LESSON 4 OBEYING GOD’S LAW IS EXERCISING AUTHENTIC

FREEDOM
Path10 The Meaning of Law

Opening Prayer:
Let Your commandments, Father, be a lamp
for our feet and
a light to our path, so that we may understand
and direct
our lives in accordance with Your will. Inspire
us to follow the
path Your light marks out for us. Amen.

Today, most young people identify laws as prohibitions. Others

CONTEXT perceive them only as taboos with little or no significance at all in their daily
ICON lives. They consider laws as violating their freedom. Some seem to find it cool
to violate laws like teenagers who tend to “experiment” by exploring “restricted
areas.” Men take pleasure in violating rules at home or in school. They feel
triumphant when they are able to break a law. Some adults may also bend some
laws only to accommodate their vested interest.

Below are signs and warnings you usually see along the road when you travel.
How does your obedience to these signs contribute to your well-being?

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 ICON –
EXPOSITION

What are moral laws? What are they for? Are they prohibitions? Are they taboos or
violations of our freedom? How does Jesus look at the law? Let us look closely at what He
has to say.

Sacred Scripture: Matthew 5:17-20

…Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and

teaches others to do so will be called least in the kingdom of heaven…

Jesus lays down the eternal character of the Law. Paul says, "Christ is the end of the
Law" (Rom.10:4). In this passage, countless Jews were puzzled by what Jesus said. "Do not
think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to
fulfill” (Mt 5: 17). This is a declaration which certainly no one would have invented it; it is
so unlikely an adage which Jesus must have said it; And when we come to see what it really
means, we will see that it is inevitable that Jesus said it.

Jesus said that He had not come to destroy God’s laws, but to fulfill them. He did not
come to do away with the laws, but to interiorize their real meaning in order to bring them to
completion. He is the key to the Scriptures: “You search the Scriptures…; And it is they that
bear witness to me” (John 5:39). His aim is to bring the laws to their perfection by restoring
their true intent, which is to lead people to do the will of God and thus promotes the well-
being of all. Jesus brings God’s commandments to fulfillment, particularly the
commandment of love of neighbor, by interiorizing their demands and by bringing out their
full meaning.

The Decalogue is the basis for all moral laws and we can see that their whole meaning
can be summed up in a single word: Respect, or better still, reverence. Reverence for God
and for the name of God, reverence for God's day, respect for parents, for life, for property,
for sexuality, for the truth and for another person's good name, respect for oneself so that
wrong desires may never master us. These are the fundamental values behind the Ten
Commandments, value and virtue of reverence for God, and respect for His will, for our
fellow men and for ourselves.

Jesus came to give this reverence and respect. He came to show men by His example
what reverence for God and respect for others are like. The Greeks said that justice consists

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 in giving to God and to others that which is their due. Jesus came to show men in actual life
what it means to give to God the reverence due to Him and to men, the respect which is
their due.

Our reverence and respect do not consist in simply obeying a multitude of petty
decrees and regulations. They do not consist in sacrifice, but in mercy; Not in legalism, but in
love; Not in prohibitions which demand blind obedience, but in the instruction to shape their
lives on the positive commandment to love. The reverence and the respect which are the basis
for living according to the Ten Commandments can never pass away; They are the lasting
covenant in man's relationship with God and with his fellowmen.

When Jesus spoke as He did about the Law and the Gospel, He was implicitly laying
down certain permanent principles. Jesus was stating that there is an explicit connection
between the past and the present. Our life must never appear as a kind of battle between the
past and the present. The present grows out of the past. An author wrote:
“After Dunkirk, in the Second World War, there was a tendency on all hands to look for
someone to blame for the disaster which had befallen the British forces, and there were
many who wished to enter into bitter recriminations with those who had guided things in
the past. At that time Mr. Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister as he then was, said a
very wise thing: "If we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that
we have lost the future."

