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| Mike Hosey, An Elder |
It has been
said that America is a nation of laws.
When this phrase is used, it is almost always used with great reverence,
and often a tinge of patriotic superiority – as if America is special in this
regard. In truth, every civilized nation
is a nation of laws because every nation
is a nation of fallen and sinful people.
In a nation
that is made up of fallen and sinful people, it is good to be a nation of
laws.
Laws help to keep evil people in
check. But it is better to
be a nation of Spirit. You see, laws are external. They are based almost solely on fear of
punishment from an outside force. A law that provides no threat of consequence
is a useless law.
Think about it, how
many people would obey the speed limit if no one could write them a ticket for
which they would have to pay a price? – An even better question is: would
you
obey it? Further, laws are not written for people with a good spirit.
They are written for people who don’t have a
regard for others.
In fact, they are
written for people who don’t have a regard for law at all.
The bank robber doesn’t give one whit about
the laws governing stealing. He only cares about what happens if he gets
caught.
The murderer who kills someone
with a gun in a drug-deal-gone-bad doesn’t give one whit about “Thou Shalt Not
Kill,” nor does he care about narcotics laws, and he certainly doesn’t give
a rat’s eyes that the gun he used is illegal.
All that laws do in these cases is give
society the justification it needs to remove freedom, or life, from such people.
In contrast, people in a nation of Spirit obey laws because they love and
respect their society, not because they fear punishment. I don’t rob a bank
because it’s against the law. The reason I don’t rob it is because I love my fellow citizens,
and I don’t want to take money that they earned and I didn’t.
I don’t murder the people that are an offense
to me, my comfort, or my well-being because it’s against the law.
The reason I don’t murder them is because they bear the
image of God, and for me to murder them would deface that image and displease
the God I love.
.
This is
partly what Paul means when he says that he has been crucified with Christ and no longer lives by the flesh, and
that it is no longer Paul who lives, but Christ who lives in him (Galatians 2:20). This is what he means when he tells us to walk
by the Spirit and not by the flesh (Galatians 5:16). The more a person walks by the spirit, the
less that person needs laws. And the
more people in a nation that walk by the Spirit, the fewer laws that nation needs.
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