The “alleylon” (one another) passages in the New Testament, Part 5c:

Bear each others’ burdens, and so you will fulfill the law of Christ (Gal. 6:2)

So for the last couple of weeks we’ve been peering into the meaning of this verse in Paul’s letter to the Galatians, attempting to understand what all this carrying of burdens is about. So much of what we find is familiar: humility, dependence on the Spirit’s power, receiving before we give, and giving in turn through our faith and trust in Jesus. That should hold us for a while, except that we can’t ignore the second half of the saying, which states the consequence and probably the goal of carrying out the exhortation to serve: to fulfill the law of Christ.

To fulfill the law of Christ. I love how the Old Testament is chock full of grace and how the New Testament never leaves us without law. God’s word is such a magnificent, perfect unity that defies easy categorization and takes us out of any complacency about how it wants to work to transform our lives as we encounter it. In the Scriptures the Lord reveals himself as the great and consummate dialectician, never allowing us to pick and choose one truth or another at the expense of its balancing principle. So it is with grace and law. There is never one without the other, and to deny one is to denigrate the other.

Next week I’ll take some time to raise some of the law/grace issues. For now, what about the law of Christ? What does law mean in the first place? We think about the law of the road: Speed limit is 55, so don’t go too fast. But how much faster can we go? Will the police let us get away with 60 or the flow of traffic? Then there are things like the law of the sea: What makes for national or international waters? Am I safe 1 mile, 10 miles, 20 miles into your territory? And there are property laws, employment laws (can I fire you because you or your politics irritate me), contract laws …

Humans approach every kind of law with different philosophies and varying reactions. We have a friend who will never exceed any speed limit, and others for whom every traffic sign is, at best, a mere suggestion. I trained with fellow-attorneys who saw facts and truth to be extremely flexible and one or two who couldn’t lie if you offered to make them senior partner for doing so. And I’m sure you know some old sea dog who could never imagine breaching that imaginary line 24 miles from the Russian coast.

The same thinking attends our view of biblical precepts. We hear the commandments, the exhortations, the sayings, and there are immediate questions. Two tables of the law lead a young man to explore the ultimate existential issue: What must I do to be saved? The call to forgiveness elicits the need for an equation: how often should I pardon my brother – 7 times? A parable about saving a foreigner lying in the ditch is the occasion for seeking the limits of helping: Who is my neighbor? The questions are always one of two types: How much (or little) to I need to do to be OK? How badly do I have to fall short to not be OK? Give me a number, a measurement, a standard to attain and everything will be just fine.

And every time someone (i.e. you or I) tests Jesus with a request for legal quantification he turns the whole thing on its head. What must I do to be saved? Destroy your idols and become a disciple. How often should I forgive? 70 times 7 (which, in scriptural terms, means an indefinite and number, not 490). Who is my neighbor? Wrong question altogether; go out and be a neighbor rather than trying to figure out who fits the category. This is the consistent theme in Jesus’ response to anything resembling, “What’s going to be on the test?” appeal.

Why is Jesus so intent on avoiding a functional, on the grid requirement? Because the law of Christ is the law of love, and to love there is no limit. We are talking here about the one who is full of grace and truth, the one who is the Father’s best gift offered not to God’s friends, but to his enemies. The law of Christ is not the law of duty or of the final exam or the measurable standard. It is what James 1:25 calls the law of liberty. It is God’s word, written on our hearts by the Spirit of adoption who gives us the freedom of the children of God. The law of Christ is a carte blanche of grace, whereby we are free to do all the good that his Spirit so inspires.

The more we have of Jesus, of his Spirit, of his presence, of his love the more and more free we become to fulfill the law of Christ. Instead of asking how much should or must I do to which or what people should I do it to, I can ask the Father for more of himself and for a greater spiritual capacity to experience, be filled with, and then give away his life. By focussing on the Lord himself rather than doing things to give us an “in” with God, we end up actually being far more fruitful than we ever would be by trying to clear some invisible high-jump bar.

This is what Jesus means by a righteousness deeper than that of the Scribes and Pharisees. It is important to remember that he is talking about the “best” among God’s people at the time, men who had spent their professional lives crafting interpretations of the Law and even adding their own ancillary rules in order to help the Jewish people know that they had carried out everything that the Lord demanded of them. The unfortunate consequences of Pharisaic righteousness are, as Paul points out, fatal. By following their lead, I judge you according to my own determination of where you have fallen short, and by them I come under judgment wherever I have fallen short. Somehow this doesn’t sound like the law of Christ, the law of liberty.

Christ’s righteousness is one that manifests itself from a transformed heart that is fed by grace. It is a heart that recognizes that we will never measure up to the character of an infinitely perfect and good God. The thing about grace is that it is not always – in fact is probably not often – some kind of miraculous moment of change in our lives. My experience is more that the working of grace is a slow washing and wearing of our hearts and minds that breaks down their stony hardness so that we increasingly match and demonstrate the work of salvation that Jesus has brought us into through the cross. His death and resurrection establish for us a hope and a destiny that only he can bring us to, step by step, yielding to him every day as we hear his invitation to take from him the food that we need for his call.

And as we go and grow along, we more fully discover and  the truth of and resonate with the little formulas that Jesus does reveal in the Gospels. But they are strange formulas, indeed, all based on faith – on a gift from God that creates in us the same trust that he has in himself. And how do we “get” faith? By confessing that we don’t have it and that we need it, and then asking for it (Lord, I believe, help my unbelief). And how much faith do we need? Jesus says, not much – just a mustard seed’s worth will do to accomplish remarkable things. And how willing is he to answer us when we ask? Jesus says that it is the Father’s great pleasure to give us the kingdom, the Holy Spirit, and every good and perfect blessing.

Why is God this way? Because he is the one who first fulfilled the law of Christ, the law of love, by bearing our burdens. And he did that so we could have enough of his love to carry each other and, most incredibly, keep the law of Christ – AND, perhaps even more amazingly complete and bring the Father’s love to the attention of the world. Lord Jesus, work the desire and the accomplishment in us and through us!

Maybe we will even hear the testimony about the early church repeated in our day, “See how they love each other.”