The Simple Answers… To Life’s Most Important Questions.
Bible Study Course Lesson 1 – 3
When you were young and your mom told you “if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all”… why did she say that? Because you were saying something that WASN’T nice! But if you stop to think about this command, there are three parts:
- Thou shalt not say something mean.
- Thou mayest say nothing at all.
- Thou shalt say something nice.
We can call these the negative command, the neutral, and the positive command. Your mom said this because you were saying something mean, and that MUST stop. She would prefer if you did the exact opposite, and found something nice to say – you SHOULD say something nice. But if that is not possible, it is better to say nothing at all.
The negative commandment prevents you from hurting a person’s feelings. The positive commandment requires you to help them feel better. But if you can’t obey the positive, at least obeying the negative makes you neutral, and neither hurts nor helps.
Go back to the Golden Rule: if someone is hurting you, which would you prefer – that they simply STOP… or that they turn around and HELP you? Therefore, that’s what the greatest law requires you to do to them! Not just to obey the negative, but the positive as well!
Each of God’s laws are like this. When God says “thou shalt not lie”, it’s because you were lying and needed to stop! It seems like to obey “thou shalt not lie”, you simply have to say nothing untrue. But we can do that by simply being silent! We can obey this negative command, but are we really doing what God wants? Ephesians 4:25.
Did Paul say “stop lying and be silent”? Or did he say “stop lying and do the opposite and tell the truth”? Simply avoiding untruth isn’t enough. Silence is not perfect obedience to that law! Instead, you must tell the WHOLE truth to dwell with God! Psalms 15:2. So we could express this commandment also in three ways:
- Thou shalt not lie (the negative commandment).
- Thou mayest say nothing.
- Thou shalt tell the truth (the positive commandment).
If you can’t tell the truth, it’s better to say nothing at all than to lie; that at least obeys the negative commandment, and does not lie. It does not obey the positive commandment – thus you are neutral, neither hurting the situation nor helping it.
Which would make God happier: that you obey His command and stop hurting someone, or that you go BEYOND that command and do the exact opposite, and HELP them? How far from sin does God want us to be? Psalms 103:12. If you REALLY put sin as far from you as the east is from the west, then when God says “thou shalt not lie”, you must understand that as both the negative command “thou shalt NOT lie” AND the implied positive command – “thou SHALT tell the truth”!
THE POSITIVE LAW
Another example of this idea is “thou shalt not kill”. Anyone who has not killed anyone today, has kept that commandment perfectly today. But is that all God wanted us to do? To simply not kill? Remember how we took “thou shalt not lie” and made it into a positive command. So what is the positive side of thou shalt not kill?
- Thou shalt not kill.
- Thou mayest do nothing.
- ?
Think about it. We’re going to do this a lot, with every commandment in the Bible. What exactly does it mean? What is the farthest you can get from killing? What is the complete polar opposite of that command? Think about it!
By the way, there will be a lot of times when I tell you to think about the question before you keep reading; and I can’t make you do that – but if you just skip to the answer in the next few paragraphs, that’s cheating – and cheating yourself out of learning to THINK!
The purpose of this course is not to give you the answers, but to teach you how to find them yourself. You can’t ever do that if you skip ahead and just try to copy the answers out of the lesson! So THINK – find the answer on your own. What is the positive side of “thou shalt not kill”? What shalt thou do?
***** ← These mean you’re supposed to pause and think! Now check if your answer is correct by reading 1 John 3:15-16. On one side of the spectrum, we have doing evil – murdering. On the other side, we have giving life to our fellow man! Read the story in Luke 10:30-37. Three different ways of reacting to the law are represented in that one story.
The thieves robbed a man and left him for dead – they are (attempted) murderers. They broke the negative law, “thou shalt not kill”. The Pharisees saw this man dying, and neither finished killing him nor helped him. This perfectly obeyed the negative commandment! They did not kill! It wasn’t their problem! They minded their own business, and were completely obedient to that part of the law!
But the Samaritan not only did not kill this man, he gave him back his life by helping him! So the opposite commandment of “thou shalt not kill” is “thou shalt give life”! The priests who walked on by kept the negative half of the law, and were thus in the middle of the spectrum of righteousness, doing neither good nor evil! But the Samaritan gave life back again to that hapless traveler! Even though it required a sacrifice on his part!
