Perfection vs. Imperfection Page 3: The Law

In our last discussion we talked about how it only make sense that God must be a loving God and that He must love us even more than we love our own children. If He is able to find any redeeming quality wouldn’t He do anything He could to prevent the destruction of His work that He has very lovingly made? Especially if we are considered by Him to be His children, wouldn’t He save us from destruction if He could?

The answer is without a doubt, "Yes!" God will do whatsoever he can to save every single person that has ever existed on this Earth. But with this statement now come the questions, "Does God save everyone from destruction? If not, why doesn’t He save us all? Why doesn’t He, who loves us so perfectly, just whisk us all out of this messed up world and save us from our own imperfections? Surely there must be a perfectly good reason for leaving us here. Surely there must be a perfectly good reason why God can’t save everyone. After all, we have already established that if He could save everyone He would. Therefore, if He does not save everyone then it must mean that He can’t for some reason. What is that reason? How is it that a perfect God can’t do something?"

To say that God can’t do something is to imply that God is not all powerful. At least this is the common thought, and it has often mystified people throughout the history of mankind. There was once a question when I was young where people would ask, "If God is all powerful, ominipotent, can He create a boulder that is too heavy for Him to lift? If nothing is impossible with God then how could it be that God can create a boulder that He cannot lift? On the other hand, how can He not create a boulder that He cannot lift? Either way, He would not be omnipotent because there is something He cannot do."

Oh the folly of mankind! What silly questions we ask and statements that we make. Of course God is omnipotent and can do all things. He is perfect, as we established. Can God create a boulder that He cannot lift? The answer is that God could create a boulder that He could not lift IF God chose to limit His strength in some way for a temporary period of time. You see, impossibilities and possibilities are all based on limits. We say something is impossible because we have set a natural limit on something. Everything within that limit is possible. Everything outside the limit is impossible. So if God wants to create a boulder that He cannot lift He would limit Himself and create a boulder that is outside that limit. However, being an invincible God He could just as easily shatter that limit and then lift the boulder. Since He is the rule maker He has every right to break that law and destroy it.

Thus, it is clear that the only way that God can’t do something is if He sets a limit for Himself and agrees to abide by that limit. This, then, is the beginnings of The Law, or God’s Law. Understanding the concept about God’s Law is the beginnings of understanding why we need Jesus. God has set limits throughout all of the universe on everything He has created and has even set limits on Himself. Yes, God even limits Himself.

What? God has limits? How can an all powerful God have limits? Well, He can have limits and still be all powerful if He is the one who sets the limits. Why does He have limits? He has limits because all things that have definition have limits. In order to exist at all you must have some sort of defined limits.

For example, we have established that the number line can go on eternally in both directions. It is eternal and infinite. However, in order to have a number line at all you must first define the numbers on the number line and define what order these numbers are in. In other words, the number line is defined by laws such as 0 is the number you start on. 1 comes after and is before 2. 2 comes after 1 and is before 3. You continue this until you reach 9. Then you define the transition from 9 to 10 by creating a law that says "When you reach 9 you will start all over again and add another digit to the number starting at 1. You will repeat the same pattern over and over again increasing the second digit every time you reach 9 with the first digit until you get to 9 on the second digit. Then you will start all over again with both the first and second digit and add another digit…" and so on and so forth.

By setting these rules you set limits on the number line. Can 1 come between 4 and 5? No. It can’t because the rule says it comes between 0 and 2. Now if you change the rule then you could have 1 between 4 and 5. However, you’d have to change the rule to do that. This would then redefine the number line and change its very characteristics.

So God has created laws to govern all things, including Himself. He has laws that dictate whether He is loving, merciful, kind, generous, considerate, patient, enduring, etc. or whether He is vengeful, wrathful, destructive, mean, angry, bitter and vicious. Not only does He have laws to dictate these things but laws to measure the amount of these things that He has. All things, in fact, have such laws governing them. You and I, in fact, are made up of nothing more than rules and laws which govern every particle of our beings.

So God is only limited by laws He has made for Himself. This being the case, The Law is defined as a series of rules and definitions that make up the very morale character of God. God has created a morale Law that defines what He thinks is right and good. He has created a Law that He has determined is perfect. In other words, The Law is a series of rules and definitions that every being should follow if they want to interact perfectly with one another in a way that does not bring war or death or illness or disease or strife or conflict or anger or bitterness or hatred. If a person follows God’s Perfect Morale Law then they will never have social, physical or mental issues ever again.

