The Law of God and Public Policy: First Things (2)

We must apply God’s Law into our own place and time.

“And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live…And you shall again obey the voice of the LORD your God and keep all his commandments that I command you today.” Deuteronomy 30.6, 8

God explained to the people of Moses’ generation that a day was coming when He would cleanse the hearts of His people and enable them to obey His Law. Subsequent revelation explains that this day would come with the outpouring of the Spirit of God upon His people (cf. Ezek. 36.26, 27). When God gives a new Spirit to His people, then they will understand and keep His Law. The coming of the Spirit brought the Kingdom of God to the world in a new and more intimate way. Greatness in that Kingdom is associated with learning, obeying, and teaching the Law of God (Matt. 5.17-19). We now live in an age of grace, when, by the striving and wooing of God’s Spirit and the preaching of the Gospel, people might be led to seek the Lord Jesus and the salvation which can be found only in Him, and to enter His Kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom. 14.17, 18).

In this new era of the Kingdom of God, the Spirit, and, with Him, the Law of God, are extended to Gentiles and Jews alike (Mic. 4.1-5; cf. Acts 15.8-21). Thus, as the Gospel comes to the Gentiles, through the holy lives and faithful witness of God’s people, the benefits of God’s Law break loose from their ancient moorings into new cultures and among new peoples. The wisdom and understanding of the Law, in the illuminating and enabling power of the Spirit, comes to light in new ways. We can see this pattern already beginning to be employed in Israel’s own history. In Ruth 4 a situation arose which was not expressly covered by any of the statutes of God’s Law. It fell to the judges and elders to consider the words of the Law in order to discern the spirit which it intended. Their decision received the blessing of God.

Thus, we expect there to be some changes in the way we understand, practice, and administer the Law in our day and culture, (a) because the Law does not speak specifically, that is, in its words, to the unique social and cultural circumstances of our day; (b) the Church – the contemporary Israel (Heb. 12.22-24), is not the State and does not possess the powers God has reserved to the State for doing good; and (c) grace and forgiveness are extended to all peoples through the message of the Gospel.

Because America is not ancient Israel, and America exists during the era of God’s Kingdom, we do not expect to apply God’s Law in exactly the way Moses did. Apostolic example shows us that the spirit of the Law inclines toward grace rather than retribution (1 Cor. 5; cf. Deut. 22.30; 2 Cor. 3.6). The letter or words of the Law remain the starting-point for defining and exposing sin, but the grace of the Spirit must now lead us in determining the application of the Law to the needs and circumstances of our day.

And since, in every nation, making and administering law is in the hands of government, and governments are not populated exclusively by believers, the people of God must discover ways of commending obedience to the spirit of the Law as a matter of public policy in ways that government, as the servant of God for good, can ultimately embrace.

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In the Gates