[12/11/19]
Scripture shows a long history of sinful man seeking to be a law unto himself. This is the reality behind every breach of law, whether civil law or God’s Law. What is it to break the law other than to seek to live by one’s own law? What is it that so plagues our society today if not this urgent push by every individual to abide by no law but one’s own? We see it in the tendency for local governments to defy the laws enacted by wider government. We have seen cities declare themselves ‘sanctuary’ cities, where this federal law or that will not be enforced or obeyed. We are now seeing cities declare themselves ‘sanctuary’ cities concerning laws being enacted at the state level. We are now seeing citizens take to the streets to enforce their own sense of law and order, and the local police ordered to simply stand by and watch. At all levels, the urgent pursuit of self-rule throws off every form of outside restraint.
What is happening? Lawlessness is on the rise. Oddly, lawlessness appears in the form of autonomy. The two are really one act. To act autonomously is, literally, to act as a law unto oneself, but if the only law I answer to is my own choice, then in fact I act as one lawless. Autonomy cannot but become anarchy, left to its own unchecked course.
The Church, on the other hand, is instructed by her Law-giving God to be a law-abiding, model citizen. She is given to understand that the civil government is, in fact, answerable to and appointed by God Himself. That is not, clearly, assurance that every civil appointee shall prove beneficent toward the Church, nor even that they shall rule justly and wisely. It does mean God remains in control even when this is not the case, and continues to work even their worst deeds to the good of His own, who love Him and serve Him (Ro 8:28).
From the outset, God made plain that man, while in a position of dominion over the rest of Creation, still answered to one higher; to Himself. It is present in the naming of Adam and Eve; that naming representing a declaration of authority in its own right. This is ever the case when we see one given the power of naming. To name is to have authority over. Thus was Adam given the task of naming the animals. It was a claiming of authority over them. Thus did God name Adam and Eve. It was a declaration of authority over them. Thus, He changed Abram’s name, Sarai’s name, Jacob’s name. It was not merely a prophetic pronouncement concerning the name itself. It was a declaration that He was in control of their seemingly out of control lives.
Returning to that first couple in Creation, we see not only the naming of them by God, but also the instructions given them by God. Here is outside law imposed from the start. Do these things. Do not do that thing. Both the positive and negative commandments are just that: Commandments; Law. We see evidence that further laws were recognized in regard to the worship of God, and the sanctity of life. We see evidence of social law, tribal law if you will, in the lives of the patriarchs. There were rules governing inheritance, rules governing the preservation of the family line, rules governing land use, and so on. This was the case not only amongst the people of promise, but amongst all the nations. The rules might vary by nation, but to be sure, rules governed the society. They were lawful, so far as their concepts of law entailed.
There’s a reason for this. Lawlessness and autonomy are incompatible with social structure. We cannot long live as a rule unto ourselves while those around us pursue their own variation on that theme. Think of the wild west, at least as we come to know it from cinematic presentation. The local law, if you were fortunate, consisted in one strong, hopefully moral, representative with a gun. The local populace, sadly, was primarily composed of men equally strong and equally well armed, who sought autonomy. But what happens when autonomous agent number one claims he owns the land and intends to graze cattle on it, while autonomous agent number two claims he has title to that same land and wishes to raise sheep there? Apart from a law larger than those two individuals, how shall this resolve? It can’t. There will be bloodshed. It’s no different than Cain and Abel, is it? Their dispute was not so much a dispute as it was competitive standing. One recognized higher authority, one did not. One was honored by that authority, one was not. We don’t, I think, look at it that way, but that’s what’s going on. Yes, Cain came to worship God. At least that’s what he was calling his activity. But can one worship God by doing one’s own thing? God requires this, and you bring that instead. Is that worship? In point of fact, Cain’s offering was a declaration of autonomy. Your rules don’t really matter, God. I’ll do it my way.
Indeed he did, and God, as punishment, granted that he might do so with seeming impunity. Soon there was a whole society of those who had thrown off God’s way to pursue their own. Where there were men powerful and devious enough to maintain a semblance of control, they could impose their way on those around them, and there would be social order of a sort. But there was no real basis for that social order other than the strong man. Let another strong man come along and depose him, and poof! New order. New rules. The seeming order was in fact no more than a brief pause in the chaos. Chaos must necessarily spiral downward into greater chaos. Lawlessness must produce greater lawlessness. We have seen that with Lamech and his boasting. See? I’m even more out of control than Cain was! And proud of it! He was a law unto himself? I more so. I am a law unto myself, and will enforce my law on whoever thinks otherwise.
