Lawlessness, Part 3

“To the Son, God said, . . .

‘You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness;

therefore, God, even your God, 

has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows.’”

Hebrews 1:8–9

Recently, the Lord put the above scripture together with another one that I had never associated with it.  That second scripture is from 2Peter 2, where Peter is describing self-willed believers, saying, “The Lord knows how . . . to preserve the unjust under punishment until the Day of Judgment, but especially those who walk after the flesh in corrupting lust and despise government.  Bold and self-willed, they do not tremble when speaking evil of authorities” (2Pet. 2:9–10).  It was a new thought to me that to be “without law” is to despise government, but that is exactly what it is.  And to be lawless, that is, to despise government, is a damnable offense in the kingdom of God.  It is rebellion, and in God’s sight, “rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft” (1Sam. 15:23), and as we know, witches “are an abomination to the Lord” (Dt. 18:12).

Paul exhorted the elders in the Assembly in Thessalonica to “warn the unruly”.  To be unruly is to be lawless, or we could say, to despise government.  But because God rules among the saints through men He anoints to be visible representatives of His Son, for a believer to be unruly means to refuse to submit to those through whom God rules.  And to be lawless means to refuse to submit to those through whom He administers His law.  And to despise government means to refuse to submit to those through whom He governs.  There is no rule, law, or government in God’s kingdom as a thing; God’s rule, God’s law, and God’s government are a person, Jesus Christ, and Jesus governs the saints through his ministers.  That has always been and will always be true, and because of that, the unruly, the lawless, and the despisers of government are those who do not have a right relationship with those who are over them in the Lord.

You can only love and obey the true God by loving and obeying Jesus, His Son, whom God has anointed to be over us all.  And you can only love and obey His Son by loving and obeying the ministers he appoints to be over you.  To think otherwise is to be lawless.

Lawlessness, Part 2

“To the Son, God said, . . . 

‘You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness;

therefore, God, even your God,

has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows.’”

Hebrews 1:8–9

Because the King James translators preferred to translate anomia (lawlessness) as “iniquity”, the  apostles’ emphasis on the goodness of the law of Moses is missed.  Lawlessness (anomia) is certainly iniquity, but the apostles’ point was to condemn deeds that were contrary to the law which God gave to Moses.  The following are our translations of all the New Testament verses which contain the word anomia.  We have tried to make the meaning clearer by adding the emphasis on the law that the apostles had in mind.

Matthew 7:23 (concerning the Final Judgment): “Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you.  Go away from me, you who work lawlessness [KJV: iniquity]!’”

Matthew 13:41: “The Son of man will send forth his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all things that offend and those who do lawlessness [KJV: iniquity].”

Matthew 23:28 (to the Pharisees): “Outwardly, you appear very righteous to men, but inwardly, you’re full of hypocrisy and lawlessness [KJV: iniquity].”

Matthew 24:12 (concerning the end times): “Because of a great increase of lawlessness [KJV: iniquity], the love of many will grow cold.”

Romans 4:7 (quoting Psalm 32:1): “Blessed are they whose lawless deeds [KJV: iniquities] are forgiven and whose sins are covered.”

Romans 6:19: “Just as you once presented your members as slaves to uncleanness, and lawlessness upon lawlessness [KJV: iniquity unto iniquity], so now present your members as slaves to righteousness unto holiness.”

2Thess. 2:7a–8 (concerning the antichrist): “For the mystery of lawlessness [KJV: iniquity] is already at work.  And then, the lawless one [KJV: that Wicked] shall be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of his mouth and destroy with the appearance of his coming.”

Hebrews 1:9 (the Father to the Son): “You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness [KJV: iniquity].”

Hebrews 10:17 (quoting Jeremiah 31:34): “Of their sins and their lawless deeds [KJV: iniquities] will I never be reminded again.”

Titus 2:14: “[Jesus] gave himself for us so that he might redeem us from all lawlessness [KJV: iniquity] and purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good works.”

2Peter 2:16 (concerning Balaam): “He had been rebuked for his lawless conduct [KJV: iniquity]; a dumb ass, speaking with human voice, restrained the madness of the prophet.”

