A CONFUSING MIX OF RULES AND REGULATIONS
It is not disrespectful of God to say that the entire Old Testament is hard to understand because he made it that way. Readers who are inclined to interpret scripture literally might not admit that this is true, but those who are intellectually honest would have to agree that much of the Old Testament is impossible to interpret and apply with strict literal interpretation. This is all evidence that The Law is a Stumbling Block.
Hard as it may be for us to accept, God caused the law to be a stumbling block for his people. This fact may at first seem to be a cruel trick for God to play on people he loves. But, if we stop to consider that God’s is very deep and very complex, we might begin to appreciate that this is the way it must be. To reduce God to words on a page effectively depreciates, minimizes and reduces God.
Here is a brief summary of why the law is a stumbling block:
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Written words need to be more or less finite if they are to be useful for human communication. Therefore, because God is infinite and cannot be limited to written or spoken human words, he understands that human words that attempt to represent God, he knows that people who think that they understand God because they understand finite human words to understand him.
The problem with religion based on a literal understanding of the Bible is that it does depreciate, minimize and reduce God down to a god that man can comprehend. Religionists who do not understand God in his fullness, in effect recreate God into a god that they can understand and manipulate for their own purposes and according to their intellectual abilities within the limitations of their language. They use God’s name and Jesus’ name freely and convincingly in order to appear knowledgeable and spiritual, but they really do not know him. The following scripture speaks to the process of learning to know God:
1 Corinthians 13:9-13: For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect; 10 but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood. 13 So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
Lack of intimate knowledge of God and lack of understanding of the law are the result of literal interpretations of the Bible. Real intimacy and knowledge of the law comes only through the the law written on the heart according to the terms of the New Covenant. Therefore, those who lack intimacy and understanding of God will stumble over the law because they are on a fools errand when they use only their human abilities (e.g. mind, language, etc.) to grasp concepts which are spiritual in nature.
When we see this truth we see that God does not call the law a stumbling block without good reason. The Bible is full of various kinds of rules and regulations that appear to direct the way to holiness. Not only are these laws hard to understand, they are hard to identify and catalog. Moreover, God’s laws, as they appear in the Bible, are impossible to do or fulfill according to the literal terms in which they are presented. Only a hyper religious fool would even try.
What religious people fail to understand is that, even though these laws are identified as commandments, charges, ordinances, statutes and judgments which the Bible literally says people are to to, they are not what God really wants his people to do. People who try to achieve holiness by performing all these literal rules and regulations have stumbled over the stumbling block. What can be more confusing than that? God says one thing and means another. What he says in the Bible in terms that most people can understand are only symbolic representations of spiritual terms that are difficult, but not impossible, to understand.
What is required to come to understanding is the willingness of religionists to accept that they cannot understand God unless they listen to his voice.
It is a curious thing that people who say they trust God do not trust that he will speak to them. They trust that God speaks to religious leaders, but not to them. They also trust that they can understand God by using their intellect to interpret the Bible literally. This is foolish, misguided trust.
Thus they work very hard trying to understand spiritual matters by integrating what they read in the literal Bible with what they learn from religious leaders. They never give a thought to the possibility that there might be more to God than words on a page. They have as small view of God that limits their understanding of just how big and complex he really is. In short, in their focus on what they can read and understand with their natural minds, they miss spiritual truth.
In God’s view, in their excessive attention to the written law, people do not bother to listen to the spirit of God speaking to their hearts. This is the essence of stumbling over the law.
STUDY TIP: See God’s Written Word and God’s Spoken Voice for discussion on knowing what God really wants. Also read the rest of this website for examples of how to interpret the spiritual content of the Bible which God wants people to obey and distinguish from the literal, written word (i.e. the law) that he gives only to lead people to spiritual truth.