On Sunday, thousands of subway riders across the
world participated in No Pants Subway Ride Day, boarding subway cars
at various stops, without pants. The founder of the
event told USA Today that the day was created to celebrate silliness—to make
people laugh and smile. When one participant was asked by the media why he was
taking off his pants, he said, “Why not?”
The “why not” attitude is not new, but it is a reflection of any
society that lacks “raison d'être” (reason for being). Without purpose, life is arbitrary, accidental, and random—not, as Thoreau described it, “living
deliberately” or as Warren captured it in a “Purpose Driven Life.” Today’s “why not’s” include things as weighty as abortion or euthanasia, or as petty as taking off your pants in public. But there is an important question here. How will citizens of a secularized society decide what is right and wrong? Solomon said, “When people do not accept divine guidance, they run wild
and cast off constraint [along with their pants]. But whoever obeys the law is
joyful.” (Proverbs 29:18). That's why.
Last year, a woman I used to work with was dying of cancer, and her friends sent out weekly updates that seemed to go on endlessly. But when doctors turned off all life support systems, she passed.
In light of this, the phrase “legally dead” recently caught my attention. It means a terminal patient,
kept alive on life support, is dead “under the law.” Paradoxically, the whole world is condemned to death under the law, only kept alive by this world's life support systems. But if we are in Christ, we are no longer under the Law's condemnation: we have died to
the law of sin and death, and to this world—we are really “legally dead” (Rom. 8:2; 6:6). And now, having
been raised up with Christ, we are alive (Rom. 6:11): Christ is our life support (Col 3:2). Given that, how gruesome the thought that any believer who had been disconnected from
the world’s systems would want to go back and be reconnected?
Is this why Paul asks, with such incredulity, “How can you who died to sin
still live in it? ... Don’t you know that that you were crucified with
Christ?” (Ro. 6:2, 6). I can still remember when I first understood this (Gal. 2:20), the day I found out I was legally dead.
The slayings of 20 children and 6 adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School have reignited the debate on gun control—specifically, a ban on assault weapons. Whenever innocent people are affected by some terrible tragedy, politicians and citizens alike say, “There oughta be a law.”
Coincidentally, also in today’s USA is an article about curbing drunkenness in Britian by legislating higher prices, assuming drinkers will drink less. We may agree that there oughta be a law, but we know that no law can change a heart: drinkers drink and killers kill.
And finally, another article in today's paper reports that mass killings (where 4 or more are killed) in America are now happening every two weeks. Is the increased violence the sign of the end times called the “power of lawlessness” (2 Thess. 2:7)? If so, no man-made law will stop it. Only God can do that when he put His law in our minds and writes it on our hearts" (Jer 31:33).
Imagine if God made a law: “Everyone must eat asparagus on Sundays.” I would dread Sundays. And knowing my gag-reflex for asparagus, I probably would NOT eat it. And then I would feel very guilty. It's not that I disagree with God’s commandment. I am sure it's a good commandment. After all, asparagus must be good for me—vitamins, fiber, and probably other nutrients you can get nowhere else! It’s just me. It's the way I am wired! I can’t do it! I wish I was an asparagus-eating-loving-kind-of-guy, but I am just not. I wish there were some way I could change that law. Woe is me!
And then one day God says” “Greg, I am going to change your appetite—I am going to change your desire so that you will love asparagus.” And from that day on, I am a changed man. Now I look forward to Sundays—because I get to eat asparagus. Of course, I can eat asparagus any day of the week, but knowing God is pleased when I eat it on Sundays in particular, I love Sundays.
And now when someone says, “Do you know that God has commanded you to eat asparagus on Sundays?” I say: “Yes, I know, and I just love Sundays." Whether there is a law or not doesn’t matter anymore. I don’t need a law to make me eat asparagus on Sundays. The law is inside of me; it’s in my heart. I am an asparagus-lover by nature.
I wanted to change the law, but instead God changed me. It’s not a new law I needed; it was a new nature.
“This is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days," declares the LORD, "I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people…I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone [asparagus-hater] from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh [asparagus-lover] ” (Jeremiah 31:33; Ezekiel 36:26).
