Law and Morals

W. Carl Ketcherside

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     Occasionally some person is thrust into the limelight as a controversial figure and his very name becomes a symbol of all that is good or evil in a certain area of thought. When this is the case, men who have never met him or read a single paragraph that he has written, will react with almost violent emotion when his name is mentioned in their presence. Such a person, I think, is Joseph Fletcher who is Robert Treat Paine Professor of Social Ethics at the Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

     Dr. Fletcher has been a rather prolific writer in his special field but it was not until he launched his volume Situation Ethics on the stormy sea of modern polemics in 1966 that he became generally known. Many students were excited by its affirmations, and many were offended. Using the ten commandments as an example, Fletcher said of the last six, that situation ethics has good reason to hold it as a duty in some situations to break them, any or all of them. He propounded some questions with which even the most highly incensed find it difficult to wrestle.

     The basis of the book is that there are, in the final analysis, only three approaches possible in reaching moral decisions. These are designated as the legalistic, the antinomian, and the situational. The latter affirms that there is only one absolute, love, and that each encounter in life must be approached in the light of love, and not with an apparatus of prefabricated regulations designed in advance to cover every emergency.

     It is not necessary to my purpose that I review meticulously the book by Dr. Fletcher. After all, the question with which I am particularly concerned deals with God's will as I conceive it, and I shall write from that standpoint. The current controversy over morals provides an excuse (if I need one) to have my say about the question. It is not really a question of what Fletcher, or my own brethren say, but of what God says, as I understand His will.

     The brethren with whom I have been more closely associated have been legalistic in their approach, I think, although they, like all other legalists, have been forced to resort to a great deal of casuistry. Recently they have been driven to deny their legalism, sometimes in a quite legalistic fashion. When William Banowsky met Joseph Fletcher in debate in Indiana he occupied a considerable amount of his time in denying that he was a legalist. The fact that he labored so diligently in trying to prove he was not, created a little suspicion in the minds of some who heard him.

     Obviously, the antinomian position, which is lawlessness, can have no place in the Christian life, so we may dismiss it from consideration. But legalism is always a genuine temptation since it frees from the responsibility of making decisions. It is my contention that the

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covenantal relationship which we now enjoy in and through the Lord Jesus Christ, is not a legal system at all. Prior to the advent of the Son, God placed man under a written code, the purpose of which was to keep him confined until faith came. With the coming of faith, he was released from this bondage, set free from the demands of law.

     It is distinctly affirmed that "the Law was given by Moses, but undeserved favor and reality came through Jesus Christ" (John 1:17). This does not mean that Moses gave one law, and Jesus gave us another. It does not mean that Moses provided the old law, and Jesus furnished a new law, another written code. Law is one thing, grace and reality create a wholly different set of values. That is why we are told that, "Sin shall no longer be your master, because you are no longer under law, but under the grace of God" (Romans 6:14).

     All law constitutes a stockade, a prison in which men are kept penned up. Because of immaturity and carnality God thus confined men before Jesus came. "Before this faith came, we were close prisononers in the custody of law, pending the revelation of faith. Thus the law was a kind of tutor in charge of us until Christ should come, when we should be justified through faith; and now that faith has come, the tutor's charge is at an end" (Galatians 3:23-25).

     Here is another version of the same passage. "Before the coming of faith we were all imprisoned under the power of the Law, with our only hope of deliverance the faith that was to be shown unto us. Or, to change the metaphor, the Law was like a strict governess in charge of us until we went to the school of Christ and learned to be justified by faith in him. Once we had that faith we were completely free from the governess's authority."

     Jesus removed the stockade fence. He did not build another. He battered down the prison walls with the cross. He dismissed the governess. He set us free. "Christ set us free, to be free men. Stand firm, then, and refuse to be tied to the yoke of slavery again...When you seek to be justified by way of law, your relation with Christ is completely severed; you have fallen out of the domain of God's grace" (Galatians 5:1-4).

     Let us not compromise at this point, for if we do we create a hangman's noose for our own necks. If we convert the Sermon on the Mount, or the apostolic letters to individuals and communities into a written code of which we then become the high sheriffs and enforcers, we doom ourselves. We reverse God's purpose and deny the efficacy of the cross. We build up that which he broke down by his death. "We are not to look upon ourselves as the son of the slave woman but of the free, not sons of slavery under the Law but sons of freedom under grace."

