Why is it that even those who are free keep returning to bondage? Over the last 250 years, our nation that fought for freedom and uses the word freedom in any definition of who we are has continually moved back toward bondage. We create more and more laws to govern our society and hire more and more lawyers to defend our right to freedom and we send our children to war to fight for our freedom. And in the process we find ourselves getting more and more entangled in the web of our governing laws. We have so many laws that we have to appoint lawyers to study the laws and determine if we are abiding by them or not. I don’t think this is what our founding fathers had in mind when they set out to design a free nation.
Why is it, then, that our churches also find themselves bogging down in our own set of laws? Why do we try so hard to be like the world when Christ came to set us free from the bondage that the world is tied up in? We make laws for our denominations and then we appoint people to determine if people are living under the laws or not. We ‘kick people out’ if they don’t abide by our laws. And we study the laws and make more laws if we think people need to change.
What actually does a law do? It defines the line between acceptable and unacceptable behavior in a society and unacceptable behavior is punished. The Law of Moses set out before the people what God expected of them in terms of behavior. The law points out when we are failing. It condemns us when we fail.
But even as the Law was being written, the Spirit of God brought a righteousness with it and it was apparent on Moses’ face. When Moses spent time with God, his face became so radiant that the people couldn’t stand it. So he put a veil over his face to hide the radiance from them because they couldn’t handle it.
Paul picked up on this and in his second letter to the Corinthians he encouraged them to move into the freedom Christ provided for them and to not let themselves get tied up in the bondage again. “If the ministry that condemns men [the law] is glorious, how much more glorious is the ministry that brings righteousness [salvation through Christ]!” II Corinthians 3:9
Paul goes on to talk about the veil that covers the hearts of people and keeps them from seeing the radiance of God. “But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory and are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” II Corinthians 3:16-18
As I spend time with Christ (reading his Word, meditating, praying), I am being transformed into his likeness. And since his likeness is radiant with glory, I begin to become radiant. And as I become radiant, others have to determine if they will put up the veil that blocks that radiance or if they will become transformed by that radiance. Those who prefer the law over freedom will put up the veil. They will make even more laws to try to veil the radiance of my freedom in Christ. And so we have a tangled web of denominational structures trying to maintain the laws and making more laws to define the laws already in place. We kick out people who don’t abide by the laws we maintain and we invite people in only after they have studied our laws and agree to abide by them.
I wonder what our churches would look like if we lowered the veil and let Christ’s true radiance shine. If each of us took seriously our continuing transformation and allowed Christ’s radiance to shine in us, could we do with less structured laws and regain the freedom that Christ gave to us in the first place? Could we become a radiant church that shines so brightly in a community that people have to take notice of it and have to decide whether they want to become part of the brightness or put up veils to hide it?
I want to reflect God’s glory that lights up the world and exposes the darkness. Lord, let your radiance shine through me!
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