Why do we know that God’s Law defines Him? We know that God’s Law defines Him because a person does not create a law that he is not planning on obeying himself. He does not create a law that he thinks is not good or right. A man creates a law because he plans on abiding by it and he thinks it is right. I speak, of course, in general. There are hypocrites, of course, who say, "Do as I say and not as I do" who make laws for others because they think they are good, but they do not wish to burden themselves with these good laws. Now, lest we be overly judgmental to hypocrites, we are all people who technically know what is right and wrong, and how often do we all do what is not good, even in our own opinions. In other words, we are all really hypocrites if we tell others, do not lie and lying is wrong but we then lie anyway. Nevertheless, the true sign of what Jesus referred to as a hypocrite and those who are not is that hypocrites say, "Do not do this thing" and then they do it without remorse themselves. Meanwhile, the non-hypocrite is the person who says, "Do not do this thing" and when they do it themselves they apologize and admit that they have done wrong.

Overall, however, a man makes a law because he fully expects he is going to abide by it himself. A parent will make a rule for his family saying, "Do not lie. Lying is wrong." Then he usually tries to avoid lying himself. He thinks it is wrong and he tries to make sure he doesn’t do it because he values the truth both in himself and in his kids. He would not make a rule for his family, "Lying is good" when he thinks that lying is bad. Only what the man thinks is good will he make a rule for.

So we know that whatever The Law says defines who God is. It defines His personality. Since God is perfect He can perfectly follow His own Law. He will not veer to the right or to the left. This means that God chooses to limit Himself by the Law He has created for Himself. This being the case, if God says, "I cannot lie. I only speak the truth." God is now limited. He must not ever lie. He must always tell the truth. He can’t lie. He just can’t. The only way He could is if He redefines Himself to say, "God can lie under certain circumstances."

Ah, but what a strange conundrum we’d be in if God created that kind of rule about Himself. If God defined Himself as being able to lie, even if He was able to lie even under one certain type of circumstance, could God ever be trusted even with His own laws? How would you know that "God can lie under certain circumstances" is true? Maybe He’s lying when He makes that law! Would you ever really be able to trust any law that He makes if He could even lie at all?

No. It is just like saying that you can trust what the Bible says. However, some things in the Bible are not 100% true. You cannot say, "I trust the Bible" but say "The Bible has errors in it". If you believe the Bible has errors then you are admitting that the Bible is not trustworthy. If it is not trustworthy then how can you believe anything it says? How do you know that if it says "thou shalt not bear false witness" that this is truly God’s Law? What if that is a lie? What if God really doesn’t care if you bear false witness? How would you really know? You could not trust the Bible as having any truth at all if you don’t believe it is 100% accurate. Why even bother reading it, then? Just figure out truth for yourself. It’ll be just as accurate.

Which is part of the problem with today! This is why so many believe crazy things. They don’t trust the Bible to be 100% accurate. They don’t believe it to truly come from God. Therefore, they have nothing to base their truth on. They have no foundation for their morale character. They have come to suspect that the Bible may only be 99% or 75% accurate. In which case they take what they want from the Bible and throw out things they don’t want. This being the case, they have no trustworthy source for their morale character or their beliefs. Therefore, they fill in the gaps with their own beliefs.

This, then, brings morale destruction, which is the state we find our world in. It is perfect proof of what happens when something is imperfect…or in this case is perceived to be imperfect. Instead of standing upon an unshakable truth, people find "holes" in scripture and fill it with whatever wild idea they have in their heads. This leads to shaky "truths" that hold no weight. Individuals begin to compromise on everything because "what is truth," the words of Pilate as recorded in John’s Gospel in the eighteenth chapter verse 38, are coined by many today. People have no foundation for truth, so all truth is "relative". Why is this condition alive today? They don’t trust the Bible’s word 100%.

Thus, if God could lie He would be stuck in the same condition. No one would trust His laws. If He said 1 comes after 0 but then put 1 after 4 it would throw confusion into everything. But even if you are thinking, "Well this is possible" let me point out something else. Why would God ever lie? Why do people lie? People lie for several reasons. However, all of these reasons can be summed up by saying, "People lie because they don’t have ultimate power over their circumstances." Think about it. If a creepy man came to your door and asked if you were the only one home, would you lie if you were the only person home? Yes. Why? You would lie because you would be afraid that if this man found out you were home alone he might hurt you. However, if you knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that this man could not hurt you, would you lie and say you were not alone when you were in fact alone?

What about when you lie to a loved one? Why do you lie to them? You lie to them usually to hide the truth about something you or someone else has done. You don’t want them to find out about something that they will disapprove of or that will hurt them. However, if you were so perfect you could determine and predict, better than the best detective, just how something is going to turn out, and if you knew everything would turn out great in the end and your loved one would hardly ever think about that horrible thing when it’s over, would you even want to lie to them? No. You’d be more focused on encouraging them with the future. You’d say, "I know this thing looks bad, but in the end you’re going to come through it and it’s going to be great." And if you never did anything wrong, would you ever lie to cover up your actions? No. You’d say, "I didn’t do anything wrong. You might not like what I did, but I didn’t do anything wrong. This is your problem. Not mine." After all, we only lie to cover up our actions because we do things that either are wrong or we perceive they are wrong because someone makes us feel guilty.

