Don't Punch Your Waiter In the Gut

For quite awhile now, I’ve been really skirting around Paul’s writings, much of which offer as much confusion as clarification for me. That said, I’ve been doing some thinking on Romans 7 & 8 lately and may have started to make some connections in my head with what he’s talking about.

Us westerners tend to think more in line with Greek philosophy. But the problem is that the Bible is written mainly with a Hebraic way of thinking. By way of example, westerners tend to describe things in lists and charts. We like bullet points, power points, and for our speakers to be on point. Hebrews, however, will tend more towards concrete examples or metaphors to describe concepts.

The more important distinction for our discussion is how they think of eternal life. Greeks tend to see eternal life as something apart from this physical world that begins after you die. For Hebrews, however, eternal life is much more something that begins here on earth through living a life according to God’s rhythm and purpose.

This is why Jesus can say, in John 17:3, “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” Notice He doesn’t say that eternal life is going to heaven after you die. For a Greek thinker Jesus’ definition doesn’t make much sense, but it fits right in line with how Hebrews think of eternal life. This is also why, when asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus responds “What is written in the Law?” (Luke 10:26). Jesus wasn’t trying to be cute or clever here. It’s just that he was speaking from a Hebraic viewpoint.

So this is why the law isn’t a bad thing but rather a good thing; because eternal life is so closely connected to following God’s law. God gave us laws because he loves us and wants us to live life “to the full” (John 10:10). If we weren’t given the law (both in written word and in conscience), we wouldn’t know right from wrong and we’d never be able to experience that ‘eternal life’ here on earth except by random chance. We might tip our waiter for the good service, but then again we’d be just as likely to punch him in the gut.

I think it’s important to realize at this point that Paul uses the word “law” to mean different things. We should be careful not to assume not to, whenever we read that word, assume Paul is not talking specifically about the 613 commands in the Old Testament. For example, in Romans 7 & 8 the word “law” might better be understood as “controlling power.” So, for example, in Romans 8:2 Paul says “through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.” If you replace the word “law” there with “Torah” (first 5 books of the Bible) it doesn’t make much sense. But if you replace it with “controlling power” it all falls together.

So, anyway, it’s better to have the law than to not have it. But having the law isn’t as good as it could be due to our sinful nature. Once we were given the law, that gave our sinful nature something to rebel against (see Romans 7:8). And so we’re stuck with the problem of knowing what the right thing to do is but, paradoxically, not wanting to do it (see Romans 7:19).

So how does Christ fit into this then? It seems to me that what He did was take away from the equation the condemnation for disobedience. This doesn’t affect the law per se but what it does is weakens our sinful nature in that it no longer has the motivation to rebel simply for rebelling sake (see Romans 8:1-2). It’s the difference between driving a car while your under age (exciting and dangerous) and driving after you’ve gotten your license (neither exciting nor dangerous).

OK, so for all of my Greek friends out there, here’s a list…

1. God gave us laws that we might have eternal life
2. Sin sprung up and began rebelling within us giving rise to condemnation rather than life
3. Jesus takes away the condemnation weakening sins power
4. Now we have a law (that is a “controlling power”) that offers life rather than death