Dear Trekker,
From the time I was a “little guy,” I wanted to become a lawyer. A particular 8th grade teacher in Indiana from North Carolina thought I should go to Duke University. Rather, I went to Wheaton College, majored in philosophy, thinking law school was next. Then something happened! While at Wheaton, I was introduced to “relational thinking” through an off-campus Christian organization, then called Young Life Campaign, which, unknown to me revealed that the greatest motivating factor of history was the unconditional (and persuasive and pervasive) nature of God’s love” for his special creation, homo sapiens! That’s us, trekker.
I recall meeting my father in Chicago my sophomore year and telling him something like: “Dad, I’m not so sure I want to go to law school. I’m thinking differently about my faith. I just want to be a success in glorifying God in whatever I do. That will be success for me.” As I recall he accepted my comment somewhat reluctantly. Not sure my Mother ever did accept my decision. After my speaking at the Winona Lake Retirement Center Chapel about 30 years later, my Mom, out of the blue, asked, “Jim, are you going to go to law school when you retire from the Army?” I said, “No, Mom, I don’t think so. I think God has other plans for me.” Indeed He did.
Reflecting on the last 60 years, I have not been aware until recently why I may have taken a route other than the law. In reading Dallas Willard’s, Knowing Christ Today, subtitled, “Why We Can Trust Spiritual Knowledge,” I think it is all coming together. Willard made the following statement: “Love is covenantal, while law is contractual, defining limitations of obligation.”
WOW! Suddenly the bright lights of understanding caught my attention and insight followed. Way back “there” in the 50’s, I was being changed to grasp God’s love in a new way. My home was a “good home,” but faith as I knew it growing up was contractual. “Be a good boy and good things will happen.” That was my understanding growing up. It is a part of the school of faith, but mainly the schoolmaster to God’s covenantal love I discovered years later at Wheaton. Willard has helped me to understand who I am and “why the law was not enough.”
Looking at the essence of God’s love (agape love), we find it is most pervasive, seeping naturally into every nook and cranny of life. Agape love is not an ideal alone; it is the most practical of all motivators. Interestingly, it is striking we are not individually instructed to “love the world” or “all people.” We are however, instructed to love our neighbor! All contact with those nearest is to be cemented in love. Hence, the great commandment is two-fold – loving God and our neighbor likewise. And this is more important than any other form of worship, “more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices” (Mark 12:28-33). And our neighbor is anybody close by.
How is this “love” tied into “the law?” Jesus on one occasion clearly said treating others as we would want them to treat us “is the law and the prophets” (Matthew 7:12). The Apostle Paul elaborates on this theme. He says forthrightly: “The one who loves another has fulfilled the law” (Romans 13:8-10). Paul seems to be saying that anything we do out of obligation is subordinate to the higher attribute of love.
The mere keeping of the law may fall short of the covenant to love. Willard again: “Love is open-ended toward human good in a way law is not.” Hence, the Pharisees could keep every jot and tittle of the law, and the Lord would say, “Unless your righteousness exceeds such Pharisaical righteousness,” we don’t get it and the Kingdom is not in us nor do we represent it. Jesus’ entire Sermon on the Mount echoes the true nature of the Kingdom of God vs. the kingdom of man. The kingdom of man says, “You scratch my back, and I will scratch yours.” That is contractual. Jesus says, “scratch backs” with no thought of reciprocation. Such thinking is covenantal.
The work of God the Holy Spirit is to help us, or reveal through us, covenantal, unconditional love. Hence, the entire emphasis in the New Testament is on “right (read God-like) attitudes.” The fruit of the Spirit is all about attitudes of God likeness (see also Colossians 3, Romans 5:5, and II Peter 1:7).
Agape love is no small thing! It is our faith. Such faith should permeate all we do. Frankly, trekker, I desire only to love, encourage, lead others to Him, and be “Jesus with skin on” to all whom I meet. These convictions increase with age. A tall order, but I believe this only would define “a good person.”
In James 2:13 we are reminded “mercy trumps judgement.” Why? Because mercy is motivated solely by the love covenant, not the contractual keeping of the letter of the law.
I Corinthians 13 says it all: “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrong doing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends (v. 4-8). Love simple knows no limits; love is boundless!
Thinking contractually only was out for me. Thus, when as a young man I was led toward the limitless, boundless outreach of covenant love, I have since gravitated toward such thinking all of my life. And so I pray that my son, a lawyer, will think covenantly about the fulfillment of the law, as well as the contractual letter of the law. Likewise my grandson, studying law now. Taken out of the context of love, the law can be a brutal, unforgiving, hard taskmaster. With the addition of love, the law can be a stepping stone to yet greater heights of good. This is the message of Paul’s letter to the Galatians.
Trekker, subliminally speaking, this may be the “rest of the story” as to why I didn’t go to law school. Our faith… a covenant with God, or a contract? May His pervasive, persuasive, unconditional love capture you in your hours of decision!
Be careful always, how you choose, my friend,
Jim Meredith
