The first of God’s emergency measures is the way He has used law as a model of salvation. Keep in mind, trust and love cannot be commanded or produced by force. But if it is true that God values nothing higher than our freedom, why has He made so much use of law? If all God asks is trust and love, why did He give us the Decalogue, which seems to demand our love and obedience under threat of execution? If He doesn’t wish to be seen as arbitrary, exacting, and severe, why has He surrounded us with innumerable rules?

Paul understood all about trust and freedom. He emphasized them so much that he was accused of doing away with God’s law. “No,” he said, “I intend no such thing. Faith does not abolish law. Faith establishes the law, by putting it in its proper perspective” (based on Romans 3:31). But what is the right perspective from which to view God’s use of law? “Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions” (Gal 3:19, RSV).

Paul goes on to explain why the law was added. In King James language he said, “The law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ” (Gal 3:25). The Greek word behind “schoolmaster” is paidagogos. Some of you can hear pedagogue in that, or the pedagogical method. But that word actually was the name given to a trusted slave whose duty it was to take the children to school, to make sure they got there and stayed there. Then it was his duty to bring them home. He was not the teacher. He was the guardian; he was the protector. Now can you see the reason for the translation in the next passage?

So the Law has been our attendant on our way to Christ, so that we might be made upright through faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer in the charge of the attendant (Gal 3:24, 25, Goodspeed).

Compare that with the New International Version of the same text: “So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law.”

Now which law is Paul talking about? Which law was added, because of transgression, to lead us to Christ? Was it the ceremonial law? Was it the moral law? Was it all law? Would you dare include the Ten Commandments? Perhaps it would help to consider how God gave the Ten Commandments. One day He gathered His misbehaving children together at the foot of Sinai. He announced, “I want all the murdering to stop, and all the hating to stop. I want all the stealing, cheating, lying, and immorality to stop. I want you to stop going after other gods.” What an emergency it must have been, that He had to ask His children to stop doing all those things! You recognize, of course, the Decalogue (Exod 20:3-17). It was added because of transgressions.

Have you ever had to do this in your home? What if some of you fathers had to say during morning worship, “Now Billy, let us see if we all can make this a very good day in our family. When you are at school today, do you promise not to murder any of your friends?”
“Yes, Daddy, if you insist.”
“And Mary, do you promise not to steal any more while you are in school?”
“Well yes, Daddy, if you insist.”
Then you turn to your wife and say, “And when I am at work, please do not commit adultery again. Do you promise, wife?”
“Well yes, if you insist.”

If you were to do this some morning, be sure not to leave your window open, or the neighbors will assume that terrible things are happening in your home. Imagine how the Devil must have mocked God for having to say to His children, “Please, I want all this to stop!” The law was added because of sin (Gal 3:19). There was no need before sin entered the universe to say such things to the loyal angels. They didn’t need a law to do what was right. They did what was right because it was right. It was on that awesome day when sin entered the universe that God first had to speak of law. Here on earth, as well, the law was added because of sin. And along with law, God had to say that sin, rebelliousness, and lawlessness result in death.

There are many dangers, however, in the use of law. Once law has been expressed, people will assume that doing right means merely obeying the rules. Or that sin is merely disobeying the rules. Or that the penalty for breaking the rules is execution by the Rule-giver. Or that if God forgives you He won’t have to execute you. Or that He can forgive you because someone else paid the legal penalty. But what if you turn down the offer? Will you then be painfully destroyed, perhaps even more painfully because of your ingratitude? That is the kind of understanding that can lead to the obedience that springs from fear.

But if one sees the bigger picture of all sixty-six books, you see that what God really wants is not mere obedience to the rules: He wants us to do what is right because it is right. He wants the obedience that springs from love and trust, and that is offered in the highest sense of freedom. In that view, what will happen if I choose to go my own rebellious way? He will sadly let me go, as He let His Son go. I will die, and He will cry. But there is no need to be afraid. God wishes that to be understood for all eternity.

But why then the law? It was added to protect us until we had better understanding and better motivation. So we can thank God for the rules He gave us. Some are very stern. We needed them. They were emergency measures. “Does this mean that by this faith we do away with the Law? No, not at all; instead, we uphold the Law” (Rom 3:31, GNB). Thank God for the Law because we needed it, particularly those of us who are misbehaving members of the family: “We know that the law is good if a man uses it properly. We also know that law is made not for good men but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful” (1 Tim 1:8-9, NIV). Note the same verse in the Phillips Translation: “We also know that the law is not really meant for the good man, but for the man who has neither principles nor self-control.”

If you have principles and self-control, you are led by the Holy Spirit, and you don’t need to be told to love God and to love each other. That is God’s ideal. Now the same understanding is true of the whole sacrificial system, which was certainly not against us (as was the “handwriting of requirements” in Colossians 2:14). It was to teach us things we needed to know. The sacrifices were especially given to remind us of how serious sin and its consequences are. “But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sin year after year. For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins” (Heb 10:3-4, RSV).

The remedy was yet to come. But in the meantime the sacrifices reminded us of the seriousness of sin. Misunderstood, however, these very same sacrifices and ceremonies turned many people away from God. Think of what happened on crucifixion Friday, which also happened to be Passover weekend. The people who celebrated that Passover, and kept that special Sabbath, did not know the One who was represented in them. They did not understand the meaning of the ceremonies or understand God’s plan. Most of all they did not know God Himself, and nailed Him to the cross.

