Can we reform behaviour through a system of reward and punishment? Can I spank my children into cheerfulness, for example, as some parenting philosophies assert? Can we solve the problem of teen pregnancy by promoting abstinence and showing slides of STD’s? If the possibility of getting caught stealing is certain of punishment of jail time, will that keep me from stealing?
And if behaviour can be reformed that way, then why didn’t the Law work for God?
Did God just not apply it correctly? Did we just not give it enough time? If reward/punishment systems are so amazing, why would the Law need to “fade away,” why would it need to be called the “ministration of death,” or the “letter that killeth (2 Corinthians 3)?”
Posted by Nathan Bubna on February 5, 2008 at 12:15 pm
Tsk, tsk.
You’re setting up a strange sort of binary, black & white, “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” type of rhetoric here to make a point that i agree with. The question is not “why didn’t the Law work for God” because i assure you that it did. Christ was not a plan B to put in effect when the Law failed. The proper question is “what work did the Law do for God?” Why did we need a “ministration of death” and a “letter that killeth’ before Christ came? The Law is God’s Word; it did not fail Him. We failed it.
I really do agree that we can’t expect “law” to do what only the love of Christ can, but that does not at all lead to the conclusion that it s useless, bad, and sure to “fail” in every sense.
Posted by Nathan Bubna on February 5, 2008 at 12:26 pm
And to answer some of the rhetorical questions (which i tried to resist, but just can’t, darn it!)…
Yes, we can reform behavior by constructing artificial consequences for them and not preventing natural consequences. But we can’t reform all behavior of all people all of the time with such systems. And yeah, i can imagine it’s possible that judicious spankings under the right circumstances with the right relationship between parent and child and the right child could indirectly lead said child to be more cheerful. But no, we can’t “solve” the problem of teen pregnancy period. I don’t believe that one is humanly possible. And yes, i imagine the threat of jail time does keep some people from stealing some of the time.
Sorry, i just can’t resist questions asked rhetorically.
And really, Molly, i totally agree with the point you’re making.
Posted by Andrea on February 5, 2008 at 1:09 pm
Performance mentality! Surest product of law/punishment system!
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Reading this, my sister’s ex boyfriend came to mind, actually; guy’s got some serious issues. He was spanked as a child, and I had to leave the room more than once when he said he’d spank their children (actually what happened was my sister said “I don’t think I could spank my kids” and he, Mr Perceptive, said “don’t worry, I’ll do it!”) because . . . well, I see how it worked out for him, and it makes me cringe to think he’ll be passing that legacy on.
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You see, he DOES everything he’s told is wrong, he just makes sure that the people who “matter” don’t catch him doing it. For just one example, he buys lottery tickets on a regular basis, but if he ever sees his pastor in the store, he’ll hide them. My sister got so upset more than once because she’d hear some very sweet people at their church speaking of him as a young man with “no skeletons in his closet” when really . . . well, my sister got to see the majority of those skeletons firsthand before she finally ended things.
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I would be lying if I said I wasn’t quietly cheering her on the whole way.
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To clarify, I do NOT think that all systems of punishment necessarily result in young men like my sister’s ex– people who fear the punishment, and so simply put all their effort into not getting caught, making no effort to understand why the rules exist to begin with. When the law is meted out coupled with explanations and love, I believe it can produce good fruit. However . . . in general, I think that the Law by itself (whether parental, criminal, Biblical or otherwise) teaches us to value the opinions held by/punishment wielded by those in power over us, rather than the actual heart/reasons behind the rules themselves. When we look into parental hearts, however –God’s included– we can see that at the root of most, if not all, laws is a concern for and love of the ones under it; the law is there for the protection of all those under it. But when greater focus is placed on punishment that comes as a result of breaking the law than on the reason for/heart behind the laws themselves, then you get . . . . well. Guys like my sister’s ex.
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And believe me. That’s a fella you don’t want anybody’s sister to date.
Posted by Leigh Ann on February 5, 2008 at 1:34 pm
The law was never intended to give us righteousness, but it was intended, as a schoolmaster, to bring us to Christ. That seems to be the intent all along. But it doesn’t mean that once it brings us to Christ it is done with. It should be bring us to Christ every day.
But I agree with what Nathan said (I’ll just copy his words because he talks so nicely) “Yes, we can reform behavior by constructing artificial consequences for them and not preventing natural consequences. But we can’t reform all behavior of all people all of the time with such systems.”
Posted by Leah on February 5, 2008 at 3:35 pm
I don’t think that “the law didn’t work for God.”
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God knew exactly what would happen when He gave the law, and He knew that people would fail and would need to turn back to Him for help.
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Nothing has changed from then until now. We still fail. People still rebel against any and every law in place (whether God’s law or man’s laws). Nothing has changed.
