The Curse of the Law

by Stephen Bastin

Since God put Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden there have been laws.  “The Lord God commanded the man, saying, ‘From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.’” (Genesis 2)

In Genesis, chapter three, the Bible tells the story of the breaking of this command.  Adam and Eve were driven from the Garden and the world became their new home.

In Genesis four, the story is told of Cain and Abel bringing their sacrifices to God.  Cain’s sacrifice was rejected, implying that again there were laws that had been broken.

In Genesis six begins the story of Noah and the flood.  The record says simply, “Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”  Again, there is the implication that there were laws that people were breaking.

This process of God giving laws and people breaking them reached its high point in the giving of the Ten Commandments to Israel at Mt. Sinai.  In the laws and ordinances that followed (found in the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy) were the legal ordinances that collectively came to be called, “The Law of Moses.”

For every law that God made, there has been a lawbreaker.  God’s laws produce people who  despise the Word of God and go their “merry” way until reigned in by God.

Paul speaks of those who have been redeemed “from the curse of the Law.”  God promises relief to those burdened by law.  The way to that relief is through the law of pardon that Jesus revealed.

Many objections have been made to the laws advocated by religious people.  Those who have no religion rant and rave about the “religious right” trying to impose their morality on others.

On the other hand consider that we have a multitude of laws separate and apart from any religion.  We have our National Congress and our State Legislatures.  They are obsessed with passing laws and placing restrictions on other people.  Next to our countries multitude of legal codes, the Bible is a very small book.

The truth is that people rant and rave about laws passed by our legislatures as much as the laws of God.  Back in the days when we had a national speed limit of 55 miles per hour, many people objected and many of those routinely broke the law to travel at much higher speeds.  Lawbreaking is not restricted to the laws of God.

In April, people complain about taxes and all the complicated laws that govern the paying of taxes.  Many people also routinely ignore these laws and cheat on their taxes.  Some even go so far as to claim that the whole system is illegal and refuse to even file a tax return.

So whether it is laws coming from an ancient book called the Bible or laws coming from national, state or local governing bodies, we are beset on every side by laws, many of which are completely unknown and unheeded by us.

Everybody, at one time or another, finds themselves confronted by a law that seems unreasonable and stands in the way of something they want to do.  Or there is some law that commands them to do something that they do not want to do.

Sometimes we obey the law.  Sometimes we do not.  Just like Adam and Eve, just like Cain, just like the people of Noah’s day, just like the Israelites at Mt. Sinai and afterwards, we find the law inconvenient and break it.  We curse the law and it becomes a curse upon us.

What would life be like without laws?  Since there have always been laws, it is hard to imagine what it would truly be like.  Perhaps chaos comes closest to describing life without laws.

Consider a home in which there are no rules, no limits on bad behavior.  Children do whatever they want to do.  Parents yell, but there is no real discipline.

I have seen homes that come close to that description.  Usually the parents in those homes want to get rid of the children.  They find the situation impossible to bear.

A society without rules would be even worse.  While we complain about laws, in reality we do not want the opposite, a society with no rules, no laws, no restraints, with everybody doing whatever they want.

In our homes and in our societies,  we want life to be predictable.  We want to know what our rights are and the limits on our behavior.  We feel more secure when surrounded by restraints.

Even the natural world teaches us the necessity of law.  If you drop an object it falls to the floor.  It obeys a very precise law in falling.  It is predictable; it is measurable.  It is an unchangeable law.

When someone breaks the law of nature, of society, or of God, the curse of the law comes home to that person.  Whatever penalties attach to the law are put into effect as soon as the lawbreaker is discovered.  Our only hope is in evading detection as a lawbreaker.  Sometimes we do escape detection and sometimes we do not.  With God’s laws of nature and God’s laws of right and wrong, detection is always certain!

When it is a matter of breaking the Law of God, there are none who escape the “long arm of the law.”  God observes all lawbreaking and will bring all lawbreakers into judgment.

God promised to destroy the one who had come to seduce Eve.  When God called Abraham to leave his country, his relatives and his father’s house, he promised that through Abraham he would bring a blessing to everyone.  That blessing is Jesus.  To Moses, God promised to raise up another prophet who would speak to the people as Moses had spoken.  Again, that was Jesus.  God sent His Son to redeem those who had broken His law.

Occasionally someone receives a pardon for breaking the laws of our country.  Usually there is no choice but to bear the penalty.

God differs from our nations’ judges in that he promises relief from the curse of the law to every lawbreaker who seeks relief.

Just as God has laws that determine what is right and what is wrong, God has a law of pardon.  There are particular requirements that God has for extending forgiveness to lawbreakers.

The person seeking forgiveness must believe in God and must believe that Jesus Christ is His only Son.  Those believers must repent of the wrongdoing of which they are guilty.  And those same believers who have repented must be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their sins.

See Heb 11:6; John 3:16; Acts 17:30 and Acts 2:38.