What did Jesus tell us about the Pharisees? Matthew 5:20. Our righteousness must EXCEED theirs! It must go BEYOND what they did, and do MORE! They were willing to not take life, but they were not willing to give life! To do more than them we must obey not only the negative but ALSO the implied positive commandment!
THE MIRROR IMAGE
Another way of explaining it is to say that this is the mirror image of the law. We’re looking at the ideas upside down, turning darkness into light, hurt into help, hate into love. Every one of the laws in the Bible has a mirror image – a positive for every negative, a negative for every positive. People often say the OT laws are negative, and they are full of “thou shalt NOT”. They argue that you can be terrible to a person, ignoring them, being mean to them, and not break the law.
This is true! You can do all those nasty things without breaking the NEGATIVE law! But as you can see, obeying those “not’s” is only half the job. When God says “don’t hurt”, He also means “do help” – which He goes on to say elsewhere. When He says “thou shalt not lie” He means “thou shalt tell the truth”. This is one of the greatest keys to understanding the Bible! It allows us to merge and harmonize SO MANY verses under a single unifying principle!
So let’s test and see if you understand the idea yet; what is the opposite of the commandment “thou shalt not fall asleep”? Think about it! *****
If you said “thou shalt fall asleep”, or “do fall asleep”, you’ve missed the point of everything that’s been said so far. Go back and read it all again, until you come up with a better answer. Each of those answers is technically the opposite of the original command. They reversed a single word (do/do not) in the sentence but they did not reverse the IDEA of the command! This course, like the Bible, is not about words, it is about ideas!
It is not about the letter of the law, but the spirit; not the words on stone, but the words in your heart. So to understand the opposite of a law, we must first understand the IDEA of the law, and then find the opposite IDEA! So what did the command MEAN?? It meant you should not fall asleep! If you put that idea in a mirror, what would its polar opposite be? The only possible way to do the precise opposite is to follow the implied command “thou SHALT wake up”!
Think about it! Why would someone say “don’t fall asleep”? The only reason would be if someone was drowsy, starting to nod off in class, in church, or while watching a movie! A person could obey the letter of that law simply by staying drowsy and half awake! But to FULLY obey the spirit, the MEANING of the command, they would have to shake themselves and WAKE UP!
THE MIRROR IMAGE OF THE LAW
This principle applies to every law, and every commandment in the Bible. For example, what is the exact opposite of the tenth commandment? Exodus 20:17. What is the mirror image of “thou shalt not covet your neighbor’s stuff”? Again, it is NOT “thou shalt covet”! What is the opposite of this IDEA? How can you distance yourself from that sin as much as possible? Think about this a moment before you continue reading! How can you change that negative into a positive? 3 John 2. Instead of envying his prosperity and wishing you were as happy as him, you should wish he were as happy and prosperous as you – or more so! Instead of wishing for his goods, you wish for his good!
What did David covet for his enemies? Psalms 35:13-14. How did Jesus say you should covet? Luke 6:27-30. Why? Verse 31! It all comes back to that, because that is a GREATER law than “thou shalt not desire thy neighbor’s stuff”, OR its mirror image “thou SHALT desire thy neighbor’s good”! But what if you merely obey half of this commandment? What if you just don’t covet his prosperity – obey the negative – but you don’t also desire for him to be prosperous, and thus disobey the positive?
Jesus continues and talks about people like that in verses 32-35. The Pharisees were willing to obey the negative! They were willing to love their friends, those who loved them back; but was that enough? Matthew 5:44-45. To be children of your Father in heaven, you have to love not only those who love you, but ALSO love your enemies!
Did the Old Testament also include the positive side of this commandment to desire good for your fellow man? Exodus 23:4-5. Did God say this only because He cares for oxen? Or have righteous people ALWAYS obeyed the WHOLE law – negative AND positive? Job 30:25. Every negative law has a positive, and every positive law has a negative – and obeying BOTH is necessary if you are to be children of your heavenly Father! Another example is the fourth commandment, which contains both positive and negative: Exodus 20:8-11.
People often tell me that to keep the Sabbath, all they have to do is not work one day a week. Sure! If you only obey the negative half of the law! But the same law ALSO said “six days you SHALL labor”! Obeying one half without the other is like not lying… but not telling the truth either!
MIRRORED SUB LAWS
If you really think about this last law, you will find many sub-laws within it. For if you keep part of the law, and rest on the Sabbath… but you do NOT keep the rest of the law, if you refuse to work the other six days, doing SOMETHING productive, does God say you deserve charity? 2 Thessalonians 3:10. What does God say to you? Proverbs 6:6-11. Obviously this doesn’t apply to those who are physically unable to work, but what did Paul say to able-bodied widows? 1 Timothy 5:3-16.
