Don't read this if you are a Christian who thinks the bible is a rule book (it will just irritate you)

Paul's Letter to the Colossians 1:24 - 2:23

Picture in your mind the kind of crucifix which you tend to find in a Roman Catholic Church.  Unlike the empty crosses of Protestant churches, on this crucifix you see an image of Christ dying. We read in John 19 that above his head is nailed a note bearing the words “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews” - the mocking statement of Pontius Pilate.

In the letter to the church at Colossae, chapter 2 and verse 14, Paul consciously borrows an image from those who witnessed the crucifixion of Christ on the cross: a piece of paper nailed to it. And what is on that piece of paper in Paul’s image? 

Well, if you were in 95 out of 100 churches looking at this passage, the preacher would say that nailed to the cross of Christ is the ‘IOU note’ that each of us owes to God. This is what we ‘owe’ God for our failure to live up to the standards of God’s perfection; the way in which we consistently miss the mark even when we try our hardest, let alone when we choose wilfully to go our own way. Others would say it is the 'charge sheet' against us.

And who could argue that human beings live messed-up lives? We act selfishly, hurt others and hurt ourselves.  One way to correct that is to try to live by some rules. Rules give us boundaries. With rules, we know exactly where we stand. But there are problems with living by rules. One is that we cannot keep all the rules we set for ourselves.  Another problem is that, if we manage to keep some rules, we end up looking down on other people who don’t.  

The big story of the Old Testament of the bible is about God’s persistent love for people who mess-up as they try to live by a set of rules. We call those rules The Law.

Now don’t get me wrong – rules can be better and kinder than everyone doing what suits them without regard to others. But the big lesson of the Old Testament is that living by rules - the 10 Commandments, as well as the hundreds of other regulations - simply doesn’t work, which leaves humankind in a bit of a pickle. 

Now the good news is that God loves all creation. He loves us. He understands our human tendency to mess up. He knows we cannot successfully live by rules. So he chose to fulfil all the rules for us, on our behalf. If we believe that, and allow him to re-code our spiritual DNA to accept it, then we are set free to live by the Spirit (that is, the underlying intention) of the rules, which living by the letter of the rules could never bring about. This point is really important to grasp. 

And that’s why the story of Jesus is called ‘good news’. Except that so many churches and Christians still want the rules as well. OK, so they no longer want to stone to death people who wear polycotton underwear or who enjoy a prawn sandwich.  No, the so-called ‘ceremonial’ laws of the Old Testament, they say, were for then not now. And I agree. But they still want the certainty of the moral laws. 

It gets worse.  People who want to keep the rules turn New Testament writings into a new set of rules which they think Christians are obliged to keep. So, for example, they say women are not to teach men. Or that church leadership must be male.

Professor F F Bruce – a major British evangelical biblical theologian of the 20th century - wrote this:  "I think Paul would roll over in his grave if he knew we were turning his letters into Torah” (that is, biblical laws that we must obey).

At this point people often remind us that Jesus said that not one little bit of the Law would disappear. But what He meant was that, while the laws of the bible will always be there, their purpose now is to remind us how utterly powerless they are to help humankind out of its cycle of sin and death. 

So I come back to the question that I asked a little bit earlier.  What is this “written code with its regulations that was against us and stood opposed to us” that is nailed to the cross with Jesus?  If you take the clear sense of this passage in Colossians and you add to that Paul’s passionate arguments in Galatians.  If you take his arguments in Romans for which Galatians is one rough draft, you have to say that nailed to the cross of Christ are the Old Testament laws in their entirety.

Written rules of the OT and their demands upon us were nailed to the cross of Christ and are now dead. They have been fulfilled by Jesus. In the Spirit of God, we have been given all that is necessary to live lives of love for God, others and ourselves.

Pause for a moment just to let that sink in.

My friends we are way out of the comfort zone of most preachers and churches.  Their cry, often heard, is this:  “Why don’t we just get back to the 10 Commandments?” 

