Rules? What rules?

It really is very simple.  So why do we Christians complicate things so much?

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 when we have gone wrong. But there are problems with living by rules. The first is that we cannot keep all the rules we set for ourselves, let alone those imposed by others. So we re-shape the rules to suit ourselves while often holding other people to an unbending standard. 

The second problem is that, if we manage to keep some rules, we end up looking down on other people who don’t. Of course we are still rule-breakers ourselves but others’ offenses are always much, much worse than ours... 

The big story of the Old Testament of the bible is about people messing-up and then trying to live by rules. Now don’t get me wrong – rules can be better and kinder than everyone doing what suits them without regard to others. But for me 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. More and more layers of complexity, failure, guilt and judging others. Which leaves humankind in a bit of a pickle.

Here’s the simple bit. 

God loves all the things he has created. 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 choose to allow him to re-code our spiritual DNA to accept it, then we are set free to live by the spirit (the underlying intention) of the rules, which living by the letter of the rules could never bring about. 

Good, isn’t it?! That’s why the story of Jesus is called ‘gospel’ (literally, good news).

Except that so many churches and Christians still want the rules. 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, or at least the ones they can keep.

Sadly, it gets worse.  People who want to keep the rules then 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 – arguably Britain’s foremost evangelical biblical theologian of the 20^th 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)."

While the laws of the bible will always be there, their purpose now is to remind us how powerless they are to help humankind. Written rules and their demands upon us were nailed to the cross of Christ and are now dead. They have been fulfilled already by Jesus. We have been given all that is necessary to live lives of love for God, others and ourselves.

I just don’t understand why this mainstream Christian theology is so rarely taught in churches.

Those who place their trust in Christ must no longer place their trust in written rules. All the rules of the Old Testament were for then, not now. The 10 Commandments are no longer to followed slavishly. None of the teachings of the New Testament are to become a new legal code. Instead, we are 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.

Which means that 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. That’s just laziness. 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.

We humans often do not handle freedom well. But the solution to that is not to trade it in for slavery to rules once again.