While the Hebrews were slaves in Egypt for 430 years there was law and order – Egyptian law and order. After leading Israel out of Egypt in the Exodus, however, God gave Moses the Ten Commandments – Divine law and order. You see, it wasn’t good, it wasn’t possible, that the people could survive and thrive without law and order of one sort or another. Men delude themselves believing that freedom means anarchy (no-rule) and utopia (no-place). Utopia literally does not, and cannot, exist, and anarchy is chaos and disorder, ensuring that no one is truly free but that all are the slaves of someone else’s power and tyranny.
From creation’s beginning God established law and order for our good. The first chapter of Genesis, above all, is the account of a divine order being established by God’s creative word (law). The laws of physics, chemistry, and biology were all set in place, and clear distinctions between plants, animals, kinds and species, male and female were set in place, remain to this very day, and will continue to remain until there are no more days. The primordial world of the first day was described as tohu wa-bohu, Hebrew words meaning chaotic and empty. Into the chaotic emptiness of the first day God spoke His creative word (law) and brought order to His creation. Without law and order, the foundation of which is God’s law and order, there is chaos and emptiness, a true and terrible utopia – no place.
Today many believe that we are near to realizing utopia and are rushing and pushing us evermore towards it with great fervor. They seemingly believe that once we have thrown off the shackles of Judeo-Christian Biblical morality (the Law of God) and natural law we will be truly free. Indeed, thanks to contraception and abortion, we have seemingly freed ourselves from the consequences of sexual intercourse. And, thanks to no-fault divorce and same-sex marriage, we have freed ourselves from the constrictions of marriage as the lifelong union of a man and a woman. More recently, we have freed ourselves from the constrictions of anatomy, biology, and chromosomes defining our sex and gender. In effect, we have freed ourselves from reality and truth. But that really isn’t possible.
The so-called “freedom” we are experiencing today is chaotic and empty – tohu wa-bohu all over again. It is not so much the un-doing of God’s law and order – that is impossible – than it is rebellion against it. And so, we stamp our feet, raise our fists in the air, and scream and shout in rebellion against God’s law and order insisting that we are free to believe and act however we choose apart from any external law of God or man. But reality can only be denied for so long, for the reality is that we all die. Moreover, the exercise of this so-called “freedom” is not innocent and harmless, as many claim, but it affects the lives of our family members and our neighbors, our community, nation, and our world. This so-called “freedom” is truly selfishness and a lack of love, care, and concern for our neighbor. This so-called “freedom” is the very opposite of the true freedom God’s law and order call us to, to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves.
The reality is that God’s law and order is good whether anyone believes in Him or not: “Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God (Romans 3:19). This reality is reflected in the laws of nations: Every nation has laws against murder, taking another’s spouse, stealing, lying under oath, etc. God’s law and order is the foundation of human civilization built upon marriage as God created and instituted it, the procreation and rearing of children, and the forming of communities, cities, and nations. Charity begins at home, literally, for that is where we learn to love and to sacrifice ourselves one for another and so obey and keep the law of God.
Of course, these are precisely the institutions that have been under attack for God only knows how long – since the beginning. Let us repent of our selfishness that insists on defining reality on our own terms, enslaving us in self-love curved in on itself at the cost and casualty of others. Let us be the men and women, husbands and wives, sons and daughters God has made and called us to be living in accord with God’s law and order, being fruitful and multiplying in all things good to the glory of God and to the welfare of humankind.
Rev. Jon M. Ellingworth
St. John Evangelical Lutheran Church – Waverly, IA
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