Have you ever heard someone ask, “Does God have to follow his own rules?” Perhaps you’ve even posed this question to a friend, pastor, or Bible study group. To some folks, this question might sound quite esoteric – meant only for geeky theologians or philosophers with their head in the clouds. To others it might sound downright asinine. They might pour scorn on such questions, wondering why you can’t find better use of your time and mental energy.
This question, however, remains quite an interesting one, and much more practical than it might appear at first glance. Does our universe have some fixed, unchanging, ultimate moral standard which exists independently of God? Is God himself then obligated to obey this moral standard?
Good theology has always answered this question in the negative. Christians have consistently affirmed that God is the creator of all things. Our entire universe came into being at his command. He is the one who determined the nature of our world and the fabric our very selves. He alone knows what kind of behaviors lead to goodness and flourishing, and which lead to misery and suffering. Without God the creator, there can be no ultimate moral standard – only the weak and relative standards we might try to invent for ourselves. All objective morality must derive itself directly from the character of the God who fashioned the world. So in this sense, God doesn’t follow the rules – he is the rules.
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On the day of Jesus’ resurrection, two of Jesus’ disciples were walking down the road to Emmaus, a small town about seven miles from Jerusalem. Jesus himself comes alongside them, but they somehow don’t recognize him. The downcast disciples tell their new companion about the remarkable events which have taken place in Jerusalem recently. They had hoped that Jesus of Nazereth might be God’s anointed king who would finally redeem Israel and bring justice to the whole world. But instead their leaders handed Jesus over to the Roman governor to be executed! Moreover, that very morning strange reports had been circulating. Certain women who had been to Jesus’ tomb couldn’t find the body. These grief-stricken women claimed they experienced a vision of angels who declared that Jesus was alive. What in the world was going on?
Jesus’ response is priceless: “‘How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?’ And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.” The entire encounter is fascinating, but I would like to focus on that last piece: Jesus walks them through the entire Old Testament in order to show them how everything points to the Messiah. I certainly would love to know more about that sermon! What exactly did Jesus say?
We might at first be tempted to wonder precisely which individual passages of the Bible Jesus used. And that would certainly be a fruitful exercise. But rather than squinting at this or that verse of scripture, I would like to step back to look at the bigger picture. If we want to truly understand what Jesus meant, I think it would be more helpful to see the Old Testament as one continuous story – a story which reaches it’s shocking climax in the death and resurrection of the Messiah.
The Bible begins by declaring how God created all things, especially his beloved human creatures. From the beginning, humanity was given the exalted role and responsibility of exercising God’s authority over creation so that world could function and flourish in the way God intended. Yet because of human sin and rebellion, creation instead became a place of suffering, misery and death. Faced with the disaster which had befallen his creation, God embarks on a strange rescue plan. He calls on one man (Abraham) and his descendants (the children of Israel) to assume the image-bearing role which had been marked out for humanity at the beginning. God gives Israel the Torah in order to show them how they can become the genuine, image-bearing human beings which God requires if his creation is going to flourish.
Yet the Torah was never meant to to have the final say. For the kind of humans God desires and requires cannot ultimately be produced by imposing upon them external moral/ethical standards. This is not to say that the Torah is bad. (Nor is it to imply that rules in general are bad.) No: God’s commands are a very good thing. They point us in the right direction. But God’s intentions for his people transcend mere rule following. God knew that humanity needed to be thoroughly cleansed and restored from the inside out if they were going to fulfill his purposes. Genuine human beings must wholeheartedly desire to serve the one true God. And there has been only one human being who has done this perfectly – Jesus himself.
This is, I believe, the overall sense in which Jesus is the climax of the entire Old Testament. He is the righteous king of Israel who will finally lead God’s people in righteousness. Under his reign, humanity will at last fully bear the image of God, restoring joy and flourishing to all creation. With the coming of Jesus, the law can now be safely set aside. It’s completed its task by pointing to the Messiah. The Apostle Paul summed it up like this: “The Messiah is the goal of the law, so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.”
But exactly how does this transpire? How does Jesus’ own perfect righteousness flow out to his people? I’ve noted previously how many Christians view the work of Jesus. Jesus perfectly obeyed the law (or Torah), thereby obtaining a righteous standing which he then grants (or “imputes”) to his people. This scheme of thought is deeply flawed, for a number of reasons. First, it gives the law a supreme and abiding position it does not deserve. It makes the Torah the ultimate standard which even Jesus himself had to live up to! This gets things exactly backwards. Jesus is the ultimate standard. He is the genuine human being, perfectly reflecting the image of God. The Torah is a wonderful gift from God, full of wisdom and truth. But all of God’s wisdom dwells in the person of Jesus. Jesus is the truth. So in this sense, Jesus doesn’t follow the rules, he is the rules!
Second, this scheme falls far short of our ultimate destination. Let’s assume for a moment that because of his perfect obedience to the Torah, Jesus has amassed a treasury of merit which he then dispenses to his followers. We obtain some kind of abstract law-keeping credit thereby giving us the status of righteous in God’s eyes. And this righteous status is like a golden ticket which gives us entry into heaven. The problem here is that we remain mired in sin which continues to deface and distort our true humanity. True salvation – complete freedom from sin and death – must go beyond God granting us some abstract status of righteous. Such salvation requires that God fully rescue and rehabilitate the human race. God’s unshakable purpose is to make us genuinely righteous, not simply righteous is name only. God does not merely intend to grant us a golden ticket so that we might gain entry into his glorious future. Rather, God desires the complete restoration of the human race so that we can finally assume the role for which we were marked out from the beginning – to exercise God’s rule and reign over the whole creation.
When we read Paul correctly, we find a much better, more Biblical route to achieving this goal. Remember again, the Torah is not the standard. Jesus himself is the ultimate and eternal standard. During our study of Romans 8, you might have picked up on how Paul changes his description of the Spirit in this passage. Up until verse 9, he’s been talking about “the Spirit” or “the Spirit of life” or “the Spirit of God.” Then, without missing a beat, Paul begins talking about “the Spirit of the Messiah” and “if the Messiah is in you”! It’s clear that for Paul, the gift of the Holy Spirit was none other than the Spirit of Jesus himself, the risen savior.
Our righteousness therefore does not come from Jesus’ obedience to Torah. Rather than giving us law-keeping credit, God gives us something far, far better. God produces genuinely righteous human beings by giving us the Spirit of Jesus himself. He is the righteous one. He is the goal towards which everything is moving – all humanity, all of history, even the entire cosmos. For God’s good pleasure is to bring “all things in heaven and earth together under one head, even the Messiah.”