That disease of autonomous lawlessness spread until the whole of society was poisoned by it, and God found it necessary to wipe the slate clean and reseed the work. Mind you, this, too, was effectively but a pause in the chaos. It didn’t take long before man was once again populating the world with lawlessly autonomous groups and individuals. Eventually, individuals recognized the need for some sort of structure to manage social interactions. If man was to survive, he must develop some means of living in proximity with others. Society must have laws, else society soon ceases to be. Today, I would argue, we are seeing the effects of society thinking once more that this truth need not apply. We ought to pray fervently that those around us come to have at least some minimal grip on reality before reality tears them apart, and the rest of society with them.
Movements like Antifa and BLM and Evolution Revolution and all these other mob actions are in fact exercises in lawless autonomy. We don’t like your rules, and refuse to live by them. We’re going our own way. Oh, but don’t remove from us the fruits of your way. After all, such movements, even if they were capable of setting up a society fashioned after their preferences, could not hope to sustain such a society. There are no means of doing so. We saw it with earlier mob actions, like the various Occupy movements. It began with a throwing off of social order. We’re claiming these public lands for our own use, and you, the public, get no say in the matter. But camps of autonomous people are going to inevitably give rise to lawlessness. Having rejected the lawful constraints of social structure, disorder could only produce conflict; conflict physical and violent. Either a new order must be imposed, or the structure must be dissolved. There really are no other options. If man is to live together with man in any number, either order must be imposed and understood by all involved or the community formed must be dissolved. The third option, if option it is, is that one or more parties must be killed. That, however, is hardly a viable option for the continuity of the species, is it? That’s Lamech’s way, I suppose, but it is very much unsustainable.
Does Scripture have anything to tell us about this? Well, certainly! We could turn to the Ten Commandments as a simple starting point, and in particular those laws that compose what we call the second table of the Law. That table is all about social order. It is a setting forth of the most basic laws that will permit of man living together with his fellow man without it coming swiftly to destructive ends.
[12/12/19]
What do we find in that table? Honor your parents. Don’t murder. Don’t commit adultery. Don’t steal. Don’t bear false witness against your neighbor. Don’t covet your neighbor’s things (Ex 20:12-17). All of these bear on the idea of autonomy, by requiring any idea we have of personal law to be mindful of those around us. As is often observed, the negative statements of the table have the effect of requiring of us the positive counterparts. If we are not to murder, it is insufficient to stay our hands, or even to still our angry thoughts. It is also a call to actively pursue the preservation of life, where such lies in our power. Here is the basis for caring for the poor. Here also is a call to being what we would deem a good neighbor, one who looks out for the welfare of those around him.
If we are not to commit adultery, it is insufficient to avoid the act, and insufficient even to cast down all thoughts of an illicit sexual nature. There is the active, positive side of the command; to be true to the wife of your youth. “Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth. As a loving hind and a graceful doe, let her breasts satisfy you at all times. Be exhilarated always with her love” (Pr 5:18-19). “Take heed then to your spirit, and let no one deal treacherously against the wife of your youth. For I hate divorce, and him who covers his garments with wrong. So take heed to your spirit, that you do not deal treacherously” (Mal 2:15b-16). These things are said from the male perspective, but we must recognize that they apply equally to the female. There is a positive admonition here to not only cherish your spouse, but to see to it that no other treats your spouse in such fashion as would defile or destroy him or her.
“You shall not steal” (Ex 20:15). Well and good. You’ve not broken into another’s place and run off with his worldly goods. That’s a start. Have you also avoided any slackness in your labors for another? Do you waste time at work? Is that not theft? Do you skimp in your pay to those who labor for you? Is that not theft? But let us say you have done all these things. Are you actively seeking to preserve your neighbor’s possessions? If you see someone or something doing damage to his goods, do you step in to stop the matter from proceeding? Are you actively promoting your neighbor’s welfare?
You see how this works. It is not enough to avoid the explicitly evil action. It is not enough to cast down every thought or imagination that sets itself against the holy course of God’s Law. It is required of us to be fully engaged in the lives of our neighbors, as those who will seek their benefit and their well-being. This, I must observe, would include loving them enough to speak to them of the Gospel, if they are not as yet believers. How better to serve the positive aspect of that Law of holiness than to speak to them of the Truth of God? How better to act counter to the course of murder than to proclaim to them the Way that leads to Life?
