GRACE IS THE COMPLETION OF THE LAW

Wednesday, third week of Lent/2024
Reflection from Friar Nicholas Okeke

Theme: Grace is the Completion of the Law

The Law was given to initiate the dwelling together of God and men. The Law was not meant to be the focus of attention, but to help man draw his attention away from self to God the founder and principle of the community. Focusing on the Law only leads to placing a heavy load on self; it is made so for the purpose of revealing the inadequacy of self before God or in the service of God. When Moses admonished the children Israel to observe the laws, it was for the terrestrial promise of the land of Canaan: “Now, Israel, take notice of the laws and customs that I teach you today, and observe them, that you may have life and may enter and take possession of the land that the Lord the God of your fathers is giving you.” The Promised land was a figure of the heavenly kingdom which is promised to all those who have faith in God like Abraham, who would live by faith in God and not by doing what the law says and glorying in self-accomplishment. Those who struggle to keep the laws in order to please God discover their inherent inability to do so, due to the effect of original sin in us. Like St. Paul, they discover the law of death at work in our members which prevents us from doing what the laws command. They therefore look up to God for deliverance and salvation from sin. So, the Law leads us to Christ the Saviour. 

Those, so tried and chastened, receive our Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour and Redeemer as the sick would receive a doctor. The Son of Man comes to accomplish the Law and the prophets in the sense that he alone is the righteous One as always doing the will of the Father. He also accomplishes the Law by being the One who would baptise us with water and the Holy Spirit. These two are important in the sense that the former signifies our death to self; which was what the Law was meant to do. The latter brings about our spiritual rebirth in Jesus Christ. Now born of the Holy Spirit, we are now enabled to live the Law effortlessly by living in the Spirit. This is the meaning of our Lord’s statement in the gospel. “Do not imagine that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I have come not to abolish but to complete them. I tell you solemnly, till heaven and earth disappear, not one dot, not one little stroke, shall disappear from the Law until its purpose is achieved.” The purpose is to tutor those who are to inherit the true promise land of heaven in despising self and embracing its death in order to inherit the spiritual life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Thus, the eyes of the baptised are not to focus on the Law, but on Jesus Christ. Focussing on the former is to exalt self to the detriment of grace; and focussing on the latter is to have abundance of grace in Jesus Christ.

Let us pray: Grant us, Lord, to realise how frail and prone to sin our mortal nature is, that we may look up to your Son Jesus Christ who makes grace abundant for our salvation.       

 

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