No Law Against Such Things

www.bible.com/72/gal.5.22-23.hcsb

“There ought to be a law against that!” I can’t count how many times I’ve heard that statement. Oftentimes, the speaker is frustrated with a life circumstance, or situation out of his control. Insurance didn’t approve a treatment on a technicality. Trooper stopped you but not the other fifty people that whizzed by. Politicians are making money hand over fist while you scrape by paycheck to paycheck.

I think we have plenty of laws, ridiculous laws, inane laws, but plenty of them. We’ve become a society dependent on law to solve our problems. And we thus determine morality by whether or not it is “against the law.” If it’s not “illegal” then it must be morally permitted, right? This is the trap of abortion and homosexuality. Those used to be against the law. Now they are not. Slavery used to be legal, now it isn’t. Which is right and which is wrong? How do we know?

The text in question today is the fruit of the spirit, the natural produce of a saved heart. A person who is indwelled by the Holy Spirit has these qualities in common: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, self-control, etc. the text specifically says that it is the “fruit” not the “fruits” as if to say that the singular fruit of the life possessed of God is a multi-faceted fruit which reflects all of these qualities. You don’t have one or two, but all of them at once.

For a person to display such fruit, the text says there is no law against it. No law has yet been written that violates love, joy, peace, patience, etc. and you know if such a law were to be written, it would be wrong. But let me be clear in this. I don’t get to define these words to suit myself. Culture doesn’t get to define them either. We cannot define these words away from their biblical context and meaning and make them what we want to hear. I cannot define love as anything by the kind of love shown in the scriptures, i.e., the sacrificial love exemplified in Jesus Christ. I cannot say that this love is illustrated by a same-sex relationship, or an adult-child romance. That would be taking “love” out of context and violate the very principles of love taught in Scripture. And so that same with the others.

We hold our laws to a higher standard. We do not bow to the whims of men who think sins are fashionable and so make them legal. We worship and honor a Holy God who has said what is right. “He has told you O man what it good” Micah 6:8

Study, pray, learn. Worship. Make today count. God bless you today.