In this passage, Matthew 5:17-20, Jesus warns us not to think of Christian Faith as
something easy. We might think that all the duties, all the responsibilities, all the demands
have been wiped away. Jesus warns that righteousness of the Christians must surpass the
righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees. For the Scribes and Pharisees, their purpose of
multiplying many particular laws was their desire to satisfy all the demands of the Law and
thus gain heaven by their deeds. They could say, "We kept all laws; My duty is discharged;
The law has no more claim on me." But, as Christians, we know this is erroneous. We must
live the demands of the law not legalistically but out of love, desiring to show gratitude for the
love of God. If we love someone with all our hearts, we are bound to feel that we should offer
a lifetime service. The claims of love have no limit in time or in eternity. Jesus set before us,
not the law of God, but the love of God. God has loved us, we must respond to that love, and
that is the greatest task we have. The controlling law is not fear of judgment, but love for
others and fidelity to God’s love.

Points for reflections:

1. How did Jesus perceive the law?

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2. Jesus came to perfect the law and the prophets. Were there such imperfections of the law
that Jesus had to perfect it?

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Church Teaching: Catechism for the Filipino Catholics 801

[Law] is “an ordinance of reason, promulgated by competent authority for the sake of the
common good” (St. Thomas, ST, I-II, 90, 4).

What is a law? St. Thomas arrived at this definition. “Law is an

ordinance of reason, promulgated by competent authorities for the sake of the
common good.” This standard definition highlights four essential elements.
Each element has its significance:

a. Law is an ordinance of reason

b. Promulgated
c. By competent authority
d. For the common good

1. Ordinance of Reason
A law must always be a result of prudent and serious reflection. To qualify it to
be a law, it must bear a purpose and must not only be based on a capricious whim, an
impulse, a feeling or an emotion. The law which prohibits the use of prohibited
substances is based on the truth that such substances are hazardous to one’s health and
may eventually lead a user or someone addicted to death. This law makes sense
because its purpose is primarily to protect and safeguard not merely one’s health, but
life itself. It protects society from other harms which may be a result of such
addiction. Another example is incest, which is prohibited by law because it corrupts
the blood and is associated with birth defects and a serious decline in one’s health, and
also corrupts the family, for instead of nurturing their children; parents may be
tempted to exploit them.

2. Promulgated
For practical reasons, a law has to be disseminated to those concerned for it to be a
law. We cannot expect concerned people to obey a law if it is not clearly and
adequately communicated. Freshmen who enroll in a certain school must be informed
of the school policies concerning academics and discipline by providing them with a
student handbook and explaining its contents during meetings and general assemblies.
School officials are duty bound to make their students become aware of policies that
concern the students. Thus, in the school, a law applies when it is made known to all
students through dissemination. If a law is to have a binding force, it must be known
and understood by the people it covers.

3. Competent Authority

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 A law is made and must be communicated by those who have legitimate power. The
mayor of a certain town, for example, cannot impose laws in another town outside his
jurisdiction because he/she has no authority to govern a town or community that did
not elect him/her.

4. For the Common Good

A just law must be for the benefit of the common good, not merely of a chosen few.
The law which demands people who have income to pay the exact amount of taxes
does not merely sustain government projects, but also serves to help the needs of the
people for their common good.

Hence, a law is not something which hamper our freedom, but something which shapes our
freedom so that we may become the persons we are called to be. A law is not just prohibition but
it provides positive direction for us to love God and our fellowmen genuinely. A law is an
objective norm by which we can live a moral life. It is not to be regarded as taboo or of little
significance in one’s life.

ICON – Morals:
INTEGRATION Moral laws are needed to lead persons to community in the authentic exercise of
their freedom.
Laws lead us to authentic freedom. They give shape to our freedom as in the same
way the shore is related to the sea that contains. Just as the shore gives shape to the
sea so the laws mark out the boundaries of the exercise of our freedom.

Doctrine:
“Law is an ordinance of reason, promulgated by competent authorities for the
sake of the common good.”
From our narrow and legalistic notion of laws, Christ gives us the grace to
fulfill it. With regard to the Ten Commandments, what value does each of
the commandments protect?

Worship:
Law even directs our prayer. Read reflectively Psalm 19:8-10.

The law of the Lord is perfect, refreshing the soul. The decree of the Lord is trustworthy, giving
wisdom to the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The command of
the Lord is clear, enlightening the eye. The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever. The
statutes of the Lord are true, all of them just. 65
Write a short reflection on it.
 SUMMARY

Think of a creative
way to recap what we
have learned about
law.

VOCABULARY
Ordinance – decree, regulation
Promulgate- disseminate

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