Just as you learned in the last lesson, each of these commandments are redundant if you truly understand “do unto others”. For from there, a commandment to work so that you can give to others who have need is obvious (Acts 20:34-35); on the other hand, those who are lazy and selfish should be condemned for refusing to help others (Proverbs 21:25, Proverbs 14:23). All of these scriptures are obvious, if you just think about the Golden Rule!
But we can peer deeper into each of these laws and find new laws inside of them; for if you understood that concept, it’s pretty easy to see that “any able-bodied person who refuses to obey that law and work, should not eat”, is easy. To apply the principle to a new situation and say “young widows who can work or remarry should not be supported by the church” is just as easy.
All the commandments have a mirror image, and when you start discovering them, you’ll realize you already knew about these mirror images! You just never realized that’s what they were! What’s the opposite of the first commandment? Exodus 20:3 and Luke 4:8. The second? Exodus 20:4-6 and John 4:23-24. The third? Exodus 20:7. How exactly was that broken? 2 Samuel 12:14, Ezekiel 36:20-23. Using God’s name in a vain, empty, or worthless sense means you’re making God’s name look bad; changing what should be holy into a jeer. In practice, it usually involves reflecting badly on the God whom you claim to represent like they did in Romans 2:23-24.
How do you obey that negative law positively? Philippians 2:15, 1 Peter 2:12. So literally, the mirror opposite of “Thou shalt not make God’s name vain” is Matthew 5:14-16. All of these concepts that everyone knows are good, Christian concepts are simply the COMPLETE, positive obedience to one of the “negative” Ten Commandments!
Most of the Christian world believes that all the laws in the Old Testament are negative, bad, maybe even actually harmful to us; but that would mean that God gave men a bad law, wouldn’t it? That reflects badly on God, and makes Him seem either cruel or incompetent – which itself breaks the third commandment!
What you’re seeing now, though, is that all those laws are part of ONE law, the same law the New Testament says is the greatest law of the universe – do unto others! And that ALL those words are profitable for us today, whether the individual laws should be literally kept or not – more on that in the next lessons – the concepts are still profitable for us! So what you’ve learned is that God was not cruel or incompetent! God made a glorious law that men only partially understood and rarely obeyed! But what did Paul say? Galatians 3:12. Paul told Gentiles that anyone who kept the law – the WHOLE law, positive AND negative included – would live because of it!
By understanding that, you are justifying God: proving to the world that He is good. And by doing that, we’re obeying the perfect, mirror image of the positive third commandment! Making God look good!
THE GREATEST LAW
To show just how good the law can be – if applied properly – it’s time to revisit the sixth commandment, “thou shalt not kill”. But this is just a law; just words on stones, and one of the greatest problems with laws is that they cannot require you to show love. Love is compassion for your fellow man, concern for his well being, and so on; no matter how many “thou shalt not’s” you write, you CANNOT make people love (a positive thing) with laws (negative things). Right? That’s why Christians often say that Love has replaced Law today.
What is the greatest love any man can show to his neighbor? John 15:13. NO GREATER LOVE can be shown than to lay down your life to save your friends’ lives! So when Jesus gave His life for ours, it was the greatest example of love in the history of the universe! NO ONE can show greater love for his fellow man than when he gives up his own life for his friend. Right? Jesus plainly said so! I emphasize this because what I’m about to show you is shocking.
The greatest love ever displayed is to give your life to save someone else’s… But isn’t that what the 6th commandment REQUIRES you to do? You already saw that the law requires us to not only refrain from killing, but ALSO to give life. That means that to perfectly obey the 6th commandment, you HAVE to give life! Even if it costs you your own! (Luke 9:24). Is Jesus not greater than the Samaritan whom He Himself praised? If He saw His children dying and was in a position to help us, even if it required a huge sacrifice on His part – how could He not help us?
The beautiful and shocking point of all this is that Jesus’ sacrifice for us was quite literally required by the sixth commandment! But Jesus’ sacrifice was also required by the greater law, “do unto others”! Would Jesus want us to give up our own lives for His sake? Luke 9:23-24. So knowing that He would want US to lay down our lives for Him, if Jesus was to obey what He Himself said was the greatest law, He HAD to lay down His own life so that WE might live!