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I think that your examples don’t work for me, because I’m one of those people that learns that way. Stealing means jail? I won’t steal then. Abstinence is the only way to avoid STD’s? Then I’ll abstain! Do your chores or you’ll be spanked? I’ll do my chores, then. Honor your mother and father and you’ll have a long life? Deal. Follow the 10 commandments? Gotcha.
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I don’t have that kind of rebellious spirit, I guess. (I am NOT claiming to be perfect, not by any stretch of the imagination!) I mean, I just don’t see this in the same light as you’re seeing it, I guess.
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God gave the law out of His Love for man. Just as my own earthly parents set down boundaries out of their love for me.
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Am I missing the point?
Posted by molleth on February 5, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Well, I was brief and likely very unclear (as to what was rolling around in my own brain-harhar), but what I meant, Leah, was that if the Law worked, then the death of Jesus really wasn’t necessary. If Law works, then why Christ?
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Leigh Ann,
I believe that the Law was the schoolmaster (the thing that would show us that, despite what we may think, modifying human behaviour is not the answer, besides the fact that it’s an ugly business (meaning, everyone who can’t be modified gets killed).
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Andrea,
YES. That’s what I’m trying to get at. Perform so that you get a smile: don’t perform properly and get punished. This was the Law, in a nutshell, and…IT DIDN’T WORK. It didn’t reform Israel. It didn’t change the way that man and God related. If anything, it only showed how terribly impossible it was for man and God to relate on the basis of performance.
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Which is sort of what I’m musing about…how is it that we say that the Law couldn’t change our hearts, but only Christ could, but then go about recommending and implementing Law-based (performance based, etc) policies and philosophies, etc.
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I know there is a time for a sword. If the rapist comes to my door, I will kill him, simply because he’s going to try and hurt me and I don’t like his “performance.” So I’m emphatically NOT asserting that there is ZERO room for perform-properly-so-I-don’t-have-to-kill-you, you know? I’m just looking for the way it’s all supposed to relate together…
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It seems to me that a LOT of what I once embraced was very performance oriented, and it’s repugnant to me now…but what is the balance here, where are the fine lines, etc, etc, etc… Really, I’m just mulling aloud (as usual-HA!)
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Nathan said,
Christ was not a plan B to put in effect when the Law failed. The proper question is “what work did the Law do for God?” Why did we need a “ministration of death” and a “letter that killeth’ before Christ came? The Law is God’s Word; it did not fail Him. We failed it.
I really do agree that we can’t expect “law” to do what only the love of Christ can, but that does not at all lead to the conclusion that it s useless, bad, and sure to “fail” in every sense.
Yes, yes, yes, I agree. I think it would be fair to call me a lover of Law, in my previous paradigm. I soon became very dominated by it…
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So I’m just trying to feel around and see what it’s place is in my life NOW, if any…
Posted by jewlsntexas on February 5, 2008 at 4:39 pm
I was just thinking about this recently – http://jewlsntexas.blogspot.com/2008/01/political-ramblings.html
I had a friend comment that “laws” keep certain people from committing crimes – and I have been pondering this, even discussing it with my 14 & 16 yo daughters. We all pretty much came to the conclusion that laws do not prevent crime – but stand more as a standard for punishment.
Great post – thought provoking again – as it seems this is a current theme for my thoughts.
Posted by jewlsntexas on February 5, 2008 at 4:44 pm
Oh yes, I never actually completed my thought – which I am often guilty of – but I was thinking of our legal system vs. biblical law – there seems a parallel. Grace and punishment don’t co-exist very well together in my brain – it is one of the consistently unraveling mysteries.
I feel a little inarticulate tonight so if this reads like blah blah blah- then please feel free to delete it without hard feelings.
Posted by Barb on February 5, 2008 at 5:02 pm
I suppose its been said but my understanding is the law is there to show us, reflect in us, how much we can’t keep the law. It wasn’t a new thing, to Israel, that they couldn’t keep the law, even though it was given specifically to them, for the nations (blessed to be a blessing – yes, receiving the law is a blessing because it show us, yes, we are weak and then points to the mercy seat of God to lay our contrite hearts before Him). The Law reveals are bent toward lawlessness, our inability to keep it. The law didn’t fade away, it stills reveals are but Christ stepped in between us and the Father and the Law so the Father sees Christ.
I wonder if the law is archaic in many minds – old-fashioned, not pc and therefore the consequences of sinful acts isn’t feared. If there is nothing sinful, if the law is not feared, than there is no fear in punishment. Perhaps that is why punishment sometimes fails – because the act that leads to punishment is not considered sin/wrong.
Posted by Barb on February 5, 2008 at 5:04 pm
Molly, can you add preview to your comments because I messed up my comment. Should read:
…its still reveals us but Christ…
Posted by molleth on February 5, 2008 at 5:22 pm
I would add preview…but as far as I know, the free wordpress blog format doesn’t allow you to add that. If it does, tell me how, please!
