Instrument of Mercy: The Law of God in the Life of a Disciple
A reflection on Deuteronomy 5:1–22 and Matthew 5:17–20
M. Todd Hall
In 1995 I was working as a youth minister at a medium sized church in the Houston area. Several of the kids and I, along with the senior minister and a deacon and an elder, took a trip to Honduras to do a little bit of physical work for one of the ministries the church supported: an orphanage for abandoned children in a town called Catacamas. Now, that was a long time ago, and I’m not sure what Honduras is like today, but it was pretty crazy back then! One of the members of our group had his watch ripped off of his arm within the first five minutes of getting off the plane. We exchanged our dollars for the local currency… in a van outside the airport. And I don’t even want to talk about what it’s like to land at an airport with the shortest runway in the world for jet traffic, wedged in between four mountains. Well, I mean, I do want to talk about it, because it was crazy, but it’s not overly relevant to this post.
Anyway, it was really disorienting in all kinds of ways, but the craziest was yet to come. We got on school buses in Tegucigalpa for the trip to Catacamas, and the drivers headed out of town. Now, I’m not an overly squeamish passenger. But this was whole new level stuff. The drivers took those buses as fast as they would go, and when someone got in their way, they’d pass them. I’ll never forget seeing my driver veer out into the oncoming lane (on a two-lane, mud road) going about 60 to pass a car, and a dump truck coming at us at about 60 just a hundred yards away or so. Apparently, there was some kind of unspoken rule, or we just won our chicken match, because the truck (and others) swerved off the road to avoid a head on. The bus had backward-facing seats at the front and I switched to one of those, figuring that, if it’s coming, I don’t want to know about it till it’s over.
I’ve thought about that many times when driving myself, especially when driving up some narrow country road. I’ve thought several times, “this is a pretty narrow road, and we’re both doing, ahem, “‘60.’” Hitting each other at that speed is like hitting a brick wall at 120. But it works. Somehow, we’re able to travel great distances at high speed without driving each other off the road. What makes that kind of freedom possible? Ironically, it’s law. That’s not to say that we (as a society, I don’t mean me) don’t break the law, that we don’t speed or try and pass or get thoroughly annoyed at the person going slow in front of us, of course. But we have a general understanding that following the rules of the road make travel safer and much more effective.
It seems backwards to us, but law is liberating. Have you ever been to another country, or even state or city, and not known the local laws? It’s disorienting and it can be frightening. You simply don’t really know how to function until you know the local law. Law is illuminating, comforting even, in that way.
Ours is a disoriented and disorienting world. You can see this in all of the confusion around us. You can see it in our debates over politics, over ethics, even over language itself. People are just lost. One of the most common sentiments in our society is the idea of “finding yourself.” Why is that? What’s going on? Well, lots of things, of course. But central to it, I think, is the fact that we’re very, very antinomian. We don’t like rules. Western society—and American society in particular—is built on a very peculiar idea of “freedom.” Freedom is, to us, above all freedom “from”—freedom from rules, freedom to self-determination, to autonomy. We tend to view rules—laws—as limiting human happiness, and we have set about tearing down all of those rules that we think keep us from being and enjoying who we really are.
But what if we’re wrong? What if “law” is central to freedom? What if we can never really be free to flourish without rules? What if Law is actually mercy?
Consider the central Laws of the Old Testament. We often call these the “Ten Commandments.” They’re actually called, in the Bible, the Ten “words,” the “Decalogue,” and they provide much more than “rules” for Israel, and for us. They are different from every other “commandment” in the Old Testament. They’re written into the fabric of creation, as they are written into the very heart and character of God. They give us a picture of who God is, and who he created us to be. And they’re liberating, full of mercy, because they provide the structure for living a full, flourishing life.
In this post, we’re considering the 10 words as we find them in Deuteronomy 5, rather than their original context in Exodus 20.
The text in Deuteronomy 5 begins in this way:
Moses summoned all Israel and said to them, “Hear, O Israel, the statutes and the rules that I speak in your hearing today, and you shall learn them and be careful to do them. 2 The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. 3 Not with our fathers did the Lord make this covenant, but with us, who are all of us here alive today. 4 The Lord spoke with you face to face at the mountain, out of the midst of the fire, 5 while I stood between the Lord and you at that time, to declare to you the word of the Lord. For you were afraid because of the fire, and you did not go up into the mountain.”
That’s an interesting statement. If you remember your Bible history, you’ll remember that what Moses says here is not technically correct. This is after the generation that received the Law at Sinai has died out after wandering in the wilderness for 40 years. This generation, in Deuteronomy 5, is standing on the banks of the Jordan, looking into the promised land, getting ready to take possession of their inheritance.
Moses thus makes the Law, particularly these 10 words, contemporary for the people of Israel. This covenant with the LORD is not a covenant with their ancestors, it is with them. It is to be written into their lives, into their hearts now and especially when they move into the land.
There are, of course, a lot of laws given to Israel in this covenant. Many of the laws that you find in, say, Leviticus, are specific to Israel—that is, to the Israel that received them. They’re culturally and chronologically specific. Oh, we can find ways to apply them, but it takes a bit of an interpretive dance.
But these in Deuteronomy 5 (and Exodus 20, previously) are very different. The laws that you find in Leviticus are generally “casuistic,” or case-law. They’re marked by “if… then” statements. “If your goat gets loose and eats your neighbor’s grain, then you have to make this much in compensation,” and the like.
The “case law” of the Old Testament reveals God’s mercy in its own way. They are God’s “condescension” to humanity, his entry into the everyday life of an immature, time- and culture-bound people. They change things, of course, they’re meant to draw Israel more toward God’s character, but they are (being case law) necessarily particular to 12th century BC Israel.
