in, if a person is obedient they can merit God's grace.  No.  The Israelites understood that God had chosen them (Deut 7:7-11), and it was only by His grace that they had been saved.  The Law was the further expression of that grace.  God chose them and then He gave them His Law to teach them who He was and how they were to live as His chosen people.

The Law was never burdensome, because the Law was further evidence of God's hand of grace.  The commandments of God were the merciful commands of a gracious God revealing both His very character as well as what His choosing of the Israelites meant for how they were then to live.   This is to say that all of God's grace has encompassed within it God's commandments.  They run parallel.

As Christians, we speak a lot about the grace of God, but we often forget that God's grace has commandments to it.  Christians are to live a certain way with a particular ethic.  We should not forget that we are under covenant.  This means that God has chosen Christians and bestowed grace upon them.  But in that grace are promises, both of blessing and of curse.

If we are not obedient to the covenant commandments, we will receive the promised blessings.  And if we are disobedient to the covenant commandments, we will receive the promised curses.  This is covenant.  It is not meritorious blessings.  Rather, it is the way that God has chosen to relate to mankind.  If we forget that this situation is His idea, we will naturally neglect all of the parts that we would rather not do.

Remember, we are not saved from the Law, we are saved from the curse of the Law.  There is a new law for the New Covenant in Christ.  Christians need to learn what these commandments are and we need to consider that we are the chosen people of God, under His promises and in His covenant.  This means that we need to meet Him on His terms.