But the lawless one, seeing himself constrained by this law, will seek to limit its impact if he cannot avoid it altogether. That urge is in us. That urge looks to limit the application of the Law to its explicit prohibitions. If it doesn’t specifically and explicitly address the matter we have under consideration, we don’t trouble ourselves to understand the wider implications of the Law and how those might speak to our current matter. We may simply say that the Law having said nothing we are free to do as we please in this matter. There is a point, to be sure, where this is the correct conclusion. But that point is not at the first boundary, where we find no clear mention of the particulars involved. For example, I don’t think you’re going to find direct and explicit mention of credit cards or mortgages. You can come close, but you can’t find these things specifically mentioned, in large part because there was no such thing conceived of at the time. You will find mention of lending at interest, and you will find a prohibition against doing so to your brother, although, if I recall correctly, there is no such prohibition in regard to the foreigner. In other words, it's not the matter of finance that is declared sinful. It is the violation of the Law involved in charging interest to a brother in need.
We are back at “You shall not murder.” Take the context of those lending laws into consideration. Israel was established with each family having their plot of land. There were arrangements made by which the one who fell into financial straits could enter a season of indentured servitude as a means of repaying his debts and regaining his liberty and his dignity. To such a one, the adding of interest could readily remove all chance of recovery, and there were periods in Israel’s history where this is exactly what was happening. What was to be a temporary situation was being rendered inescapable slavery, and the property that should have been preserved to that brother was being set forever out of his reach. We have to understand the concerns, else we misapply the constraints.
This is exactly the game we saw going on in Israel as Jesus spoke to the people. The great legal experts of the day, even setting aside their accrued rules to avoid nearing the legal boundary, crossed it repeatedly, because they were too caught up in the most literal and explicit interpretation of things, and failed to grasp the actual point. “You blind guides! You strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!” (Mt 23:24). You’re ever so careful, but you miss the point, and therefore fall into sin more egregious than that which you sought to avoid. Thus, their sense of working on the Sabbath overtook their sense of humanity. It became more important for them to appear to be honoring the Sabbath than to preserve life. Jesus pointed up the absurdity of their posturing when he noted that they would be perfectly happy to go see to feeding and watering their animals on the Sabbath, and would not fail to rescue that animal of theirs that had gotten itself caught in a thicket or some such. Yet, when it came to a sick man or woman, they would refuse compassion on the simple basis that it was the Sabbath, and they could not work. What was wrong with these people?
The same things that are wrong with us. We are not much improved. We, like the disciples with Jesus, are inclined to seek out where we can stop worrying about the law. “Who is my neighbor?” Oh, we can couch it in fine terms, as if our question is focused on better understanding the true intent of the Law, so that we may better abide by it. But we’re fooling nobody. Our real interest is in seeing just how far we have to go, so that we don’t trouble ourselves to go so much as an inch further. How hard must I work to honor my boss? I’ll give that and no more. How much must I pay my employee? I’ll pay that and no more. How widely do I need to have care and concern for those around me? Is it just those with abutting properties? Is it the local neighborhood? The town? The state? The country? We’re probing for the limits. When can I stop caring? We hope for an answer that keeps the scale small. But Jesus gives an answer that opens the scale wide. In effect, He turns the question on its head. Who is not?
The example of the Samaritan stopping to help the man assaulted by thieves gives the model. Here is one whom you would account no neighbor, not of the tribe, not even to be associated with. Because of your historical aversion to these people, they have largely learned to have the same attitude towards you. You have built up a historical animosity towards one another. But this one, whom you despise without even having personal knowledge of the individual on the simple basis of his being a Samaritan, sees the need of that man laying in the road and addresses it. Indeed, he goes above and beyond to see that man cared for. The priests, meanwhile, and steered clear of even coming near the man lest they be made ceremonially unclean by contact with him. Here were the societal pillars of righteousness; so concerned with their reputation that they acted in utmost unrighteousness by ignoring the need set before them. Well, nobody would know. Their reputations would be intact. Surely, that man lying in the road was unlikely to survive long enough to say anything, and even if he could, how likely that he could ever identify those who had passed him by?
Who is your neighbor? Who is not? Who is so far outside the tribe as to allow you to simply write them off? Well, certainly given the nature of Christian faith, we cannot identify a one. Any individual we may encounter, though they may give no evidence of being a fellow believer at present, may in fact turn out to be a member of the family of God. He who is a stranger and a vile sinner today may yet prove to be a brother, saved and washed clean by the Lord, tomorrow.
