Lawlessness

Don: In describing the day of judgment, why did Jesus call those judged unworthy to enter the kingdom of heaven “you who practice lawlessness” (Matthew 7)? By nature, all of us are sinners:

…as it is written, “There is none righteous, not even one;”…. …for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:10;23)

There is no-one who is truly good. Only God is good, as Jesus told the Rich Young Ruler. Put even more bluntly:

For all of us have become like one who is unclean,
 And all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment;
 And all of us wither like a leaf,
 And our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. (Isaiah 64:6)

Jesus also observed:

“For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:20)

Paul put that Pharisaic righteousness on display in his own life:

…for we are the true circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh, although I myself might have confidence even in the flesh. If anyone else has a mind to put confidence in the flesh, I far more: circumcised the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the Law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to the righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless.

But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith,…” (Philippians 3-9)

He clearly puts in opposition the notions of living a life under the law versus living a life of grace, in the spirit. The same contrast is seen in this familiar passage:

For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin. For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good. So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.

I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin. (Romans 7:14-25)

It all fits together thus:

Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness. You know that He appeared in order to take away sins; and in Him there is no sin. No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him. Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous; the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil. No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother.

For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another; not as Cain, who was of the evil one and slew his brother. And for what reason did he slay him? Because his deeds were evil, and his brother’s were righteous.

Do not be surprised, brethren, if the world hates you. We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death.  (1 John 3:4-14)

Lawlessness and righteousness seem to be opposite entities. More remarkably, neither deeds nor piety nor any innate goodness we might have define lawlessness or righteousness; the keys are whether or not we are “born of God” and whether or not we love our brethren.

What does it mean, to be “born of God”?

I will rejoice greatly in the Lord,
 My soul will exult in my God;
 For He has clothed me with garments of salvation,
 He has wrapped me with a robe of righteousness,
 As a bridegroom decks himself with a garland,
 And as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
 For as the earth brings forth its sprouts, 
And as a garden causes the things sown in it to spring up,
 So the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise
 To spring up before all the nations. (Isaiah 61:10-11)

The robe of righteousness is the wedding garment in the parable of the Marriage Feast:

Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy. Go therefore to the main highways, and as many as you find there, invite to the wedding feast.’ Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered together all they found, both evil and good; and the wedding hall was filled with dinner guests.

“But when the king came in to look over the dinner guests, he saw a man there who was not dressed in wedding clothes, and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you come in here without wedding clothes?’ And the man was speechless. Then the king said to the servants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ For many are called, but few are chosen.” (Matthew 22:8-14)

The robe is a free gift—a gift of God’s grace:

So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men. For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous. (Romans 5:18-19)

Lawlessness is appearing at our judgment without a robe of righteousness. It is trying to pass off our own works, instead of the grace of God, as a robe of righteousness. To walk in the robe is to walk in the light:

This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.” (John 3:19-21)

The contrast between the robe of light/righteousness and the robe of the law and the prophets was evident at the Transfiguration:

Six days later, Jesus took with Him Peter and James and John, and brought them up on a high mountain by themselves. And He was transfigured before them; and His garments became radiant and exceedingly white, as no launderer on earth can whiten them. Elijah appeared to them along with Moses; and they were talking with Jesus. Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three tabernacles, one for You, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” For he did not know what to answer; for they became terrified. Then a cloud formed, overshadowing them, and a voice came out of the cloud, “This is My beloved Son, listen to Him!” All at once they looked around and saw no one with them anymore, except Jesus alone. (Mark 9:2-8)

This robe of supernatural light is unmistakable as the robe of righteousness. It is something no human could weave through his deeds. At the end of the passage, Moses (the representative of the law) and Elijah (representative of the prophets) are nowhere to be seen: The robe of righteousness has eclipsed their garments and rendered them invisible, leaving Jesus alone in all his righteous glory.

We are offered this amazing robe as a free gift from God, yet we still tend to prefer our own filthy rags. The difference between the sinner and the wicked person is not a matter of what they do or say—both are faulty in that regard. The true difference is that the wicked reject the offer of the robe, while the sinner accepts it. This is illustrated in the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican:

“Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself: ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!’ I tell you, this man went to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.” (Luke 18:10-14)

The Pharisee weaves his own robe of righteousness with his fasting and so on, but the tax collector appeals to the grace of God. Clearly, it is easy to surpass the righteousness of the pious Pharisee, simply by recognizing that one is a sinner in need of God’s grace.

