Grace in God’s Law
Reading the Law
Nehemiah chapter eight tells the story of God’s law being read to the people who have returned to Jerusalem after exile in Babylon. When it comes to a public reading of the laws of God, you may be tempted to think that the people were forced into it or that it was some tradition they were giving a nod to. But this is not the case. Verse one of chapter eight says that the people told Ezra to read the law and verse four says they even built a special platform for the occasion! In other words, they were eager to hear the Word of God spoken over them!
Why would they be so eager to hear the law of God? Were they super-religious? Were they extra faithful? No, they were looking for something.
Remember that in chapter five, Nehemiah was challenging them to be a new kind of community that no longer to governed themselves according to what was commonly accepted or expected, but according to what honored God. They wanted to know what it meant to be this new kind of people and the place to turn to find out was the written law of God. The words written by God to the people of God would help give them a corporate identity.
Response to the Law
Nehemiah 8:9, “Then Nehemiah the governor, Ezra the priest and teacher of the Law, and the Levites who were instructing the people said to them all, “This day is holy to the Lord your God. Do not mourn or weep.” For all the people had been weeping as they listened to the words of the Law.”
The people were eager to hear the word of God, but once they heard it they respond by weeping! As the law was read they learned that they weren’t living up to the corporate identity they have been given. It was more than that, though. It wasn’t just that they weren’t doing it, it was that they couldn’t do it. They couldn’t live according to all the laws all the time! The law revealed something about the character of God – that he is holy. But, it also revealed something about the condition of the human heart – that we are incapable of perfect obedience.
The law became a burden too heavy for them to carry!
Grace in the Law
Nehemiah 8:10, “Nehemiah said, ‘Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is holy to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.'”
Nehemiah and the other leaders encouraged the people to respond to the law with joy instead of weeping! To understand why they would do that we need to know something about the law.
The law of God recorded in the Old Testament (which is what they would have been reading in Nehemiah) is broken into four main categories:
1. Criminal law: Law related to crimes done against another and the punishment for those crimes.
2. Civil law: Law that reveals your legally held rights against abuse.
3. Social law: Behavioral law (what you can and cannot do).
4. Cultic (Ritual) Law: Law that outlined all the religious rituals for the people of God.
You know what was in the cultic law? Ritual instructions on how to experience the forgiveness of God because of all the ways you didn’t follow the other laws! Grace was written right into the law! The leaders, in calling people to joy, were trying say, “God hasn’t left you in your guilt.” God has made a way for you to be right before him! So the leaders declare, “The law has been spoken, let’s rejoice and be glad! Be filled with joy – oh, and by the way, the joy of the LORD is your strength!” Living in guilt will wear you down and sap your strength, but seeing the goodness of God and living with joy for the word of God will be a source of strength for you!
The Law in Light of Christ
This is made even more true in our lives in light of Christ. Jesus Christ is the Word of God. The words of God (the scripture and all its laws), point us to the Word of God. As Pastor Brian Zahnd often says, Jesus is what God has to say.
And so we live in the same tension as the people of God in Nehemiah. In the life of Christ we see the beauty of God, but we also see a life that we cannot live. We can respond with anger, rebellion or ignorance. But anger closes us off. Rebellion makes us unable to hear.
And ignorance means we are indifferent. Or we can respond with weeping that recognizes we cannot measure up and desperately need the Savior. When we respond with weeping, it opens up room in our hearts to receive God’s forgiveness and grace in Christ.
Jesus Christ dying on the cross and being raised three days later was God’s declaration that we are not left in our guilt. Our failures are not the final word! We can live with joy that we have been made new in Christ. The Apostle Paul puts it this way in Romans 8:3-4 (NIV), “For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”
Click on the resources below for more information. All resources are provided by Emmaus Road Church, a church in Fort Collins.