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I am seeing two ways of seeing this:
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1.) The Law is Good, but we couldn’t keep it, so Christ saves us SO THAT we can then keep the Law. (If this is so, then what parts of the Law, and how did you decide upon those parts?).
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In other words, performance is still the name of the game, only now Jesus makes it possible for us to perform whereas previously we couldn’t.
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or…
This crazy crazy shift in thinking that my eyes beheld upon my paradigm shift (or, The Great Cracking, as I now playfully refer to the time period when my theological foundation went CRACK and I was left looking at a pile of rubble):
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2.) The Law is a means to show us the impossibility of relating with God by Law (even though Law/performance is our preferred method of relating).
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Therefore, Christ was sacrificed to END the old covenant way of relating to God (by performance) and to birth a NEW way of relating to God (by Love).
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Therefore the Law was good, in that it helped us to see the impossibility of performance based relationship (in that it cannot ever produce deep union, but only superficial). We can hardly help but relate based on performance (you do good to me, I’ll do good to you). But God’s intent with the Law was to primarily show us NOT the impossibility of our measuring up, but more so the need for us to relate with Him on a whole different level, on a wholly other basis. In that sense, the Law was GOOD.
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But the Law is NOT good, in that it is not EVER a way to produce or maintain a Love relationship with Yahweh, OR for a love relationship with anyone else, for that matter. The Law is NOT God’s end, it’s not what He wants and has never been, and it is NOT why Christ came.
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(My always opinionated opinion that this mulling has helped me form into words–thanks!)…
Posted by Barb on February 5, 2008 at 5:38 pm
freaking me out molly – you just changed your template.
Posted by molleth on February 5, 2008 at 5:43 pm
I love my old template, but it drives me NUTS how it won’t let commenters make paragraph breaks… One of these days I’m going to find the perfect template and never ever let it go…
Posted by Leigh Ann on February 5, 2008 at 7:44 pm
This is how I see it. Christ did come to keep the law. Paul says that He came to fulfill it, not do away with it. That is the righteousness that we are clothed in–Christ perfect law keeping, if you will. Us in our Christless state do not have a heart that is able or willing to honor God with doing those things that please Him and represent His character (the ten commandments and the out working of them). But Christ perfectly did those things that pleased the Father and showed us the Father in the flesh. He gives us that righteousness because we can’t do it on our own. But we now have a heart that wants to please God and show forth His character in our lives. The Holy Spirit gives us that death defying power in order to live more and more unto righteousness. We, of course, will never be perfect here on this earth, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t try to do those things that please the Father. But the grace is that every failure brings me back to Christ. It’s not the I have a performance mentality (which is a danger if one misses Christ in all of this) but a Christ mentality. Living to please Him and running to Him for the strength to do so and the forgiveness when I fail.
That was long winded but that’s my story and I’m sticking to it
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Posted by Leigh Ann on February 5, 2008 at 7:45 pm
P.S. To make my paragraph breaks in my comments I just hit enter
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Posted by Leah on February 5, 2008 at 9:47 pm
Someone may have already said this…
Romans 5:18-20
So then as through, one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men.
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19For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous.
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20 The Law came in so that the transgression would increase; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more,
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21 so that, as sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
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That’s kind of what I was saying earlier. Christ new! The law came so that transgressions would increase, and grace could abound. That’s awesome.
Posted by Andrea on February 6, 2008 at 1:47 pm
New template gave me a jolt, but I will bravely try fullstop-less paragraph breaks and see what comes of it!
*peers around* Did it indent? Did it indent?!
Whether or not it indented– I am going to ramble a bit, here, so I … really, REALLY hope it indented.
I think the chief reason I do feel I understand what you’re saying, Molly, is because my brain has been struggling to wrap itself around very similar problems. Over the past year as I’ve been drawing closer to God, as my walk has finally become more personal and less prescribed, I found myself running into all of this law-based, performance mentality stuff. And it looked GOOD. It was prescribed. It was a formula. Like the whole OT system that the Pharisees loved so much that they made up thousands of pretty hedge-laws to go along with it . . . it was a way of measuring oneself and not needing much extra to go along with it. As I tend to a more controlling temperament, you might see how a checklist of that sort would appeal to me
But God, in His utter and absolute awesomeness, coupled my each and every such discovery with something that showed me how things SHOULDN’T work. My sister’s ex boyfriend is just one such– a young man with many good qualities who, I don’t doubt, thinks he’s “doing all right” for himself, but who in fact hides his true heart for the sake of presenting a shiny exterior. Every extra-Biblical principle I might have stumbled into and believed to be a Biblical absolute was paired with an encounter or experience that taight me the true heart of God in a way the Law never quite could– and oh, my word, He is just so good.