Isaiah drew a picture of Transfiguration that, to me, is stark in its revelation of how light is transformational:

“Yet they seek Me day by day and delight to know My ways,
 As a nation that has done righteousness
 And has not forsaken the ordinance of their God.
 They ask Me for just decisions,
 They delight in the nearness of God.
 ‘Why have we fasted and You do not see?
 Why have we humbled ourselves and You do not notice?’
 Behold, on the day of your fast you find your desire,
 And drive hard all your workers.
 “Behold, you fast for contention and strife and to strike with a wicked fist.
 You do not fast like you do today to make your voice heard on high. 
“Is it a fast like this which I choose, a day for a man to humble himself?
Is it for bowing one’s head like a reed 
And for spreading out sackcloth and ashes as a bed?
 Will you call this a fast, even an acceptable day to the Lord?
[Here comes the fast God wants:] 
“Is this not the fast which I choose,
 To loosen the bonds of wickedness,
 To undo the bands of the yoke,
 And to let the oppressed go free
 And break every yoke?
 “Is it not to divide your bread with the hungry
 And bring the homeless poor into the house;
 When you see the naked, to cover him;
 And not to hide yourself from your own flesh?
[Here comes the Transfiguration:]
 “Then your light will break out like the dawn,
 And your recovery will speedily spring forth;
 And your righteousness will go before you;
 The glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
 “Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;
 You will cry, and He will say, ‘Here I am.’ 
If you remove the yoke from your midst,
 The pointing of the finger and speaking wickedness,
 And if you give yourself to the hungry
 And satisfy the desire of the afflicted, [Here comes the Transfiguration, again:]
 Then your light will rise in darkness
 And your gloom will become like midday.
 “And the Lord will continually guide you,
 And satisfy your desire in scorched places,
 And give strength to your bones;
 And you will be like a watered garden,
 And like a spring of water whose waters do not fail.
 “Those from among you will rebuild the ancient ruins; 
You will raise up the age-old foundations;
 And you will be called the repairer of the breach,
 The restorer of the streets in which to dwell.” (Isaiah 58:2-12)

David: This suggests that judgment is continual. It is not a one-time event. It is part of everyday life. There is the opportunity for continual renewal, refreshment, transformation, transfiguration. At the same time, there is the opportunity to fall back into a life of sin. Inevitably, it seems to me, we are by nature going to wax back and forth between transformation and regression, and we are being judged moment by moment. Jesus seems to be about today, the here and now, not about some remote judgment day that occurs long after we are dead.

Michael: It’s interesting that at the Wedding Feast, both the good and the evil were invited in, but only one man got thrown out!

Don: One might have expected the servants to be more discriminating in whom they invited to the wedding but they were specifically told not to discriminate. Everyone was offered the robe, and everyone took it—except for the one reluctant guest.

David: So it does not matter how bad you are. So long as you accept God’s grace, your sins are just washed away. But again, this is not at the End Time: It is here and now; it is today, tomorrow, and the day after. You may refuse God’s grace one moment, which means, presumably, that one is left unguarded until the moment you accept it again. This seems very different from eternal, awful, finality of the Day of Judgment scenario. It almost seems that grace means life and that to reject life—to commit suicide—is the only way to avoid God’s grace forever.

Anonymous: Is it equivalent to rejecting Jesus, and his life?

David: Yes, since Jesus is God and is grace and is life.

Don: We just read that if you are born of God, you cannot sin. Despite the fact that you may be doing bad things, they are not counted as sin, in some way. It is as though even though you may be rotten inside you are covered in a patina of goodness.

David: That then justifies an Inquisition!

Kiran: But if you are born of God you will love people, no matter what.

Anonymous: And love gives pause to action that might hurt another.

Robin: Suicide stems from an unhealthy state of mind and I think the grace of God would be there for that person.

Kiran: Are we then required to fast in the manner God says he wants in Isaiah?

Anonymous: It follows from having the light.

Kiran: But it seems you have to fast in order to get the light! Which comes first, the fasting or the light?

Anonymous: God is stressing good works.

Don: In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus spoke about the three pillars of piety: Alms giving, fasting, and prayer. All religions have these. Jesus does not dismiss them entirely but he diminishes them considerably, compared to loving one’s brother. Isaiah’s notion of fasting is also about loving one’s brother, and it is transformational.

Robin: What if we were to substitute the word “sacrifice” for “fast” in Isaiah?

