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The UK Bible Students Website History Corner
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A QIBLA CHRISTMAS
PART II
All Scripture references are to the
Authorised King James Version (KJV) unless stated otherwise.
THE Christmas and New Year holidays were the occasions for great and small shows of hospitality, whether a family reunion, an office party, or simply the boss letting his staff leave early on Christmas Eve. The evening would often start with a drink and those who spent the year teetotal would find an unwanted glass of something alcoholic in front of them. Such unplanned celebrations catch the indecisive off-guard, and many ended the night with more drink inside them than they anticipated.
Alcohol impairs the judgement, a
fact supported by police statistics. Every year there are approximately 3,500
deaths on British roads, of which about one in six are related to alcohol
consumption. The figure rises over the Christmas holidays and in spite of the
annual nationwide campaign the accidents continue. It is not a matter of
ignorance. All drivers in the United Kingdom are required by law to be familiar
with the Highway Code, a statutory set of guidelines for users of the public
roads – Article 95 reminds the driver of his obligation:
Do not drink and drive as it will seriously affect your judgement and abilities.
You MUST NOT drive with a breath alcohol level higher than 35 microgrammes/
100 millilitres of breath or a blood alcohol level of more than 80 milligrammes/
100 millilitres of blood.[fn1]
Even though conscious of this
obligation some still choose to drink and drive. A survey by the Home Office
revealed that nearly half of motorists had driven after drinking some amount of
alcohol, while one in eight admitted to driving though aware they were over the
legal limit.[fn2] Regardless of their drinking habits, most drivers in the
survey favoured tougher police tactics and stricter laws to deter offenders.
These choices offer a curious insight into human nature: that an intelligent
understanding of a particular wrong is not sufficient to avoid it. Poor
judgement and weak self-control undermine one’s conscience.
Even a short car journey affords
ample opportunity to observe this principle at work. A drive through the rush
hour reveals a handful of near-misses: an impatient driver who jumps the red light;
the careless driver on the mobile phone attempting to navigate a roundabout
one-handed; the furious driver in the fast lane too close to the car in front. Expediency
fixes our driving habit and puts the highway code out of mind. We drive more by
on-the-fly judgement than by our knowledge of legislation, trusting that we are
reasonable, that the Law is reasonable, and that therefore the two are in
harmony.
This illusion of sobriety is
painfully stripped away when oversight coincides with haste and a sudden, sharp
application of the brakes fails to prevent an accident. The shame and guilt
that often follow testify to our poor choice to act outside of the law the
prevention of injury being the very reason for the law in the first place. The
statesman and orator Cicero (106-43 BC) summed it up neatly as Salus populi
suprema est lex – the good of the people is the highest law.
Britain has a long history of
law-making, an activity which is by nature conservative, as it looks to the
past for precedent. Early British legislators borrowed from the Justinian Code,
a work consisting of some 72 books compiled under the authority of the Emperor
Justinian c. A.D. 530. The Code is a study of Roman jurisprudence since
the time of Hadrian, but is a mere stamp collection in comparison to the vast
and wide-ranging work of Britain’s modern legal system, itself an aggregate of
acts, statutes and commonly-held rulings with a pedigree traceable back to King
Alfred. The tens of thousands of pages that constitute the legislation of the
United Kingdom cover all the affairs of life, each of them binding upon the
citizens and officers of the nation.[fn3]
This grand edifice of legality is
no cause for boasting, the implication being rather the reverse. St. Paul makes
the point in his letter to the Romans that sin, or wrongdoing, is the reason a
law is given (Romans 3: 20):
Therefore
by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
The broad and elaborate laws of
this ancient nation are an admission of the diverse and refined ways her people
can go astray. A law manifests the possibility of injury. If mankind were
perfect in thought and action the correct course of behaviour under all
circumstances there would be no need for pre-emptive rulings to guard against
the injury, to judge the culpability of the offender, or to punish wrongdoing.
Some believe this rule of law to
be God’s ideal for mankind, a society that strives after a perfect definition
of goodness, and ostracizes those who disobey. Such was the nation of Israel at
Jesus’ first advent. The dramatic method of transmitting the law at Mount Sinai
and the blessings Israel was promised if they would follow it, assured them of
their divinely-favoured position among the nations.
Subsequent man-made extensions of
the Mosaic law were so numerous by Jesus’ day that certain Pharisees considered
it a violation of the Sabbath to rub ears of corn together in the hands
(Mark
2: 23-28). The complications introduced into legislation by teasing
out all the possible interpretations of the laws, render it unwieldy and obscures
the lawmaker’s original intention. Jesus countered the dogmatic and narrow
argument of the Pharisees by His explanation of the higher principle the
welfare of man, to which Sabbath-keeping was a servant.
Jesus’ words on this occasion are
a wonderful illustration of God’s true standard for mankind to write the law
upon men’s hearts, not merely in a book. He desires a society in which men and
women are capable judges of right and wrong. Strictly speaking, none can be
offered eternal life unless they can keep God’s law without a violation. Of
course, the practicality of this seems far- fetched in light of present,
real-life experience. Nonetheless, although the fallen mind and heart are weak,
forgetful, and ignorant, God’s law remains perfect and demands that even the
innermost thoughts conform to it.
A failure to discern the divine
government over the inner man led some of the Jews to trust in their deeds and
outward shows of righteousness as satisfaction of the law. For this oversight
Jesus rebuked the Scribes and Pharisees in a tirade against their hypocrisy “Woe unto you . . . for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the
platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess” (Matthew 23: 25).