Dr Martyn Lloyd Jones – the great British Bible expositor of the 20^th century – said this:  “If the gospel we preach is not accused of antinomianism (that is, being against Old Testament Law), it is probably because we haven’t really preached the gospel!”

Those who place their trust in Christ must no longer place their trust in the bible's rules. All the rules of the Old Testament were for then, not now. The 10 Commandments are no longer to be followed slavishly. Christians are not blindly to obey the OT principle of tithing – that was for then, not for now. None of the teachings of the New Testament are to become a new legal code. Instead, we are called to live in breathtaking freedom to live rightful lives, guided by God’s Spirit. In the words of Jesus, our rightful living must exceed that of the Pharisees, who were noted for trying to keep all the bible's rules.

Paul builds on this teaching in Romans chapter 8 where he says: "Now there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, because the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death. For (he says) what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering." And again, writing to the church in Corinth, what does he say? "The letter of the law kills, but the spirit gives life."

Now I wonder if I have even slightly communicated to you how world-changing this is?  What does it mean in practice?

Well Paul offers the young Christians in this passage some examples. Do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink or whether you keep particular festivals or whether you keep the Sabbath. The 4^th commandment given to Moses was “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy!” And Paul here is telling these new Christians that whether you do or don’t is for you and God to sort out between you: either position, taken with integrity, is a matter of good conscience and we are not to judge those who take a different stance to ours.  

If you think that might be a mistake, check out Romans 14: 5 onwards: “One man considers one day more sacred than another. Another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. So whatever you believe about these things, keep between yourself and God.”  In other words, the liberty of conscience that is so basic to being a Baptist Christian.

One of the reasons why many preachers cannot bring themselves to say that the Old Testament law in its entirety is nailed to the cross of Christ (in other words that Christ fulfilled all of the requirements of the law on our behalf) is that they fear that it will lead to licence – that is, everyone doing exactly what they want without proper regard to God’s ways.  But the truth of the matter is that if we belong to Jesus Christ - if we have his spirit at work in us – that same Spirit by whose mighty power Christ was raised from the dead – then he is re-coding our spiritual DNA so that we become like Him.  Sure, we will still sin; we mess up again and again. But the solution to that is to live within the freedom that Christ offers us from the law of sin and death – repeatedly going over the same ground – and live within the spirit of freedom where we become sold on living the Jesus way. Which is what the rest of Colossians is about. 

So what difference would it make to you to know today that the Bible teaches that we Christians are no longer to treat the Bible as a rule book? 

Well, when we are reading the many great stories of God’s enduring love for people to be found in the bible, we must not automatically import the solutions chosen by people then into the life we are called to face now. We are to live a life that is much more exciting and fulfilling than that! We have the Spirit of God and are called to work out our own salvation, with the nervous trembling that comes from having to discern here and now what it means to live as followers of Christ. We may not always agree but that's fine if we disagree lovingly.

Should you tithe? Well only you can decide what you should give and what you should withhold for your daily needs.  What you can’t now say with integrity is “I have to tithe because the bible says we must.” 

Do you keep Sunday special? That’s a matter for you and your conscience. Whatever you decide, be at peace about it. For Jesus died so that we should be free from sin and from living by rules, to having the fully human experience of working it all out with Him. 

Of course we have still stayed on very safe ground. But what if the same principle applied to aspects of sexuality? Well of course it can’t possibly, because the bible absolutely forbids homosexual practice, doesn’t it?  Yes indeed, except that all those regulations are now nailed to the cross of Christ.     

Well don’t look at me for 'official' answers on that one (or any other topic!). That’s your job: to listen to the Spirit, read how Christians have responded to the issue in the past, then go where your conscience takes you. 

This is all a bit scary but exciting. If you want plenty of rules to live by I’m sure your local mosque would welcome you with open arms. But if you seek to be a disciple of Jesus, the chains are now off.  Let’s take a deep breath, listen to the Spirit who is at work in us and begin to live in freedom.