The Perfect Law

Psalm 19: 7-14

The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul. The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy, making wise the simple.

The precepts of the LORD are right, giving joy to the heart. The commands of the LORD are radiant, giving light to the eyes.

The fear of the LORD is pure, enduring for ever. The ordinances of the LORD are sure and altogether righteous.

They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold; they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the comb.

By them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward.

Who can discern his errors? Forgive my hidden faults.

Keep your servant also from wilful sins; may they not rule over me. Then will I be blameless, innocent of great transgression.

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer

We live in a post-Christian country. This means that a lot of the ideas, beliefs and policies of our nation have their roots in a time when most of us were Christians. One example of how a Christian belief has mutated into a secular belief would be the question of judging others. The religious context in which Jesus told us not to stand in judgement over others has been jettisoned however and what we are left with is what we now refer to as 'relativism'.

Questions such as how much flesh we should display or how we should eat our food can actually only be answered relative to a particular culture. In some cultures it is not inappropriate to gather provisions stark naked, in others it would be considered provocative, indecent or offensive.

We all understand that many judgements can only be made relative to the time and place in which they arise. Relativism, though, goes one fatal step further and makes a dogma out of a sensible but limited idea. Relativism decrees that to make an absolute judgement about anything is a sin.

When I worked for Southwark social services in the 1990s I came across a departmental briefing sheet on different cultures. It stated 'no culture is better than any other culture'. Not 'in your official role you should treat different cultures equally' but 'no culture is better than any other culture'. Now every group has a culture, its own languge, morals and customs, not just countries. According to this disastrous way of thinking the culture of paedophiles, SS officers, and football hooligans, cannot be said to be inferior to the culture among people who work for oxfam, care for the sick or perform open heart surgery.

Post-Christian relativism retains what Jesus told his followers about judging others but discards the context that made sense of it. Jesus said we should not judge but he did not say that there was no judgement, quite the reverse.

There are absolute standards of right and wrong, the law of God. It's written in the scriptures and its written in our hearts. And following every regulation in the Old Testament is not enough to be said to have kept the law, we must see the spiritual side of the commandments. So, external acts like adultery and murder cannot be separated from internal states such as lust and anger. When Jesus tells us not to abolish all anger from our hearts and all lust from our minds he is telling us to do something that we can't do - to make a point.

The point is this. The law is hard, in fact it's even harder than us religious people think it is. There is a system for dealing with the fact that it is so hard that none of us can obey it, but that system does not involve getting rid of the law, of its standards of absolute truth, of right and wrong.

As the psalm says: the Law of the Lord is perfect. Moral relativism in which no moral action can be criticised does not understand this. It's next to impossible prove to secular relativists that there are absolute laws of morality - but we do not believe in God's perfect law because of a series of abstract intellecutal proofs. We believe in God's perfect law because it has been revealed to us through the prophets and explained to us by the Messiah.