So if God is perfect, why would He ever lie? He would not. He would have no reason to lie. In fact, lying is utter foolishness to God because if He lies He would throw out all things that He has ever made. Again, He would never be trustworthy again. Thus, God is limited in that He cannot lie. He is limited in every one of His laws. Therefore, The Law is what governs all things. It is what rules over all that God has made. He put His Law in place and He made it perfect. If anyone wants to live a good and right and perfect life then they must follow The Law. If they are perfect according to The Law then they are invincible. Nothing can harm them. Only when they stray from the Law are people able to be harmed. It is just as a person who obeys the laws of the United States. They are not afraid to go to jail because they obey the laws of the land. However, if they break the laws then they have to be afraid. Then they are vulnerable to going to jail or to worse punishments. So it is for those who abide by God’s perfect Law. If they obey they are invincible. If not they are vulnerable to defeat.

Jesus even said, which is recorded in Matthew’s Gospel in the fifth chapter and verse eighteen, "For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished." By this He was referring to Moses’ Law which was an earthly version of God’s Law. Jesus was saying that He did not come to destroy the Law but to fulfill it. (You will find more detail written in your lesson guide in Chapter 10 Lesson 2 which discusses how Christ came to fulfill the Kingdom He has established and is establishing still. The Law and His Kingdom go hand-in-hand, for the Law governs His Kingdom.) This is because God spoke it, and Jesus knew that if God spoke it then it must be done. It is the truth, and it governs all things.

And what is Moses’ Law? Moses’ Law is God’s Law to men based on mankind’s imperfect condition. It was a Law that God put into place to be a temporary solution until the permanent solution was presented. You see, as we discussed earlier, man was created without knowing God’s Law. Therefore, because man did not know His Law He was not subject to God’s Law. How good would God be if He punished a person who did not know the Law He was being punished for? He would not be a very good God at all. Therefore, because man was created not knowing God’s Law He was exempt from obeying it. Therefore, He was perfect and yet He did not have to obey The Law.

However, when He learned God’s Law He was then subject to it. But He was not made to be subject to it. Therefore, man was doomed to fail at obeying God’s Law. If man failed to obey God’s Law then man would be subject to the punishment for disobeying God’s Law. This punishment, as God had established at the foundation of man’s creation, was death. And yet, God did not want to destroy mankind. He wanted to redeem them, or at least as many of them as He could while remaining true to the limits He had set for Himself. Therefore, He provided a way to temporarily redeem man until such time as a more perfect redemption could come. Those who accepted God’s temporary redemption received a temporary forgiveness. Those who rejected God’s temporary redemption received no forgiveness at all.

And does this not make sense? If God makes a person to have free will and they choose imperfection, is He just to save them from imperfection if they never want to be saved from it? If all they ever want is to continue in imperfection then if He is to honor their free will He must let them destroy themselves. Otherwise, He would go against His own limits that He has placed on Himself. If He goes against these limits that He has placed on Himself then He is a liar and not to be trusted. Therefore, so that all things that He has made do not fall apart, God must live within His own limits and therefore must allow those who choose imperfection and sin to continue in their imperfection and sin until they have completely destroyed themselves.

On the other hand, He would do everything He could to get their attention to convince them to turn from this path. Thus, God gave them a temporary redemption until the perfect time came when He could provide them with a permanent redemption. This, then, sums up the entire Old Testament. When mankind first sinned He showed them how to slay an animal to atone for their sins and to cover their sins with animal skins. He then gave a more complete Law to Moses dictating what men must do to atone for different sins they were committing and to define the most important sins so that men would not doubt what was sin and what was not sin. Although they truly knew what was right and wrong, because it was placed in their minds as a conscience men deceived themselves and excused themselves from sin because it was not spelled out for them. So God spelled it out so they had no excuse and they would know.

To solidify His right to make such a Law, and to get mankind’s attention, God performed miracle after miracle throughout the course of history. From a terrible, world-wide flood, which many accounts do testify that it occurred, to plaguing one of the greatest empires of the ancient world, to parting a sea, to speaking to people face-to-face, to leading a slave-people into a land and helping them to overcome giants and strong warrior-people, God showed His mighty wonders to the world. He did everything He could to get their attention.

And still it was not enough. The temporary redemption was rejected and forgotten by most of the peoples of the world throughout most of the history of mankind. Only the Jews, who had established it because of Moses, remembered it, and even they had time after time rejected it. Though they would obey it for a short time they would return to their imperfection and sin, rejecting God. Thus, even though God had done everything He could, short of coming down to Earth Himself in the flesh and dying for their sins, they still rejected Him and His ways. Thus, what could He do? Unless He desired to infringe upon their free will, He had to let them die in their sins.

But now we come to Jesus. Now we come to the point where God did come down, took human form, remained perfect, died for us and redeemed us all to provide the permanent redemption for our sins.