But the 10 words are what is called “apodictic” law. They are Divine writ, not dependent on a particular human situation, and are simply commands: “You shall not…” or “You Shall….” These laws just are. And they are, at heart, a merciful gift to humans, because they provide the framework for human flourishing.
Before going further, I want to pause for a moment, at the beginning of this discussion, and note something very important: the giving of the Law comes after the Lord rescues Israel from Egypt.
Note the beginning of the first Word: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the Land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” God has already acted, decisively, to rescue Israel from bondage. What, then, is the point of this Law, of these 10 words? Are they so that Israel “can be saved”? No, at this point, Israel has been saved, rescued in the great Exodus from the tyrannical rule of Egypt.
No, the 10 words, and indeed the whole Law is an invite into life with God; they were not meant to “save,” they are a way to draw near and experience life with God, to know God’s character and to participate in it, and thus to live a flourishing human life.
And the writers of the Old Testament knew this. They understood this. Contemporary Christians like to find ourselves liberated from the Law (as indeed, in some ways we are) because the Law is stifling, limiting of freedom, unable to extend grace.
But the Old Testament doesn’t understand it this way at all (nor, I think, did Paul). Think about when you read about the “Law” in the Psalms, the three great “Torah” Psalms—Psalm 1, 19, and 119. The Law—when properly understood not as a means to salvation but as a guide to the “good life”—is liberating! It provides orientation to the world, it gives insight into the structure of creation, and it makes life possible.
The Psalmist rejoices in the Law as the mercy of God:
“Let your mercy come to me, that I may live; for your law is my delight” (Psalm 119:77).
I think this is the opposite of how we often think. Though we might not say it out loud (or even admit it), I think contemporary Christians often believe God’s Law is limiting, maybe even arbitrary, as if it was just given to Israel to keep them from really enjoying life. We have a thoroughly negative view of Law.
We hear the Lord in Deuteronomy 5:29, “Oh that they had such a heart as this always, to fear me and to keep all my commandments, that it might go well with them and with their descendants forever!” and we think, basically, something along the lines of “Oh that they would keep my commandments so that I don’t punish them.”
But—especially when it comes to the 10 words—this is exactly backward. The 10 words are woven into the fabric of creation, because the character they present is God’s himself. He is holy, perfect, beautiful, and the Law provides a way for Israel to enter into a real relationship with the One True God. It is an incredible act of mercy for the Lord to give Israel this law.
And this is what Jesus is getting at in his great Sermon on the Mount. The Law, as revealed to Israel, forms the framework that makes the Sermon on the Mount life possible!
Think about driving. I can’t remember half of the things on the written driving exam. That doesn’t mean I go around breaking the law, but I’ve moved beyond having to memorize the statute. I can apply it in my moment to moment driving. If someone’s been driving for a while the material on the written exam just provides the framework for really driving.
This is what Jesus is getting at in the Sermon on the Mount. The Sermon on the Mount life is the life that has internalized the 10 words, made them a part of itself, and has moved beyond the letter of it toward the spirit of it. That doesn’t do away with the Law. It makes it fully integrated into the person you are. It fulfills it.
We could use some law today. We are a rebellious people, born in rebellion and culturally bent toward antinomianism. It’s even enshrined at the heart of our constitutional rulings.
In his written statement for the ruling in Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992, Justice Anthony Kennedy famously wrote “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.”
I don’t think there’s a better phrase to sum up the American ethos. But consider the statement in detail. At the heart of liberty—of freedom—is the right to define (and presumably live by) one’s own (presumably over against the community to which one belongs) concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and so on.
It sounds great, and I know a lot of people who cheer at it. But if you think about it for any length of time, it’s incredibly chilling. The only reason it doesn’t scare us to death is because no one—not even Kennedy—really believes it.
No one believes a serial killer, for instance, has the right to define over and against the society of which he is a part the “concept of … meaning.”
No one believes an aeronautical engineer (on whose design we fly back and forth) has the right to define his or her own concept of the universe.
No, what Kennedy had in mind, of course, was a very specific sphere of human existence, of human morality (and especially sexual morality). And the chaos that that particular antinomianism has wrought (and is wreaking) upon our society is in evidence everywhere, from shattered and aborted lives to broken homes to an epidemic of fatherlessness.
But the Law, God’s 10 words, are a great and merciful thing, because they reveal to us the way the world is made, the very character of God himself, and they invite us into his life.
Christ-followers want to walk with God, to experience him and draw near to him; in this sense, the law is alive and well. The Pharisaic tendency to make the Law into an instrument of salvation ruins it; God rescues from Egypt. But if you want to draw near to God, hear his law and find it written on your heart.
If you want to live a life without regret, if you want to be able to drive on the highway of life and really enjoy it, no matter what comes your way, then you want to internalize these words and make them a part of who you are. When we do that, then real human flourishing, real human community, real human liberty, is available to us.
In his book, Up with Authority: Why We Need Authority to Flourish as Human Beings Victor Lee Austin sees American (Western) antinomianism as utterly destructive of human community, because the lack of structure makes community impossible.
He has a great analogy that, I think, is helpful here. Austin has his reader imagine a symphony. A single musician playing an instrument can be a beautiful thing, of course. But the coming together of 50 or 60 musicians, with all of the various instruments, can reach heights of beauty that are almost unimaginable. But they must all be subject to the rules, and to the conductor. They can improvise, like jazz, but even that is within a framework. It’s the basic framework that makes the playing possible.
And God has revealed, in his great mercy, the rules that can make a beautiful, symphony-like life possible.
