God’s Law Is for Love, Not Self-Improvement
A Christian is compelled to do good works not so she might earn God’s favor but in response to receiving God’s favor as a divine gift. She puts that love on display by loving God and neighbor. Despite our inability to keep it, God’s law remains a perfect blueprint for loving God and neighbor. When we fall short, as we undoubtedly will, we can run back to Christ (instead of running from him in fear).
In recent years, it’s become commonplace for employers to put underperforming employees on a performance improvement plan (PIP). Though they’re often interpreted by the employee as a sign that termination is inevitable, PIPs crystallize job expectations and highlight the ways a worker is falling short. This covers the employer in the event of termination, and it removes cause for accusation on the employee’s part.
I thought about this modern practice when I read Old Testament scholar Stephen Dempster’s observation about God’s law in his book Dominion and Dynasty: “Israel is treated differently after [receiving the Ten Commandments at] Sinai. Pre-Sinai violations lead to reprimand; post-Sinai trespass[es] lead to death.”
Dempster wouldn’t call the law a PIP, but he observes one sense in which it functions similarly: it clearly reveals where Israel has fallen short of God’s standard. It shows them where they haven’t lived up to the performance God requires. But we’re in trouble if that’s our entire perspective on God’s law. When we look at the text, we find a bigger picture.
Our Poor Performance
God’s law is a perfect blueprint for human flourishing (Ps. 19:7). In this sense, God’s law is an encouragement to greater obedience. But it also reveals a massive problem: we can’t keep it.
Before they received the law, the Israelites grumbled and complained (Ex. 16). After the commandments were given, that attitude didn’t improve. What did change, however, was the severity of God’s response. God punished them with death (Num. 14).
What’s going on here? Did God suddenly become stricter? God’s people’s performance before the law wasn’t any more stellar than it was after they received it. What changed? Before Sinai, God’s expectations hadn’t yet been written in stone. But after the people received their PIP, after expectations were clear, they tragically believed they possessed the inner strength to obey God’s demands (Ex. 24:3). So when the grumbling and ingratitude returned, some were literally terminated.
In Romans, Paul helps us understand:
If it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. . . . I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. (Rom. 7:7, 9–11)
Like Paul’s, the Israelites’ sin lay dormant. But after the law was given and God’s metric was made clear, it was also clear how abysmal their performance was. The result was death.
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Why Should I Go to Church?
When you come to church, you receive blessings from the Lord that you cannot get anywhere else. God has promised that as His church gathers together, He will bless them in a way that is distinct from when they are on their own. Jesus promises that when two or three are gathered in His name, He is in the midst of them (Matt. 18:19–20). The Apostle Paul, speaking of when the outsider comes into worship, says that our prayer should be that he realizes what is always true: “God is really among you” (1 Cor. 14:25). In the book of Revelation, Jesus tells us that He walks among the lampstands, which are His churches (Rev. 2:1).
1. Because the Bible commands it.
The first answer to that question is the most simple and basic one: because the Bible tells us to! In Hebrews 10, the writer tells his readers of the great privilege that is theirs. Because of Christ’s work, they—and we—have the awesome privilege to come into the Holy Place. He is referring to the Old Testament, where only the high priest was allowed into the Holy of Holies in God’s temple—and even then only once a year. The mind-boggling truth is that we as believers in Christ can come to the Holy God because of Jesus’ death. The curtain has been torn, and our Great High Priest has opened up the way for us to approach Him.
The writer of Hebrews then gives three applications, all of which begin with “let us.” Note that these are addressed corporately to God’s people:“Let us draw near” (Heb. 10:22). Come and be cleansed by Christ and be forgiven.
“Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering” (Heb. 10:23). Stay strong, don’t give up, keep believing this message of hope.
“Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works” (Heb. 10:24). You do not and cannot live the Christian life on your own. In your coming to church, be other-person centered.The author then issues the command: “Not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near” (Heb. 10:25).
The writer to the Hebrews places our going to church in the context of living out the Christian life—it is simply what Christians do. We go to church because it is for our own good and the good of others. Meeting together is how we keep pressing on as Christians in a world that can easily cause us to lose hope. The danger for the Hebrews and for us is that we neglect identifying with and participating in the body of Christ. It was unthinkable in the New Testament for a Christian not to go to church.
2. Because we are created to worship God.
There is, however, a deeper reason that we should go to church than just that the Bible commands us to. We go to church because of the nature of who God is. He is worthy of our worship and our adoration. The reason we exist is “to glorify and enjoy Him.” God is our Creator, Sustainer, and Redeemer.
In the words of the Westminster Shorter Catechism, God is “infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth” (Q&A 4). Those who have been brought into a relationship with this God cannot but want to gather with others to praise Him. We were made to worship Him.
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Promise: God Will Give You Strength
We all are already in the process of making our deathbeds and soon we will lie in them. Thankfully, God will always carry Christians through the valley of the shadow of death. For Proverbs 18:10 promises, The name of the LORD is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe. And Psalm 18:2 emboldens us, The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God [El], my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower.
It was 8 a.m. on a Saturday in Southern California while I was settling to watch my four-and-a-half-year-old son play basketball when I received a call from a sister in the Lord, Anne, dying in Minnesota.[1]
We never met, but similar difficult providences had connected us for counsel and we became fast friends. She quickly embraced me and my family with a motherly care that felt like she had been waving with a smile from across our cul-de-sac for decades.
And now, Anne was reaching out for brotherly comfort while lying on her deathbed in hospice. Her speech was slurred, slowing, and sleepy due to medications causing side effects of delusions and anxiety. Not long before, she was only able to reply to my concerned cell phone texts by typing a few empty bubbles.
I was in the midst of studying one of God’s names for a sermon series: El, translated “God,” meaning “The Strong One.” I took Anne to the Lord by this name through prayer and the Word, including Psalm 73:26: My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever. And she testified of being strengthened by her El.
We all are already in the process of making our deathbeds and soon we will lie in them. Thankfully, God will always carry Christians through the valley of the shadow of death. For Proverbs 18:10 promises, The name of the LORD is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe. And Psalm 18:2 emboldens us, The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God [El], my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower.
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No Squishy Love, No Brutal Truth
My fear and concern about so many of today’s debates is that even if we win many battles, we may still lose the war. We may protect truth, but what have we gained if our triumph comes through scorched-earth battles that treat other believers as the enemy and grind them under foot?
Sin has made our vision opaque and our minds dull. We do not see God for who he really is and ourselves for who we really are. We think far too little of God and far too highly of ourselves. On our own we are doomed to look blindly and think badly.
But as our inner nature is renewed by the Word, our vision becomes progressively clearer. Our minds become sharp. We put aside the ugly lies we once believed and embrace the beautiful truths. Thinking well—seeing and understanding the world as it truly is—is a privilege and obligation of every believer.
God’s desire is not merely that we reflect his truth in our conclusions, but that we reflect his character in our deliberations.But the privilege and obligation upon us is not merely to believe the right things. We also need to come to those beliefs in the right way. It’s not enough to arrive at theological conclusions that reflect the mind of God; it’s also important to reach those conclusions in a way that reflects the character of God. God’s desire is not merely that we reflect his truth in our conclusions, but that we reflect his character in our deliberations.
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