Jesus is walking with his disciples through a field. It’s the Sabbath and they are picking corn and eating it. The Pharisees (who were maybe hiding in the hedges?) see him and tell him it’s unlawful. Jesus answers that they’ve got their priorities wrong. Human beings (Matthew chapter 12, also in Mark 2 and Luke 6) were not made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath was made for human beings. Thus, a legalistic definition of OT Law (don’t harvest corn on the Sabbath because that is classed as ‘work’) is trumped by God’s priority of providing for the people he loves. Jesus goes on to quote his Father’s words through the prophet Hosea “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”  And concludes the encounter with the Pharisees by telling them that he (the Son of Man) is Lord of the Sabbath anyway.

The Pharisees are often condemned for being legalistic and losing sight of the bigger concerns of God (like mercy and justice). This legalistic attitude is rooted in Israel’s history as reflected in a considerable portion of the Old Testament. Israel was spiritually and psychologically devastated by its exile from the land and the destruction of Jerusalem (especially the Temple) in 587 BC. And the fact that a Davidic king no longer ruled on the throne in Jerusalem. The cause of this was understood to be their unfaithfulness to the Law, to the God-given regulations. Such unfaithfulness must never happen again. Israel needed to recover its calling to be a kingdom of priests, a holy nation, defined by obedience to God by which they meant the Law.

So, observing the Law became the dominant national priority after the exile. The story of this new beginning is told in the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah (see esp. chapters 8-10). Religious leaders became focused on preventing Israel breaking the Law. To do this, they ‘built a fence around the Law’, collecting or introducing copious detailed man-made regulations designed to prevent Israelites from even getting near to breaking the Law. While this response is understandable, it’s hard to see how it could avoid descending into an unhealthy legalism.

And in Jesus’ time, he singles out the Pharisees in particular for this error.

The relationship with God has always been primary. God chooses and offers relationship and then sets the rules to make the relationship work. He chose Abraham and Sarah and their descendants. At Mount Sinai (Exodus 19), through Moses, God asked the people of Israel if they wanted to follow him wholeheartedly, and when they replied “YES”, he gave them the 10 Commandments and the whole of ‘the Law’ to help them live in a right relationship with him and with each other.

Obeying the commandments did not make Israel the people of God, as if they could become his people by obedience (though they could lose that privilege through disobedience). God in his goodness kept on choosing Israel despite their disobedience.

It’s not that different with the Bible as a whole. Although it’s obviously much more than laws and instructions, it’s given not to make us God’s people by ‘obeying’ it but as a gift to help us live as God’s people, with the help of the Holy Spirit and each other. It’s God we are always required to obey.

The prophet Jeremiah, writing before the exile (chapter 31) foretells a time when nobody will need the Bible, because the law will be written by God into everybody’s heart and mind, and everyone will know God. Much the same promise in made in Ezekiel chapter 36. It’s part of the vision of the coming kingdom of God – where God’s good purposes for us and all creation are fulfilled, when love triumphs and all evil is overcome.

According to Deuteronomy chapter 6 the Israelites are to love Yahweh with all their heart. It’s what Jesus says is the most important commandment. God’s commandments are to be in their hearts. This is repeated in Deuteronomy 10. Loving God is certainly to honour and obey him, but it goes much deeper, beyond obedience to a response to God from the centre of our being. This is very much at the heart of NT teaching (strongly linked to the work of the Holy Spirit) but it is still very much present in the OT.

The coming of Jesus, his life, death and resurrection, starts the final phase of history which will conclude with the kingdom of God in all its glory. After his Ascension, Jesus ushers in this new age of the Spirit by sending the Spirit from the Father on the day of Pentecost (as recorded in Acts chapter 2) but the final fulfilment is yet to come. Christ has indeed come to set us free, not just from the shackles of sin and death, but into a freedom that comes through the conversion of our hearts and minds: a new birth which results in the law of love being written there. And when love rules at the centre of our being, we can’t go wrong.

The trouble is, of course, the ‘now but not yet’ nature of this. In Jesus, the kingdom of God has come, is here, but it is not yet fulfilled. Our hearts are changed, converted even, and we are new creations in Christ. But still our sinful nature lives on, so we constantly find ourselves falling short and acting selfishly, a conflict which St Paul groaningly acknowledges in himself (Romans 7). But then in chapter 8 he goes on to celebrate that there is now no condemnation because in Christ we have been set free from the old law of sin and death.

So we live with the tension between the freedom we have in Christ and the guidance and regulation that is still needed in Christian communities.

I have often come across Churches and preaching where the use of the Bible overshadows and obscures the Holy Spirit and the lively relationship with God, becoming deathly in its adherence to a very selective use of the Bible. And there are usually expectations or rules and codes of conduct which are purely cultural. Often this subverts the freedom in Christ which is already ours in part and which is our ultimate destiny.

Of course, there is a complex relationship and a tension between the freedom of ‘the Gospel’ and the restraint of ‘the Law’, as reflected in the teachings and actions of Jesus and St Paul (I find Romans 7:6 most helpful). Those tensions are not resolved in the Bible but passed on to us to chart our way through in our time and culture.