What is the spirit of the law?

Together with the statement here that "the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life," we may connect the words, "that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter." In neither case are we to suppose for one moment that we can dispense with the letter of Scripture, or that we can possess its spirit apart from the letter. To attempt to do so would be to forget that the words of Scripture are inspired words (we refer to the original words of Scripture), and consequently, that these alone fully express the mind of the Spirit. Another evil would be that we should be landed in mysticism of a most dangerous kind, as well as become a prey to the imaginings of the human mind, and thus the sport of Satan. (See Col. 2:4, 8, 18.) This cannot be too strenuously maintained; for the great effort of the enemy today is to destroy the confidence of God's people in the letter of the Word of God. But while steadfastly adhering to the words of Scripture, we must perseveringly seek their spiritual meaning, and thus to ascertain what is the mind of the Spirit which they contain. An illustration of this may be gathered from John 6. Our Lord had said, "Except ye eat ["shall have eaten"] the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you." (v. 53.) Some of His disciples, seeing nothing in these and the following striking words beyond their literal meaning, were stumbled, and they said, "This is an hard saying; who can hear it?" The Lord's reply was, "… It is the Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." What these stumbled disciples missed was the inner significance of these words: that the "flesh" and "blood" of the Son of man were used to represent His death, and that He was teaching the indispensable truth that the appropriation of His death was the only way of life. The same principle applies to the new covenant. The letter of it may be seen in Hebrews 8:8-12, as quoted from Jeremiah 31:31-34; but the apostle, in writing to the Corinthians, blessedly unfolds what underlay the letter for them, that it contained for them a ministry of righteousness and of the Spirit, and that the Lord was the Spirit of the new covenant, and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty. So likewise, to "serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter," is to be emancipated from the letter of legal enactments, and to serve in the power of the Spirit, even as the apostle says, "That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit"; and again, "If there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law." (Rom. 8:4; 13:9-10.) Love is thus the spirit of the ten commandments. Paul himself refers to the letter of the law when he says that, before his conversion, as touching the righteousness of the law, he was blameless. But when his eyes had been opened, he saw that Christ was his "law" (Rom. 7:4; 1 Cor. 9:21.), and hence that love, and love alone, was the fulfilling of the law. If, then, the letter cannot be surrendered, the letter will only kill, unless it is apprehended with its spiritual meaning and power; and for this the teaching of the Holy Ghost is requisite. (1 Cor. 2:11-12.)

[3] It should probably be ‘spirit’ here, i.e. not capitalised. It appears as such in Mr Darby’s French translation and in his commentary on the verse (Synopsis). It is an allusion to verse 6: Christ is the ‘spirit’ of the law, the true meaning of its figures (compare Rev. 19:10: ‘For the spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus’).

Now look at 2 Corinthians 3, where Paul says, "Our sufficiency is of God; who also has made us able ministers of the new covenant; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter kills, but the spirit gives life" (ver. 6). If you were under the new covenant in the letter, you would get into bondage again, therefore he says, God "has made us able ministers of the new covenant; not of the letter, but of the spirit." What is the new covenant? The terms of relationship with Himself into which God will enter by-and-by with the house of Israel and the house of Judah according to Jeremiah 31:33-34: "But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, says the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." Israel will then be fitted for the enjoyment of the reign of Christ; they will have the forgiveness of sins, and the Holy Ghost be in them, but their blessing does not include the sense of sonship and union with Christ. We have all that they will have, and much more; but we are in the enjoyment of the blessings of the new covenant, through the ministry of it, without being under it. We must always remember that all Israel's blessing by-and-by is on earth, whereas we are blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ.

The fact is, that the meaning of the verse is connected with what was quoted before. The apostle was contrasting the old covenant with the new, and he says, "the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life." Christ, under the letter of the old, quickens; the letter of the old without Christ does not. "Now," says he, "the Lord is the spirit," i.e., of the old. The letter cannot quicken, but the spirit does. It is the Lord that is meant by the Passover, Red Sea, Manna, etc., as also by the burnt, meat, peace, and sin offerings; and so one might go through all the letter of the law. "The Lord is the spirit"; and this is the reason why I should print "spirit" with a small letter, though it is not so in my book. It may be different in your Bibles. But if not, you must remember the copyists were not inspired, any more than the printers, translators, or critical editors. The question is the bearing of the truth of God; and I affirm that the doctrine which confounds the Lord Jesus with the Spirit is not true. Is it not impossible, therefore, to print "spirit" in that verse with a capital "S" consistently with truth? For this would identify the second person of the Trinity with the third, which is wholly untrue.

The question is, "which is the great commandment of the law?" The answer shows what is the heart of it, the life-pulse beating through it all. Alas, that this should be a question. The apostle answers it afterward in a similar manner to the Lord here, ― "love is the fulfilling" ― or, the fullness ― "of the law" (Rom. 13:10). God claims heart and soul and mind; but then; on that very account, man as the image of God must come in under it. Thus the second commandment is like unto the first: that commandment which they were so manifestly breaking. Nay, here was the Image of God indeed; and in Him they had seen and hated both Himself and His Father (John 15:24).

But He adds no word of reproach; only enlarges upon the central place which these two commandments had, not in the law only, but also in the prophets: wherever, therefore, the mind of God was expressed. All, in fact, depended upon them there: they were the moral unity manifested in all.

On the other hand the government of God would be in favour of those who are obedient because they love Him. Thus at the outset was it indicated that love is what is really enjoined in the law. Love is the fulfilling of the law, as we know very well.

But the Lord having done what the Pharisees, adversaries of the Sadducees, could not do, the curiosity of the Pharisees is excited, and they were gathered together (v. 34) One among them questions the Lord; but his demand 'has for result that Jesus lays the true foundation of the law and the prophets, and then establishes clearly the situation of things, the question of the moment, as God regarded it. Which, asks the lawyer, is the great commandment in the law? A question much debated among the Jews, for whom each commandment had a special value, the observance of each of them gaining, as in an examination, so many good marks from God. The Lord seizes the occasion, offered in the ways of God, to establish the fundamental principles of the divine law. To love God with all the heart, such is the first commandment. The second is like it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. All in man hung on these two things. It is the summary of what man ought to be, the root and the measure of human righteousness. It is not in any way a revelation of divine love; it is not at all a question of grace, nor of an open way for the sinner to come to God; but it is the perfect rule of what a man should be, a divine compendium of the substance of the law, the law on which the prophets insisted in seeking to recall the people to its observance.

Now comes the debt to all men. Here, it is not a question of loving the brethren merely. We are to owe no one anything save to love one another, and here it is pointed out that we have the fulfilment of that which the law sought, but could never obtain. Love is that which is the fulfilment of the law, or the whole of it, for if we love our neighbor as ourselves, love works no ill to one's neighbor. The commandments give us only the prohibition of these various forms of ill. Love owns the debt to all men and pays it. "The righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit."

The apostle now adds some special exhortations. First, as to the grace which we ought to shew one towards another, coupled with the sense of responsibility in oneself. The spirit of the law naturally leads to righteousness, and then to hardness towards another, if he is overtaken in a fault: it makes us forget our own weakness. This was seen plainly in the Pharisees, and is found among Christians also; therefore the apostle exhorts them, saying, "Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted." The sense of one's own weakness makes us meek towards others.

We, too, desire to dig beneath the surface of Scripture and reach the spirit of it. But then the spirit of the Holy Writings is not some sublimated essence altogether distinct from the actual words, but rather its spiritual drift and purpose as gathered from the actual words. We can only find the spirit of what is there in the letter, and not the spirit of what is NOT there.