Next:  Lawlessness and Government

Lawlessness, Part 1

“To the Son, God said, . . . ‘You have loved righteousness

and hated lawlessness;

therefore, God, even your God, has anointed you

with the oil of gladness above your fellows.’”

Hebrews 1:8–9

In the King James Bible, the word “iniquity” is used sixteen times in the New Testament.  Ten of those times, “iniquity” is a mistranslation of the Greek word anomia, or “lawlessness”.  The King James translators almost always translated anomia as “iniquity”, but that translation comes short of what was in the apostles’ minds concerning the law of Moses.  Long after the Spirit came, the apostles were still defining sin as any deed contrary to Moses’ law, for they understood that sin is contrary to the kind of life prescribed by that law.  In one verse, 1John 3:4, the King James translators did communicate the emphasis upon the law which is contained in anomia: “Whosoever committeth sin also transgresseth the law (anomia): for sin is the transgression of the law (anomia).”  This is our translation of that verse: “Everyone who practices sin is also practicing lawlessness; sin is lawlessness.”  The apostles all understood well that the law which God gave to Moses was holy and good, that the kind of life it prescribed was holy and good, and that if any person in any nation was living a righteous life, he was living as the law of Moses said to live.  Paul plainly said this in a letter to the Romans: “Whenever Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature the things of the law, they, not having the law, are a law to themselves” (Rom. 2:14).

The New Testament standard for God’s people which Jesus instituted is not contrary to Moses’ law; it cannot be contrary to it because the law was “holy, and just, and good” (Rom. 7:12).  The new standard confirms that the law was of God by taking it even further.  Jesus loved the law and taught that it would not be destroyed (Mt. 5:17–18), but said that what he taught was better.  Several times, concerning what the law taught, Jesus declared to the people, “You have heard it said, . . . but I say . . .” (cf. Mt. 5:21–48).  He was not saying that what the people had heard was evil; he was only saying that God was about to give them a higher version of it.

To love whatever is righteousness is to hate whatever is not in accord with the law that God gave to Moses, and God richly rewarded His Son for doing so: “You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; therefore, God, even your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows.”

Next: Some New Testament scriptures where anomia is used.

Keeping God’s Judgments

You must keep my statutes and my judgments,

for the man who does them shall also live by them.  I am the Lord.

Leviticus 18:5

God’s judgments are the way, the only way, to eternal life.  Wise people desire them and walk in them.  We should keep in mind the following truths concerning God’s judgments.

God’s judgments are found only among His people.

Dt. 4:7–8: “What great nation has God so close to it, as Jehovah our God is in all that we call upon Him?  And what great nation has righteous statutes and judgments as all this law which I am setting before you today?”

Ps. 147:19–20: “He declares His word to Jacob, His statutes and His judgments to Israel.  He has not done the like for any other nation, and they have not known His judgments.”

God’s favor is upon His people when they live according to His judgments.

Lev. 26:18–19: “You shall do my statutes, and you shall keep my judgments and do them, and then you will dwell safely upon the land.  And the land will yield its fruit, and you will eat to the full and dwell safely in it.”

Dt. 7:12: “And it shall come to pass that because you take heed to these judgments and keep them and do them, Jehovah your God will keep with you the covenant and lovingkindness which He swore to your fathers.  And He will love you, and bless you, and multiply you.  He will also bless the fruit of your womb, and the fruit of your ground – your grain, and your new wine, and your fresh oil, the offspring of your cattle, and the offspring of your flock – in the land which He swore to your fathers to give to you.  You shall be blessed above all peoples.  There shall not be a barren male or female among you or your livestock.  And Jehovah will turn all sickness away from you and all the malignant diseases of the Egyptians, of which you know.  He will not lay them upon you but will put them upon all who hate you.”

If God’s judgments do not satisfy us, He will give us other ones.

Ezek. 20:23–25: “I swore to them in the wilderness that I would scatter them among the Gentiles and disperse them among the nations because they did not execute my judgments. . . .  So, I also gave them statutes that were not good and judgments by which they could not have life.”

God makes His people able to keep His judgments.

Ezek. 36:26 –27: “I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you.  And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh.  And I will put my Spirit within you, and I will enable you to walk according to my statutes and my judgments, and you will diligently keep them.”

My prayer is that one day, we will all be together on the new earth with Jesus, enjoying the peace that God has promised to those who keep His judgments.