This was in spite of the fact that many Old Testament prophets had tried to make the meaning of the sacrifices clear, Jeremiah in particular:

For on the day that I brought your fathers out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to them, nor give them command regarding burnt-offering or sacrifice; but this command I gave them, “Listen to My voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be My people“ (Jer 7:22-23, Smith/Goodspeed).

Jeremiah looked forward to the day when everything would be restored, and the ceremonies that God had added because of sin would have served their purpose. “In those days. . . men shall speak no more of the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord; they shall not think of it, nor remember it, nor resort to it; it will be needed no more” (Jer 3:16, RSV).

I do hope the Lord keeps the Ark of the Covenant in the heavenly museum. I would like to go look at it. It might remind us of the emergency measures God was willing to use in the past. But what was the purpose of all those ceremonies, and rituals and sacrifices? Jeremiah 31 tells us what God has always wanted:

I will put My law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. And no longer shall each man teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know Me (Jer 31:33-34, RSV).

All God has ever wanted was to bring the family together again. This would happen when God’s law was written on their hearts and minds. And how eloquently Hosea not only taught this, but demonstrated it: “It is true love that I have wanted, not sacrifice; the knowledge of God rather than burnt-offerings” (Hos 6:6, Phillips). Look how well that has been put in the Good News Bible: “I would rather have My people know Me than have them burn offerings to Me” (Hos 6:6, GNB). To know God means to love Him, to trust Him, to be willing to listen. That is all God has ever wanted or ever will want for all eternity. All these emergency measures are designed to lead us back to that.

God proposes to set right and to keep right all that has gone wrong in the universe. This requires first that He win us back to trust and a willingness to listen. Once that has happened, he can heal the damage done. Forgiveness alone would not repair all the damage that has been caused by this breakdown of trust and trustworthiness. It also would not secure the universe and keep it safe for all eternity. Heaven will not be peopled with pardoned criminals, but rather with trusting and trustworthy saints who have new hearts and right spirits (Psa 51:10; Ezek 36:26-27).

Granting all that, what if we are not willing to listen to God’s generous offer? What about those who have been so influenced by Satan’s lies that they have turned away to other gods, or to no gods at all? Or, much more seriously, what about those who seek to worship the true God, but worship Him as arbitrary, vengeful, and severe? And then how about all the people who live between those two extremes? How can God reach all of them?

It is no wonder that in the biblical record we see God in many and various ways (Heb 1:1) trying to reach us where we are in this emergency. He speaks a language that we can understand, leading us no faster than we are able to follow (John 16:12). He runs grave risks of being misunderstood as He has sought to gain our attention and hold it long enough to tell us the truth about Himself. When we have been hard of hearing, God has raised His voice, as on Sinai (Exod 19:16-21). When we were irreverent, He shook the ground beneath our feet (Exo 19:18) or even sent she-bears (1 Kgs 2:24), as in the days of Elisha. He also brought fire from heaven down on Mount Carmel (1 Kgs 18:38-39).

So many of the stories in the Bible illustrate God’s willingness to be misunderstood, just to lead us to that reverence that is the beginning of wisdom. When Israel was tempted to take sin lightly, the One who sees the sparrow fall (based on Matt 6:26) instituted that whole system of sacrifices that required the death of thousands of His creatures. When we were tempted to accept Satan’s lie that sin does not lead to death (Gen 3:4), God sent His Son to die that death and so demonstrate the truth.

The whole Bible is full of these emergency measures. In fact, I find it difficult to decide which texts to use as illustrations of the lengths to which God is willing to go. Fortunately, we have included some already in previous chapters. In fact, one could say that the whole Bible is an emergency measure. Since there are so many of these emergency measures, I thought it might be best to consider two of the most important ones, ones that are often seriously misunderstood.

Beginning today I continue the series of postings drawn from Conversations About God, a book in the making. These materials are based on a series of lectures/conversations between Graham Maxwell and Lou Venden that were delivered and recorded in 1984 at the Loma Linda University Church. I found these conversations profoundly insightful in relation to the character of God and its implications for human experience. I have been editing these casual conversations into written language, seeking to preserve, as far as possible, the voices of the original protagonists. The first half of each chapter (each blog is numbered according to its place in a chapter: 11:1, 11:2) is based on a lecture by Maxwell, the last half is based on a conversation between Maxwell and Venden about the topic. While my hand has been in every part of this process, the ideas from here on are largely those of Maxwell and Venden.

In this chapter we consider the extraordinary lengths to which God has been willing to go to hold His universal family together, as He demonstrates the truth about His character and government, and seeks to bring the whole conflict to a successful end. At infinite cost, God has sought to convince the universe that His government will forever be one of peace and freedom based on mutual and well-founded trust. But when Satan plunged the family into a crisis of rebellion and distrust, emergency measures were required to maintain a semblance of order and respect until the basis for real peace and freedom could be clarified and confirmed. In the end, as we have been discussing, God will settle for nothing less than peace and freedom, established upon mutual trust, based on all the evidence that He has provided for us through the years.

The emergency itself, of course, is the breakdown of this trust and trustworthiness that we have discussed in previous chapters. Our stubborn and suspicious unwillingness to listen has made it hard for God to heal the damage done by sin. The damaging consequences of this breakdown of trust in the family are very clearly portrayed throughout Scripture and history. And we can see them as well in society all around us.