Law vs. Law
So then, the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. Romans 7:12 NASB
Law – Why is the Law holy? Before you answer, consider the radical difference between the Greco-Roman view of Law and the Semitic biblical view of Law. Christine Hays offers some insight:
“Divine law can be minimally defined as the idea that the norms that guide human actions are somehow rooted in the divine realm.”[1]
“In much Greek thought, divine law is divine ‘because it expresses the profound structures of a permanent natural order’ (Brague 2007, 18).”[2]
“By contrast, according to biblical tradition, the law is divine not by virtue of an inherent quality but ‘because it emanates from a god who is master of history’ (Brague 2007, 18).”[3]
Divine, that is, biblical Law is holy because God gave it. Makes sense, right? Ah, but that’s the problem. It doesn’t always make sense. In fact, biblical divine Law can often seem at odds with commonsense. Sometimes it even appears to be contradictory. You see, we have intellectually inherited the Greco-Roman view. We expect the Law to align with reason. We expect that what God asks will also be what conscience demands. When our commonsense (or reasoned arguments) poke holes in the “divine” Law of the Bible, we feel cognitive dissonance. We want everything to ultimately bow to the god of reason. So, we make up justifying arguments like this:
The reason God asks us not to eat shellfish is because shellfish are the garbage cans of the sea. We would be eating things that are unhealthy for us. God’s directive is really about keeping a healthy diet. (We can apply the same rationale to pork).
But the Bible doesn’t offer such justification. In fact, it offers no justification. The Law is divine because God gives it—end of story. This applies to diet, and sexuality, and economics, and neighborliness, and worship, and repentance, and, and, and. Why are woman ritually impure for seven days after menstruation? Why must males be circumcised on the eighth day? Why should we not eat young goats boiled in the milk of the mother? Why should we not take the mother bird and the offspring from a nest? The list goes on. If you expect to find reasons for these laws, then you’re in the Greco-Roman world. The ideal biblical person is the obedient follower, no questions asked.
But is that really you?
Topical Index: Law, reason, justification, Romans 7:12
[1] Christine Hayes, What’s Divine About Divine Law?: Early Perspectives (Princeton University Press, 2015), p. 2.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
I receive your point, Skip. Nevertheless, a child… particularly a child who is genuinely a “human person” of God’s upbringing… learns to accept the gift of self-determination responsibly as his narrow horizon of self-awareness is broadened to assume that of “others” in the context of relationship. “No questions asked” is basically directed toward the necessary and foundational preservation of those whose obedience will ultimately mirror a loyalty demonstrated through the experience of being nurtured under a hand that manifests self-sacrificing love.
“When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I set aside the things of a child. For now we see through a mirror indirectly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but the I will know completely, just as I have also been completely known.” (1 Corinthians 13:11-12)