The Rule of Law

One thing that many genres of literature throughout the ages have tried to do is describe or prescribe the world as it should be – what are called utopias. Plato’s The Republic and Thomas Moore’s Utopia (the Latin title is much longer) are a couple of examples of this. Others go the opposite direction by trying to warn us about what to avoid. George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World are a couple of examples of what are called dystopias. The latter two stories show how politics and technology can be harnessed to create power for rulers to oppress their peoples in the name of justice and peace.

A story that illustrates how human nature can ruin even the best attempts to create utopia is King Arthur’s story in T.H. White’s The Once and Future King. King Arthur tries to introduce an enlightened concept – the rule of law – to replace the “might makes right” philosophy of justice in Medieval Camelot. Mordred, his illegitimate son, hates Arthur and everything he stands for, so he forms a plan to destroy Arthur.  Arthur’s wife Gwenevere and Lancelot, his most talented knight and best friend, have an affair.

Though aware of the affair, Arthur can’t bring himself to bring charges against them and have them killed. Mordred, on the other hand, ensures that enough legal officials find out to ensure charges are brought forth, forcing Lancelot and Gwevevere to flee. The scandal begins what turns into a virtual civil war that begins the disintegration of Arthur’s kingdom.

Even as enlightened an ideal as the rule of law can be turned on its adherents by an unscrupulous manipulator, who uses Arthur’s hard-won legal system to destroy Arthur’s wife, his best friend and eventually his kingdom. Of course we know that our modern Canadian legal system cannot possibly be used against the very institutions that helped set it up, right? Such as protecting religious freedom and protecting against murder of all Canadians, right?

There is a modern genre that can function along the lines of utopia/dystopia – Science Fiction. For instance, Isaac Azimov’s stories about robots include a safety feature he builds into his intelligent machines: the Three Laws of Robotics. These form what are called in the movie (loosely based on the book by the same title) I, Robot. “the perfect circle of protection.”

Law 1: A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
Law 2: A robot must obey orders given by human beings except where such orders conflict with the first law.
Law 3: A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the first or second law.

One would think that these laws should keep humanity safe from robotic harm or oppression. The must both protect and obey us – it’s hard-wired into them, isn’t it? The film explores the fatal flaw in every law-based system: they form a closed logical loop that inevitably leads to the overthrow of human initiative and freedom to the priesthood of the law-enforcers.

In this case, the robots must overthrow humanity’s self-rule in order to protect human beings from themselves. As it turns out, humans are too violent and corrupt to be allowed to rule themselves, so the robots must take over, even at the cost of a few thousand human lives for the sake of the whole. The robotic logic is irrefutable by the Three Laws. Robots must not allow the majority of human beings to come to harm by inaction… Hmm… How very… human.

I’ll admit that these are works of fiction. They were written, however, by writers with a good grasp of human nature. Because human nature is tainted by sin, no law can prevent evil from happening. Instead, the evil and even the well-meaning can twist the law into something it was not intended to do. For instance, religious freedom – guaranteed by our constitution, becomes toothless in the face of sexual permissiveness – its right to expression denied by those who don’t want immorality to be labeled as such. The fight to protect the right to life of the unborn has been lost to those unwilling to acknowledge that the unborn child is human.

The co-heroes of the movie turn out to be a policeman who doesn’t trust robots and a robot that was designed to be able to ignore the Three Laws. That ability to function outside the Three Laws enables it to act outside of the logic-loop that leads to domination to assist the policeman overcome the “heartless” would-be robotic overlord.

So why am I talking about books and movies?

God gave Israel a law. (Deuteronomy 4:5-7) How important is God’s law?  The reason that the people of Israel have been under Gentile rule over almost all of the last 2500 years is that they did not have the heart to obey God and his law. Deut. 5:29

Today and over all of Christian history most Christians have viewed the Ten Commandments – the foundation of the Law given to Moses – as God’s basic law for Christians (as amplified by Jesus Christ). From news reports about church scandals and statistics about crime and divorce it would seem that the law is still as difficult to obey today. I’m sure that that has been preached from this pulpit before.

In Jesus’ day, however, the law was being used for something else: hypocritical condemnation by the religious elite of those who would not obey overly stringent rules intended to regulate observance of God’s law. They wanted Israel to become a totalitarian state ruled by their rules and strong enough to overthrow the Roman Empire in the name of God. We have now moved from fiction to history.

(Even the Romans had their own law, and they were very proud of it! It made them so much more civilized than the barbarian cultures they conquered. Of course, that law meant nothing when it came to the torture and murder of a young rabbi named Jesus. There always seems to be a point at which the end justifies the means.)

So what do we do about God’s law? It seems very difficult to obey it. Even when we think we are, we want to use that as a pedestal from which to put down others who don’t seem as righteous as we are. Like Mordred, we use the law against others – in ways God did not intend. Without the right heart we are trapped.

Even worse – the law itself doesn’t bring eternal life. That blessing only comes to those who keep it perfectly. Of course, the Apostle Paul notes that “all have sinned and have fall short of the glory of God.” (Rom. 3:23) He also notes that the wages of sin is death…” (Rom. 6:23)

Like the story about robots and the 3 laws, God’s law has an inevitable outcome. What we need is a hero who is able to function beyond the confines of the Law in order to save us from that outcome.

Oh, right… We have one: Jesus Christ. God, who is also man.

When Jesus was on earth, he used the law to instruct rather than to judge. He also called Himself the Lord of the sabbath (just like He is Lord over everything else). He is the Lord of the Law, not its servant. We are servants of Jesus Christ, not of the mere Law, which also serves Him. Only Jesus Christ can tell us how to properly use the law. That is what He means when He tells us that the sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath. It is not the ruler of a servant of Jesus Christ – only Jesus is!

Law was not designed to rule over humanity. It was designed, by God, to be instruction in wisdom. Deuteronomy 4:5-7 shows the essential element to keeping God’s law wisely: the presence – the closeness – of God!

Ezek. 11:19 prophesies about replacing humanity’s heart of stone with a heart of flesh. Jer. 31:33 predicts that God’s law will be written in minds and on hearts. Acts 2:38 shows how to receive that kind of heart to obey God’s law: repent, be baptized in Jesus and receive the Holy Spirit. Col 1:27 has the Apostle Paul revealing the mystery of God to the Gentiles: “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

The Kingdom of God is not defined by the rule of law, but rather the rule of Christ. Let us not be confused and place the created above the Creator. Jesus is the Lawgiver, but the law was given by Him – not placed over Him. He has the right to tell us what to do with it.

If we are not following it to show wisdom in the presence of God, what are we following it for?

Without His presence and inspiration, the Law is useless to us. All it does, on its own, is lock us in a logic loop that leads to biting at one another or becoming hopeless as we struggle to live holy lives without the heart to do just that.

Jesus provides that heart. By the Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit.