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The Rule of Law: Government of the Heart (2)
The Law trains our hearts to desire what we should.
“Now this is the commandment, the statutes and the rules that the LORD your God commanded me to teach you, that you may do them in the land to which you are going over to possess it, that you may fear the LORD your God, you and your son and your son’s son, by keeping all his statutes and commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be long. Hear, therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them, that it may go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as the LORD, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey.”
We may say that the primary function of the heart, as the chief component of the soul, is to focus our desires. What we desire defines how we think, what we value, and how we will live. If our desires are as they should be, according to God’s purposes and will, then we can be sure that He will favor us with His blessings and fill our lives with the abundance of Jesus Christ (Jn. 10.10).
But sin perverts the desires of our hearts, turning us away from love for God and neighbor toward a pernicious self-love that is contrary to everything good and just. The fall into sin means that all human beings are naturally inclined to desire the opposite of what God intends, as Paul explains in Romans 3. The Law of God was given as a corrective for our sinful desires, to teach us instead what we ought to desire if we would know full and abundant life.
Essentially, the Law teaches us to desire what God has promised. It uses a variety of terms to keep this before our eyes: that which is “good,” and which, therefore, reflects God’s original intention for men and all creation (cf. Gen. 1.31); “that it may be well” with us, and that we may live “upright” lives (another word harking back to God’s original design for us, cf. Eccl. 7.29). The Law points to the promises God made to Abraham – to bless His people and to make them a blessing to the world (Gen. 12.1-3). These blessings are the sum and substance of what it means truly to live (Lev. 18.1-5); and they are available only to those who, earnestly desiring the promises of God are also willing to pursue the path of holiness which leads to them (Lev. 19.2; 20.26: Deut. 23.14; etc.).
The Law thus instructs us to turn away from our natural, sinful inclinations and desires and to look to God, speaking in His Word, to reveal His precious and very great promises to us; for it is by these promises that we are able to transcend the limits and miseries of our sinful condition and participate in the very purpose and nature of God Himself (2 Pet. 1.4).
By reading and meditating on the Law of God we are encouraged to desire the promised blessings of God as the defining outlook and aspiration of our hearts (cf. Deut. 28.1-14). Obedience to God and His Law begins in our hearts, as we, in the power of God’s Spirit, discipline our affections to resist and reform all desires which are not in line with God’s revealed purposes, pleasure, and plan.
For a practical guide to the role of God’s Law in the life of faith, get The Ground for Christian Ethics by going to www.ailbe.org and click on our Book Store.