David: The notions raised in the passages read from scripture today are not specific to Christianity. If you “fast” as God wants, then you are part of the kingdom, and anyone, of any or no faith, can (and some do) behave that way. I find this most encouraging and I think it is the message of Jesus that Christianity is not a requirement, but “fasting” as Isaiah defines it is.

Kiran: A young Catholic woman who converted to Hinduism told me about her experience with her new faith. She stressed the importance of community, of oneness, of helping one’s neighbor. I was shocked by the similarity between us! It is so childish to limit God to one religion. God is so much bigger than we think.

Anonymous: Perhaps we look to other religions in search of things we lack in our own. Perhaps the Catholic church this woman attended lacked the attributes she found so satisfying in her new temple. This is natural.

Mikiko: I think there was originally only one religion and only one Bible. But there have emerged many ways to teach from the Bible.

Anonymous: Yes, we humans created the Babylonian Bible — the Bible of Babel! We are forever interpreting and reinterpreting it in different ways.

Mikiko: the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. (2 Corinthians 4:4)

David: Who are the unbelievers? Are they people who don’t believe in a particular religion, or are they people who don’t believe in the global message of Jesus to love one another? I have to believe that Paul meant the latter.

Michael: Darkness and light seem to underlie everything. I’ve tended to view them as made-up things based on our natural fear of the dark. Scripture seems to be talking about spiritual light/darkness, and to me physical light/darkness doesn’t map that well to the scriptural concepts. Some of us like the physical dark!

Don: I can imagine how discouraging Jesus’s message about a righteousness that exceeded that of the Pharisees might have seemed to his contemporaries, who would have considered them to be perfect and venerable examples of lawfulness. And to be told that such lawfulness would not get them into the kingdom of heaven must have been shocking.

Robin: In the parable of the Pharisee and the publican, the latter thought himself a sinner seeking the grace of God, while the former thought himself the grace of God seeking sinners to judge!

Don: To the Pharisee, just about everyone else was a sinner! It’s easy to be a Pharisee.  Our propensity is to put our goodness on display. When we pray here, we thank God for the beautiful sanctuary, the beautiful day, for the Sabbath, for being healed, for being given x, and so on. On the face of it, this sounds very much like the Pharisee’s prayer! It’s easy to fall into this trap, without premeditation presenting what we’ve done and who we are to God.

David: That it is not premeditated makes it eminently forgivable, when we come to our senses. But you seem to be equating lawfulness with the rejection of grace—which, perhaps, it is! All sin can be forgiven except the sin of rejecting God’s grace. How do we reject grace? I’ve suggested that rejecting mortal life by committing suicide might be one way.

Anonymous: Perhaps the way to reject it is to fail to take advantage of God’s forgiveness. If we sin, we don’t get punished right away, so we go on sinning almost without realizing it. Life seems fine, so why change the way we live? But in fact we are taking advantage of God’s grace, who forgives each instance of sin.

Don: God said that forgiveness should be infinite.

Mikiko: God said to forgive “seventy times seven” meaning always. He forgave the Israelites countless times for disobeying him. There will be a long period before the final judgment when he will examine us all and forgive those who repent.

Kiran: Is accepting grace rejecting the law, or is it rejecting fakery and insincerity among those who profess to be lawful:

Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to His disciples, saying: “The scribes and the Pharisees have seated themselves in the chair of Moses; therefore all that they tell you, do and observe, but do not do according to their deeds; for they say things and do not do them. They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are unwilling to move them with so much as a finger. But they do all their deeds to be noticed by men; for they broaden their phylacteries and lengthen the tassels of their garments. They love the place of honor at banquets and the chief seats in the synagogues, and respectful greetings in the market places, and being called Rabbi by men. But do not be called Rabbi; for One is your Teacher, and you are all brothers. Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven. Do not be called leaders; for One is your Leader, that is, Christ. But the greatest among you shall be your servant. Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled; and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted. (Matthew 23:1-12)

Robin: Maybe another way we can reject grace is to think we don’t need it.

Don: Exactly. This was what the Pharisee in the Publican parable thought.

Robin: Jesus said he came for those who are sick, not those who are healthy. Paul noted, however, that none of us is healthy in spiritual terms.

David: Then, the man who bought the bottle at its lowest possible price in R.L. Stevenson’s The Bottle Imp  is the one most sure of God’s grace, though he does not know it.

Michael: We spend most of our lives cycling between being Pharisaical and—more rarely!—being sorry sinners. Does being born of God break the cycle, make us more attuned to the grace of God, more accepting of it?

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