What is the Spirit of the Law?
From time to time I hear people say "We should follow
the spirit, not the letter of the law". This has a deceptive ring of
scripture to it. It is a misuse of 2 Cor.3.
"The letter" is made to mean the strict wording of scripture,
and "the spirit" is made to mean "what you think they really
mean to you". They seem to think "the letter"(what the words
actually say) versus "the spirit"(how I feel inside) is what 2 Cor.3
is about. However, 2 Cor.3 is actually
contrasting "the letter"(the already written Old Testament) with
"the Spirit"(the New Testament, being at that time, revealed through
the Spirit to His apostles and prophets). Read the context carefully and the spirit of the New Testament will show that
this is the case. The letter they had was the Old Testament, and the Spirit was
now leading them under the authority and covenant of Jesus Christ. Thus, in context "the letter" is the Old Covenant from Sinai and "the Spirit" was the New Covenant now being revealed through the apostles and prophets (Heb.2:1-4; Eph.1:22; 3:3-5) by the Holy Spirit.
Going back to the misuse of 2 Cor.3, how does one determine what the spirit of a law is? It says “do
not commit adultery”, but what is the “spirit” of that command? It uses letters to condemn homosexual
activity, but what is the actual “spirit” we should get instead of following
the letter of the law? Doesn't this reasoning, in essence, wind up telling
people to follow their own imaginations and desires above God's law? Each
person gets to bend the actual words and imagine a certain “spirit” that is
more important than the actual law demands. Thus, we can always over-rule
something by appeal to spirit over letter.
Was the question of circumcision settled by an appeal to
"the spirit of the law"? (Acts 15). Could the Judaizing teachers have
justified this innovation by saying the spirit of God’s law is to not get so
technical about what the apostles had commanded or not commanded?
Instead of insisting on taking literal unleavened bread (in observing the Lord's Supper) in
harmony with the
"letter of the law", can we just observe "the spirit of what
it's about"? Can we treat
everything else in this
way? Baptism? Confession? Assembling? Church organization? Who determines what the spirit of the law
actually is? How is this determined? This is not by reasoning upon the evidence of
the words available in scriptures, but rather it becomes handy to claim a more
spiritual attitude while ignoring the responsibility spelled out in God’s
revealed word. I hear them say “You are
just concerned about the letter of the law, while I am more concerned about the
spirit of the law”. It is actually
another form of pride that tries to act superior when their errors are pointed
out. Beware of this misuse of 2
Corinthians 3. There is the matter of “proving what is acceptable to the Lord”(Rom.12:2-3;
Eph.5:11; 1 Thess.5:21). How would you prove
something is acceptable to the Lord? You
will have to start with stated principles, and commands, examples, and what you
can rightly infer from what the scriptures actually say. You cannot pull it out of thin air and call
it “the spirit of the law”. -Terry W. Benton
