We’ve been talking a lot about law the last few weeks. It turns out that it’s far more important, and far more freeing than we usually consider.

So in the Mosaic system, the Ark of the Covenant (yup, that’s the thing from the first Indiana Jones movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark), well, this held the covenant law that God had made between himself and the people of Israel. This law was the basis for justice and righteousness. God’s grace was expressed beautifully in giving the law, which converted the Hebrews into a covenant people, the Israelites, and the law became the throne of God.

The ark’s main purpose was to house the covenant tablets and provide a place for the representative of the people, the priest, to encounter the Lord on his throne.

It was said that the presence of the Lord would sit on the seat of the ark, atop it. Now, contrary to a regular chair, the ark was more of a chest, highlighting the covenant as the basis of God’s rule while also being the throne of His kingship. The priest would offer a sacrifice at the altar, which was outside the Holy place, and the inner place where the Ark was, called the Holy of Holies. Once the priest offered the sacrifice for purity, then he was able to walk into the Holy of Holies to minister on behalf of the people. But he only was allowed to do this once a year, and with great trembling.

Now we think ahead to Jesus, and his work on the cross. It’s incorrect to separate Christ’s kingship from the law, as His work doesn’t end the law but fulfills it.

The altar where the sacrifice was offered to pay for the sin of the people, though significant, wasn’t God’s throne; it represented atonement and the start of a new life for believers.

Redemption’s goal is God’s rule over a kingdom which is obedient to the covenant law. Jesus, as King, reigns according to the law He both gave and fulfilled.

The Tabernacle emphasizes holy law, proclaiming God’s law as His throne, governing the world. A faith which starts and stops at the altar is incomplete. In other words, a faith completely focused on Jesus’ sacrifice to free us from the penalty of sin is only focused on what we’re saved from.

But Jesus, the new Adam and the perfect law-abiding Israel obeyed the law perfectly, fully representing the new humanity. His sinless sacrifice on the altar of the cross met the law’s requirements against sinners so that we are now not under condemnation but called to enter boldly into the very presence of God, at the foot of his throne. We are law-abiding citizens of His kingdom now!

There is no other god or idol that can deliver you to this kind of freedom.

One rightly put it this way,

“Man as covenant-breaker is in “enmity against God” (Rom. 8:7) and is subject to “the law of sin and death” (Rom. 8:2), whereas the believer is under “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ” (Rom. 8:2). The law is one law, the law of God. To the man on death row in a prison, the law is death; to the godly man, the same law which places another on death row is life, in that it protects him and his property from criminals. Without law, society would collapse into anarchy and fall into the hands of hoodlums. The faithful and full execution of the law is death to the murderer but life to the godly. Similarly, the law in its judgment upon God’s enemies is death; the law in its sustaining care and blessings is for the law-abiding a principle of life.”

Or as the apostle Paul put it, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” – Romans 8:1-4

If you don’t know this kind of freedom, if you are wrestling with a lack of peace and certainty in your life, then perhaps you’ve actually been longing for the very thing Jesus came to give… freedom!