O is for "Old" and "Orders" and "Oughts",

as in the "old creation," "orders of creation," and "oughts of existence," all which pertain to the realm of the Law.

The Law Largely Considered

8. The Law is the Word of God that governs the world as we know it. Be it said immediately that this is a world God continues to care for and love. This above all is why human beings should know that portion of the law which pertains to them, and obey it. This is also why God has taken pains to write that portion of the law on human hearts, as St. Paul observes to the Romans.

9. "Thou shalt not steal" is of course a Word of Law. But so is "Let there be light." We recognize this in our ordinary conversation when we speak not only of laws which ought to be obeyed but also "laws of nature" which get obeyed no matter what.

10. The same distinction-and relation-appears in our use of the word "orders." Orders on the one hand are utterances that command obedience, whether or not that obedience is given. Thus, "the general issued his orders." Orders are also underlying principles which govern the relations of one aspect of reality to the next, conformity to which is taken for granted as being bred into the nature of the things in question. Older theologians spoke regularly of "orders of creation." (Some newer ones still do.) Scientists have been making it their business these past few hundred years to ascertain precisely what these orders are-most recently and spectacularly in the Human Genome Project.

11. In old creation, the absence of law equals chaos. This is true of both forms of law-those that present a choice for or against obedience (hereafter the oughts) and those that don't (hereafter the musts).

12. It used to be taken for granted that there was an intimate relationship between the oughts and the musts. Thus Shakespeare: when Caesar is murdered, nature is thrown into outrageous tumult. Western culture has since done its best to deny that relationship. It nonetheless remains imprinted on the souls also of Westerners who are no more able than Papua New Guinean animists to avoid wondering whose sin caused the accident to happen, the illness to strike, or the tornado to blow my house to bits. Recently environmentalists (among others) have done much to demonstrate a far greater connection between the oughts and the musts than the generation or two prior to ours was prepared to confess.

13. Both oughts and musts are necessary for life-the latter more obviously if not more essentially than the former. Lutherans refer to this as the First Use of the Law.

14. Oughts and musts both lead, inexorably, to death, as the heathen are the first to recognize-witness The Lion King. The former cause death because they are not obeyed. The latter cause death because they are obeyed. Genesis 3 asserts that the latter work the way they do precisely because of our sinners' failure to obey the former.

Some Operative Principles, or The Law of the Law

15. The "arm of the Law" is not only long, it is all-encompassing and inescapable. ("Whither shall I go to flee from thy presence," etc., Ps. 139.)

16. Because the Law is God's, it is tempered with mercy. Hence such things as cures that doctors can't explain.

17. The Law, though good and righteous, does not lead to righteousness. It is simply not possible for a human being-other than Jesus-to obey the Law perfectly, and thus to be "without sin." Not even the best can "love the LORD your God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind," nor can anyone love neighbor as self. Even the best got that way through learning, stumbling, and failing. Problem is, God keeps permanent, life-long records. There is no expunging the sins of the learning curve. A+'s and 4.0's in legal obedience are therefore unheard of. Even with Jesus, an assertion of perfect obedience is an act of faith rooted in the fact of his resurrection, even as it defies our understanding of his exploits as a 12 year old, Luke 2.

18. Lex semper accusat-the law always accuses, as Melanchthon points out in the Apology of the Augsburg Confession. That is, the law carries an implicit and constant reminder that we have not and are not achieving the degree of righteousness that is necessary for our own lives to be continued indefinitely. It forces us to taste and eventually swallow the limits that are the consequence of sin. This is true of oughts and musts alike. Lutheran refer to this as the Second Use of the Law.

19. "The law breeds wrath"-thus St. Paul. One wrath bred is God's with us. A second wrath bred is ours with God A third is ours with each other. One way the law does this is by tapping our sinners' lust for a righteousness we can call our own. Again, musts and oughts both do this. Witness a parent's reaction to a) her gray hair and/or wrinkles, b) her child's poor report card-often every bit as wrathful as her reaction to the child's flagrant misbehavior.

The Law and our Vocation

20. As pastors, teachers, colleagues, parents, friends, citizens, etc., we are all "officers of the Law" responsible in one fashion or another for its enforcement. We are not at liberty to dodge this task.

21. By virtue of our creation in the image of God, we are also "lawmakers" ("...let them have dominion over the birds of the air," etc.) This too is a task not to be dodged.

22. Experience with the lawmaking and law enforcement that others do has long since taught us that both tasks can be done either well or poorly, wisely or foolishly. It can be done in a way that accords with God's own lawmaking and law-enforcing purposes. It can also be done in a way that subverts these. The Law itself demands that we strive for the former.

23. Wise lawmaking and good law enforcement is that which gets done with both purposes and effects of the law clearly in mind.

24. It strikes me that the architectural principle of the Bauhaus school applies also to lawmaking: less is more.

25. We will have failed miserably in our vocation if we do not attend with care to our legal responsibilities, among which is the responsibility to inculcate a reverence for the law (which is more than a mere respect for it).

26. Tending to the Law is not, however, the fundamental purpose of Christian schools and churches. The Holy Spirit has called us into being for quite a different reason, namely to announce the hope of a new age when the Law is no more. This announcing gets done most directly and forcefully in the daily law-subverting recognition of an "alien righteousness" which is ours through Christ. But this too leads into another topic for another time.

    Jerry Burce