Like the example of the drunk
driver, the hypocritical Pharisees presented a contradiction that could not be
resolved either by legal or evolutionary logic that although man is capable
of appreciating the reasonableness of the law, he cannot by himself stick
perfectly to it. Christianity alone has the answer to this riddle; other
religions are silent or evasive of it.
Hinduism and Buddhism avoid
rigorous ordinances and the judicial tradition that supports them. They teach
that man attains perfection through reincarnation, a recycling of the human
soul in various forms. How trees, insects or other animals comprehend their
past lives is not explained, as only man has the memory and conscience to learn
from past mistakes. Reincarnation cannot explain the failure of a man to act
righteously even though he possesses the understanding and will to do so.
The Islamic community insists that
Sharia law is God’s will for mankind, and that eternal life comes by obedience
to this written code. Christians will recognise a similitude of the Old
Testament legal framework in the jurisprudence which Muslim scholars have
constructed from the Qur’an and the traditions of the Hadith. In verse 40 of
the 42nd Surah Al-Shura, the Qur’an teaches ‛the recompense of evil is
evil the like [equal – Ed.] of it’ or, as the KJV puts it,
‛life shall go for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth’ (Deuteronomy 19:
21). Islam also legislates for the capital crimes of murder, adultery and
rebellion against God, but although the Qur’an identifies the offence, it is
largely the Hadith, or sayings and acts of Muhammad, that decide the
penalty.[fn4]
At this point Islam and
Christianity diverge. For while the Christian has an advocate for the defence
(1 John 2:1), the Muslim stands before divine justice alone. Islamic doctrine
teaches that all are born in a state of fitrah having an innate belief
in God (Allah) and a natural disposition toward right-doing, which by adulthood
will have matured, so that one is accountable to God for any infraction of
divine law.
God Rules in the Heart
Is obedience for the Muslim simply
a matter of outward observance? No. The Qur’an also requires Muslims to keep
their hearts and minds free from sinful thoughts and desires.[fn5] The full
weight of divine law rests upon the Muslim, and there is no mitigation for
inherited weakness, as there is for the Christian. Verse 38 of 53rd Surah
Al-Najm indicates that no bearer of burdens can bear the burden of another in Islamic law each man or woman personally bears the consequences for
sin.
Salvation for the Muslim is thus
by perfect obedience or perfect repentance either way, eternal life comes by
one’s works. So the Muslim must establish a personal righteousness in a human
condition that has proven to be forgetful, feeble, and easily overcome by
temptation. This suggests that the faithful Muslim is nonetheless in constant
jeopardy from further transgressions.
In the divine suit against the
offending Muslim, the justice of the Qur’an is ready to abrogate the law upon
the sinner’s repentance, putting it aside and dismissing the penalty. It is in
effect an admission that the law is too hard for man to keep. Thanks be to God,
the Christian has a more excellent way.
There is no such waiving of the
law for the Christian – God’s justice stands firm, and Sin stands eternally
condemned. But the Christian escapes a harsh justice, not because the penalty
is set aside, but because it is paid on his behalf. Thus delivered from
the legal wrangling, the Christian conscience can rest in God’s arrangement,
all sins of weakness and ignorance covered by the merit of Christ’s
substitutionary sacrifice (Romans 3: 26):
To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might
be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.
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NOTES
Citations to Web pages are correct as of the
dates retrieved, but sites may expire or be moved.
[fn1] The Highway Code, though not legally binding in its entirety, contains sections which do issue mandatory instructions for the road user. These obligations are distinguished by the words must and must not in capitalised, bold type. The passage on driving under the influence of alcohol is available to read online here:
<http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/TravelAndTransport/Highwaycode/DG_069855> (retrieved 25 January 2011).
[fn2] Research, Development and Statistics Directorate, Drink-driving: prevalence and attitudes in England and Wales 2002 (Home Office, 2004) Findings 258. Available online here:
<http://rds.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs04/r258.pdf> (retrieved 25 January 2011). (link broken )
[fn3] Richard Cracknell, Acts & Statutory Instruments: Volume of UK legislation 1950 to 2007 (House of Commons Library, 2008) Standard Note: SN/SG/2911. Available online here:
<http://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons/lib/research/notes/snsg-02911.pdf> (retrieved 25 January 2011). (Link Broken)
[fn4] (To read the Qua’ran online go to
<http://www.nizamulislam.com/quran/index.asp> (retrieved 25 January
2011)
^[fn5]
It is not enough for the Muslim to be faithful in
deeds alone, the conscience must approve all thoughts as well. Islam considers
it a sin to meditate upon wrong in the heart (verse 248 of the 2nd Surah,
Al-Baqra).
Scripture
passages not quoted in the article:
Mark 2: 23-28
23 And it came to pass, that he went through the corn fields on the sabbath day; and his disciples began, as they went, to pluck the ears of corn. 24 And the Pharisees said unto him, Behold, why do they on the sabbath day that which is not lawful? 25 And he said unto them, Have ye never read what David did, when he had need, and was an hungred, he, and they that were with him? 26 How he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the high priest, and did eat the shewbread, which is not lawful to eat but for the priests, and gave also to them which were with him? 27 And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: 28 Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath.
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Article copyright February 2011 by ukbiblestudents.co.uk
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