I am not a good person to take your spiritual cues from. In many ways, I’ve failed as a Christian, and I know that, and it pains me. More acurately, it pains God. Or even more pointedly it pains my Father in that I haven’t followed his law, his Son in that I’ve treated his salvation like a common thing, and the Spirit in that I’ve ignored and suppressed his guidance and prompting.

That aside - as aside as it can be - I have been thinking. And you know what I think? The key to the Christian life is the Holy Ghost. The Spirit of God dwelling in me, sent to comfort and to guide me. I don’t give him enough credence.

As I see it, the law of the old covenant has been replaced by a new law: the law of love. Or, the commands of the old imperfect covenant have been fulfilled in the commands of the perfect new: I am alive in Jesus, dead to sin, and his law is to love the Lord and to love my neighbor.

But what is God concerned with? That’s the hard part. And before you charge me with digressing, this is why I mentioned the Spirit before. Scripture bears out that the spirit has been sent to guide me: why then am I not tuned in to him more? It’s obviously not enough to say love and leave it there. Scripture expounds on it, but it still doesn’t tell me how to drive my car; it’s simply not written to be that granular. But the prompting of the Spirit - he can tell me how to drive my car. Sounds a bit freakish, I know, but there you have it.

My problem is this: I want what I hate, and I hate what I get. I don’t like the law of love - and it you’re honest with yourself, you don’t like moderation and liberty either - because it’s too ill-defined. I want a new law to tell me how to live, but I hate the new laws people come up with. Only this sort of music, and only this sort of dress, and only this sort of drink, and only this sort of food. Yet I don’t hate these things because the kingdom is not about food or drink or clothes or music: I hate them because I am in the last analysis rebellious.

There’s the rub. The libertarian antinomian inside myself wants to believe that I’m actually freer than those inventing the new laws for themselves when the truth is that I’m one step further away from the law of love and the liberty of living in Jesus than the people with the made-up rule book are. At least they have a law! They’re trying to get somewhere; not particularly well, mind you, but they’re giving it the old college try. It’s the old rebel without a cause trap.

I’m a worse tyrant than God could ever be (and I know he isn’t). If I’m not a slave to laws of my own invention, I’m slave to laws of the devil’s invention; if I’m not missing the point entirely, I’m ignoring it on purpose. Or to put it another way, if I’m not wearing the scarlet robes of self-righteousness, I’m flaunting the nudity of my lawlessness, and in either case I’m supposed to be clothed in the humility of Jesus’ love and Jesus’ law and Jesus’ blood.

Ephesians has been perfectly honest in pointing this out: I am a new creature, not made to follow rote, but not made to wander aimlessly. I have the Spirit in my heart, I have the scripture in my head, and I have a soul destined for glory. How then can I still be hitting the ditches?

Tags: personal, ruminations, scripture