His Law is in one way definitely a reflection of Himself; that is, it is a standard of perfection beyond the grasp of mortals. Hence Christ, the only spotless one. Hence Christ, the fullness and completion of a Law that divided us from the perfection of God. Hence the personification of God’s overwhelming, all consuming, earth-shaking love for his hapless, helpless creation that could never manage to measure up, but whom He wants anyway!
The deeper I dig into this, the more I keep coming back to the Pharisees. I know it’s become sort of a trite insult used to fling around, coupled with descriptions of legalism . . . you know, “that’s so like the Pharisees,” but frankly, I can identify with them! I mean, it must have felt great, right? They thought they had all the answers– they had their checklists, after all. The thing is, because they didn’t yet have the fullness of the Law, yes, technically they were doing it right– but they had it all wrong. They were good and clean and shiny on the outside, thanks to the measuring stick of the Law, but because they didn’t know the heart of their maker –because theirs was a Law incomplete, without heart– their own hearts couldn’t leap in recognition of the one who came to bring them to completion. Because they had the Law and treated it as an achievable standard (not seeing it as proof of the fact that they could never REACH the standard) they didn’t see the need for Christ.
Now obviously (at least I hope it’s obvious– maybe it’s not!) I don’t believe in anarchy or anything like that; I do treat the Law as a reflection of God’s high ideals and I very much want to mirror Him and His priorities when living my life. However, I don’t devote my time to searching the Old Testament for rules to add to my checklist. I am actually trying to cut back on lists! Instead, I think that the Law, when you see it as proof that we can never make it on our own, is freeing in the best and sweetest sense because we KNOW its completion– we have it in Christ. It’s when we start to treat the Law as something we still have to fight to follow to the closest letter possible that we start to focus too much on the placement of our own feet, and not on He who has us by the hand.
To me, Christ’s coming means that when we stumble and fall in the dirt, we don’t get thwapped across the head with the rule book. We get a hand reached down to help us up and set us on the right path again. And it’s the Shepherd, not the Schoolmaster, that I am just dying to follow.
Posted by Andrea on February 6, 2008 at 1:52 pm
. . . holy moley that’s one novella of a comment. I didn’t realise it was that long! So sorry– I didn’t mean to make a blog post in your comments section, Molly!
Also, Leigh Ann, I just read back over the earlier comments and wanted to say that I didn’t realise you’d already used the term schoolmaster– I didn’t mean for my use of the word to refer to what you said, and I’m sorry if it comes off that way!
Posted by leigh ann on February 6, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Thanks for the clarification, Andrea. I hear what you are saying. And just to clear up where I am coming from here is my take on schoolmaster. I was using schoolmaster not in the one room schoolhouse sense but in the one who leads to truth and knowledge (the idea of schoolmaster in Paul’s time, if I am not mistaken , would not include the ruler rapping). So the Law was never to be the end in itself (which is where the Pharisees went wrong, IMO) but it was to be the guide to Christ. I think today and everyday it is still to be that guide to Christ. That is why I am all for having it around for believers and non-believers. If it is not around what is going to guide people to a knowledge of their sin and their need for Christ. And if it curtails sinful activity in the meantime of those who will not repent, how is that a bad thing? Just my thoughts.
Posted by mtash on February 6, 2008 at 9:24 pm
“2.) The Law is a means to show us the impossibility of relating with God by Law (even though Law/performance is our preferred method of relating).”
Molly, I have been thinking about this same thing all week! I heard a quote by William Paul Young saying, “Law always subverts relationship” and I’m inclined toward option number 2. Maybe that is why the brothers and sisters taking one another to court in Corinthians 6 was so despicable to Paul.
I want my children to obey me because they value their relationships with me, not because they fear punishment. I’m still sorting out how to help that happen without giving my children the impression that our peaceful and happy relationship is a reward for their obedience.
Posted by mtash on February 6, 2008 at 9:26 pm
“2.) The Law is a means to show us the impossibility of relating with God by Law (even though Law/performance is our preferred method of relating).”
Molly, I have been thinking about this same thing all week! I heard a quote by William Paul Young saying, “Law always subverts relationship” and I’m inclined toward option number 2. Maybe that is why the brothers and sisters taking one another to court in Corinthians 6 was so despicable to Paul.
I want my children to obey me because they value their relationships with me, not because they fear punishment. I’m still sorting out how to help that happen without giving my children the impression that our peaceful and happy relationship is a reward for their obedience.
Posted by mtash on February 7, 2008 at 9:09 am
gah! sorry for the double comment. WordPress gave me an error the first time I hit submit.
Posted by lynnp on February 12, 2008 at 8:42 pm
My heart’s been heavy for a while with this issue and the post before. I appreciate you bringing discussion to this. http://lynnp.atlblogs.com/archives/017449.html#more