Now of course we know Jesus loved us, and didn’t need the law to tell Him to do this for us. But what if some other person was in a position to give his life for us – someone who didn’t love us? A stranger would have NO reason to help us! But if that stranger was absolutely committed to keeping the whole law, then whether he loved us or not he would have no choice but to give his life for ours!
In other words, whether or not he felt love for us, complete obedience to the law and nothing else would have caused him to show us the greatest love a man can show to someone else! If you truly understand the law, you’ll see that every single thing the law requires us to do is an act of love for our neighbor! And how could it be otherwise, since the law is DERIVED from the principle
“love all beings as yourself”? Giving life to your neighbor – and of course, not killing him – is an act of love! Making God look good – and of course, not making Him look bad – is an act of love! Telling the truth to your neighbor – and of course, not lying to him – is an act of love! Worshiping God in spirit – and not through an idol –is an act of love! Working hard six days a week, so you can save up for your grandchildren, is an act of love! (Proverbs 13:22)
There is no single act of true, godly love in the universe that you can imagine which is not already contained in, and required by, a perfect understanding of God’s law! The greatest act of love in the history of the universe was literally required by the law of God! Thus the law is good, because – if fully understood and kept – the law REQUIRES all men to love one another – whether they feel the emotion of love or not, they are automatically led to display the ACTIONS of love, which cannot help but lead them to the emotions of love – for who would not feel love for someone who first showed an act of love to them? 1 John 4:19.
Love has NOT REPLACED the law! The law is derived from love for your neighbor, and love in turn is caused by perfect obedience to that same law! Romans 13:8-10. If you keep the law perfectly, you ALSO love your neighbor perfectly! (James 2:8). But only IF you keep the whole law – both the positive AND the negative! Both the physical AND the spiritual!
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
To fully understand God’s word, you must understand the whole law, not just the negatives. But I’ve given you the tools to do that now, and you can – and should – think about the rest of the laws on your own (Psalms 1:1-3). This course is not here to give you all the answers, but to teach you how to find the answers. Obedience to God is a spectrum – all the way on the left you have sin; on the right you have complete righteousness. In the middle you have neither – you aren’t harming anyone, nor are you doing good.
How does God feel about people who are neither hot nor cold, but fall in this middle region? Revelation 3:15-16. The Pharisees who passed by the injured man were proudly in the middle; the thief was all the way on the left. Only the Samaritan kept the whole law and, in the process, showed love for his neighbor (Luke 10:30-37) – and Jesus told us to “go, and do likewise”. Because being in the middle still means breaking the positive part of the commandment!
Most people in history who boasted – loudly – how well they kept the law were merely in the middle of this spectrum – not hurting, but not helping either. They were not keeping the law, they were keeping HALF the law – and that is hardly something to be boasting about. For by doing nothing, even though you don’t do the wrong thing, you also fail to do the right thing!
Yet that is precisely what the Pharisees did (Luke 18:11-12), boasting of all their negative obedience. So you have not killed anyone today – good for you. Does that mean God OWES you something now? Whom have you HELPED? Whose life is better because you are alive? So you didn’t steal from God, and paid tithes – cool. How exactly does God feel about that? Luke 17:9-10. You have done the bare minimum, good for you – but you don’t deserve any praise for not being evil.
That is just what is expected of you! You deserve praise only for doing good (Matthew 16:27, Ruth 2:12, 1 Corinthians 3:8). Why should you be rewarded for all the bad things you didn’t do? The world thinks of the laws as evil – or at best, useless – because most of the examples they’ve seen of law-keepers, like the Pharisees, have been people who are in the MIDDLE of this spectrum! And so of course, they’re not good enough just like Jesus said!
They make the law look bad (Romans 2:23-24), because they only keep the negative half of it – at best! Their GOAL is to keep the negative half of it, and call themselves righteous. The positive side of the law, the side Jesus brought to our attention in a hundred places, is what they were missing – and one of the key teachings of the New Covenant! It is true that a negative law CANNOT create love, but the whole law is not negative! It does notjust require you to AVOID sin, it requires you to DO GOOD! That’s why the “royal law” IS to love your neighbor! (James 2:8). And that law contains all other laws (Galatians 5:14). Now you see why
Paul said: Romans 13:9-10 (Weymouth) …all other precepts, are summed up in this one command, “Thou shalt love thy fellow man as much as thou lovest thyself.” Love avoids doing any wrong to one’s fellow man, and is therefore complete obedience to Law._