     Law, by its very nature, cannot meet our needs. "We are unspiritual, the purchased slaves of sin." We need life and no law can give life. "If a law had been given which had power to bestow life, then indeed righteousness would have come from keeping the law" (Galatians 3:21). Remember that when you attempt to be justified by law, you must either keep every jot and tittle of that law, or you must die. You cannot have your cake and eat it too. You cannot be justified by faith and by law at the same time, for if you are under law faith cannot save you. Only absolute and perfect obedience in every minute detail will do.

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     This is clearly brought out by the apostle Paul. "All those who follow regulations are under a curse, for it is stated, 'Cursed is everyone who does not adhere to and observe all the precepts set down in the Code of Law'" (Galatians 3:10). "Now law is not at all a matter of having faith: we read, 'he who does this shall gain life by what he does'" (verse 12).

     But I mean something else by my use of "legalism." I refer to the concept that we will be saved by works through strict adherence to a written code. To be quite specific, I mean simply that a legalist is one who holds that God has handed over to us a law, and that our hope of acquittal or justification lies in our perfect understanding of that body of statutes and judgments, and in our undeviating adherence to all of its regulations and specifications. I reject that theory of righteousness by law, for if it were true, Jesus would never have needed to come, but since he did, he died in vain. "Christ is the end of the law for justification," says the inspired record.

     This disturbs some of my good brethren no end. Like all adolescents and immature persons they prefer to be under law. They are afraid of freedom and liberty. So, in spite of the fact that we are specifically told that we are not under law but under grace, they busy themselves in an attempt to systematize grace and turn it into a legal written code. It is astonishing how many people actually think of grace and the collection of new covenant scriptures as being synonymous. If you doubt this watch how such scriptural scrap-doctors twist and manhandle Titus 2:11.

     It seems never to occur to such brethren that the earliest saints would have been without "grace" if the grace of God is identical with the apostolic letters. And since these letters were not all compiled into a single collection for many years, the best any of them would have had was a "partial grace." If grace is a system, and if the writings of John are a part of "grace" every one of the other apostles died without knowing the fulness of grace. This is a wee bit ridiculous when you analyze it, but most prooftexts in sermon outlines should not be examined too closely, if you love the outline.

     Of course the brethren who scrutinize the love letters of God to his children rejoice every time they find a passage which makes it appear that we are under law. They jump on such a passage like a duck on a June bug! And they quote them all to me with an air of triumph as if happy to find the apostles and myself mistaken and inconsistent.

     For instance, Paul wrote about his adaptability to various classes in an endeavor to win some, and said, "To them that are without law, as without law (being not without law of God, but under the law to Christ)." It is obvious that whatever Paul meant by the law to Christ, he was not talking about a written code, because he said to the very same congregation, "God has qualified us to dispense his new covenant, a covenant expressed not in a written document, but in a spiritual bond; for the written law condemns to death, but the Spirit gives life."

     There is a great gulf between a written code trusted in for justification and the motivating principle of the life of Jesus. Paul expresses it clearly in Romans 8:1, "No condemnation now hangs over the head of those who are in Christ Jesus. For the new spiritual principle of life in Christ Jesus lifts me out of the old vicious circle of sin and death." Another version reads, "The conclusion of the matter is this: there is no condemnation for those who are united with Christ Jesus, because in Christ Jesus the life-giving law of the Spirit has set you free from the law of sin and death."

     The principle of life is the indwelling Spirit who transforms us from within so that "we have the spiritual outlook, and that is life and peace" (Romans 8:6). The Spirit within enables us to put to death all the base pursuits of the body (verse 13), and "joins with our spirit in testifying that we are God's children" (verse 16). If we are under a written code as a basis of righteousness we cannot be in Christ.

     When all else has been taken from the legalist, he resorts to James 1:22, 25, and reads, "But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only...But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein..." He assumes that the word is the new covenant scriptures as we have them, and that this constitutes the "perfect law of liberty" and since the new covenant scriptures have been written, we are under a written code of law. This sounds good in a sermon outline, but unfortunately, it is wrong on all counts.

     In the first place the twelve tribes in the Dispersion to whom James wrote had no new covenant scriptures into which to look. They didn't even have the epistle of James prior to this time. They had only the old covenant scriptures, but few indeed would affirm that these constituted a "perfect law of liberty." What was "the word of truth" which they had, and to which reference is made? The answer is quite simple.

     In verse 18 it is identified as the message by which we are begotten, and Peter distinctly says, "And this is the word which by the gospel was proclaimed unto you" (1 Peter 1:25). The Authentic Version translates James 1:18, "Of set purpose he begot us by the Message of Truth, so as to be in the nature of first-fruits of its creative activities." The New English Version reads, "Of his set purpose by declaring the truth, he gave us birth to be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures."

     In verse 21 it is identified as "the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls." The Greek emphutos means implanted, and this word had already been implanted in their hearts, whereas the new testament scriptures had not yet been written or made accessible. Paul points out that it is the gospel which is able to save (1 Corinthians 15:2), and declares that "it is the power of God unto salvation to all that believe" (Romans 1:16). The apostolic letters are not the gospel, for everyone of them was written to those who had already obeyed the gospel.

     It is clear then that when James speaks of the word, he is not talking about the epistle he was then writing, even though

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it was probably the only apostolic epistle most of his addressees would ever see. He was talking about a Message by which they were begotten of God and thus introduced into the new humanity. It was a Message which demanded personal purification and renunciation of evil and firm reception of the saving pronouncement.

     "Away then with all that is sordid, and the malice that hurts to excess, and quietly accept the message planted in your hearts, which can bring you salvation" (New English Version).

     "Have done, then, with impurity and every other evil which touches the lives of others, and humbly accept the message that God has sown in your hearts, and which can save your souls" (The New Testament in Modern English).

     "So clearing away every foul weed and rank growth in our moral nature, let us gently receive the implanted word that is able to save our lives" (The Authentic Version).

     The Good News makes demands upon men. It requires the killing out of foul weeds and rank growth, but it does not permit the heart to lie fallow. It is a dynamic which must be allowed to fill and transform.

     One must never forget that although James acknowledged the Messiahship of Jesus, he remained an orthodox Jew, zealous for the law as long as he lived. Hugh J. Schonfield points out that every time James refers to "the law of liberty" he is talking about "the law of the gospel" as enunciated in the Sermon on the Mount, interpreting the Law of Release in Deuteronomy 15:1-15. This would make sense to the recipients of this letter, as does the usage of synagogue, instead of ekklesia, translated "assembly" in James 2:2.

     James declares that love is the royal law according to the scripture (2:8). And he affirms that we must speak and act as those who are amenable to the principles of liberty (2:12). Love and liberty make it possible to judge each individual case on its own merits, and to extend mercy in every case where possible. All decisions are to be made in the light of love, therefore, one will be judged on the basis which he sets up by which to judge others. "For he who acts without demonstrating mercy will receive judgment--without mercy being shown to him. Mercy will actually triumph over judgment." This means that in the day of judgment the man who has been merciful will find that the mercy he has shown will blot out or cover his own shortcomings and sin.

     In conclusion I would like to summarize briefly the concepts which I have reached from my study of the word of God.

     1. The Christian is not subject to a written code containing a list of regulations imposed upon him from without. Instead, the law of God is internalized, being written in the heart and mind, so that one is self-governed and disciplined by the love of God which is a fruit of the Spirit.

     2. The new covenant scriptures were never intended to be compiled into a code of statutes and judgments to be enforced by minions of "the law" but they are a collection of love letters addressed to individuals and communities of the saints to serve as guidelines of behavior for those in the precious Lord Jesus Christ.

     3. In interpreting the new covenant scriptures I must recognize that any application must be made under an umbrella of love, and with mercy shown for the unfortunate brother who has succumbed to temptation. I must resist the impulse to show myself as an "enforcer of the law" or God's policeman.

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     4. If I postulate that the new covenant scriptures are a legal code I must either live up perfectly to every implication and demand, or die, for the slightest infraction or deviation will spell my doom. Legalism requires absolute obedience based upon complete knowledge. I cannot claim law as a basis of divine favor and grace as a means of justification. I cannot have law for what I am able to do and grace for my failures. It is not law and grace, it is law or grace!

     5. The absolute in our relationship to God is love agape! It is the motivation for our moral and spiritual relationship. It is the royal law, and just as all subjects of a king are in subservience to his rule, so all principles and rules of action are subject to the kingly law.

     We sacrifice no truth of heaven when we admit that love, rightly understood, properly defined, and correctly applied, is the foundation of Christian ethics. It is a divine universal, deep as the heart of God and wide as the universe which he made. We must not take a legalistic approach under grace, for to be under law is to fall from grace. We dare not be antinomians for then we will become our own God.

     Why should we retreat from encounter on the field of love, and seek to discover another area upon which to meet the advocates of "the new morality"? Love is of God. God is love. Let us defend the love of God--its source, its demands, its sacrifices and its rewards.

     It will be our own purpose, God willing, to discuss in our next issue love in contrast with legalism. We trust that you will read carefully what we say at that time and we pray that all of us may love one another in deed and in truth, and not just in word or in speech.