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Understanding God's Design Laws: The Way, Truth, and Life

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In John's Gospel, Jesus makes seven profound "I am" statements that reveal His divine nature and mission. These statements include "I am the bread of life", "I am the light of the world", "I am the door", "I am the good shepherd", "I am the resurrection and the life", "I am the way, the truth, and the life", and "I am the true vine". By using the phrase "I am", Jesus was clearly identifying Himself as God, echoing God's self-revelation to Moses at the burning bush.

The "I am" statements demonstrate that Jesus is the self-existent, eternal God - the source and sustainer of all things. As the bread of life, He is the source of all sustenance - physical, mental, spiritual and relational. As the light of the world, He reveals the truth about God and reality. As the door, He is the only way for humanity to be reconciled and restored to unity with God. As the good shepherd, He protects, guides and provides for His flock. As the resurrection and the life, He is the cure for death and the source of eternal life. As the way, truth and life, He embodies God's character lived out in human form. And as the true vine, He is the source of spiritual life and fruitfulness for believers.

Importantly, these "I am" statements reveal that Jesus' mission and work are not primarily legal in nature, but are about restoring reality and relationships. He came to deal with the real problem of sin and death by restoring God's design for human life. This stands in contrast to many Christian theologies that frame salvation primarily in legal terms.

The account of Jesus washing His disciples' feet in John 13 provides important lessons about God's character and kingdom. Though Jesus had been given all power and authority, He used that power to serve others in humility. This is the opposite of how earthly rulers typically use power for self-exaltation and exploitation. Jesus demonstrated that in God's kingdom, the more power one has, the more it is to be used to bless and serve others.

The foot washing also symbolizes our need for ongoing cleansing from the dirt and grime we pick up as we walk through life in this sinful world. While our initial cleansing from sin is represented by baptism, the foot washing points to the daily cleansing we need through surrender to Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit. The ceremony itself is meant to be a teaching tool to remind us of these spiritual realities, not a legalistic ritual with saving merit.

However, there is a danger that religious ceremonies like foot washing can be misunderstood and misused. If viewed through a legalistic lens, they can become mere rule-keeping or virtue signaling. The key is to approach such ceremonies with the right heart attitude, understanding them as symbols pointing to deeper spiritual realities rather than as legal requirements. When misunderstood, religious rituals can actually become obstacles to genuine spiritual growth.

Jesus declared Himself to be "the way, the truth, and the life" - the only path to the Father. He is the link that explains and interprets the Father to a fallen world. However, we must be careful not to reduce this solely to cognitive knowledge or correct doctrinal understanding. Saving knowledge of God is more than just intellectual assent to facts - it is an experiential, relational knowledge. Even demons have correct theological knowledge about who Jesus is, but they do not have a saving relationship with Him.

In John's Gospel, truth is consistently connected to Jesus, the Father, and the Holy Spirit. It stands in contrast to darkness, falsehood, the devil and sin. Truth in Scripture has a moral aspect - it is about faithfulness to God and His will. However, we must understand morality and God's law correctly. God's laws are not arbitrary rules imposed by divine decree. Rather, they are design laws - the protocols of reality that God built into the fabric of creation.

This is a crucial distinction. In human governments, right and wrong are often determined simply by the decree of whoever is in authority. But God's laws reflect reality as it actually is. When God declares something to be right or wrong, holy or unholy, He is describing its actual nature, not arbitrarily assigning a status. The Sabbath, for instance, is holy not merely because God declared it so, but because in its very construction and purpose it reflects God's character of love, freedom and rest.

Understanding God's laws as design laws rather than imposed rules is vital for correctly representing God's character. It counters Satan's accusations that God is an arbitrary tyrant. God's laws, including moral laws, are as unchangeable as the laws of physics because they reflect how reality actually functions. God describes and declares His laws for our benefit, but His declarations don't make the laws true - they are true because that's how God designed reality to operate.

This understanding has major implications for how we view God, salvation, and Christian living. It shifts us away from a legal/penal paradigm focused on rule-keeping and punishment toward a healing/restorative paradigm focused on bringing us back into harmony with how we were designed to function. It helps us see that God's goal is not to get us to jump through the right hoops, but to restore us to spiritual and relational health.

The distinction between design laws and imposed rules also helps explain why simply going through religious motions without heart change is so offensive to God. In Isaiah 1, God strongly condemns Israel's religious observances, even though He had originally commanded those very practices. The issue was that the people were treating the ceremonies as ends in themselves, as if merely performing rituals could earn God's favor. They had lost sight of the spiritual realities the ceremonies were meant to teach.

God's rebuke of Israel's hollow religiosity in Isaiah 1 parallels His condemnation of the "great prostitute" or false church system in Revelation. In both cases, the issue is claiming to represent God while actually misrepresenting His character through legalism and abuse of power. True faithfulness to God is not about outward conformity to rules, but about having His law of love written on our hearts.

Ultimately, Jesus Christ is the full revelation of God's character and the embodiment of His design laws for life. As "the way, the truth, and the life," Jesus shows us what it looks like to live in perfect harmony with God's design. By uniting ourselves to Christ through faith, we can begin to experience the restoration of God's design in our own lives. This is the essence of the gospel - not just forgiveness of past sins, but transformation into the image of Christ and restoration to how we were meant to function.

As we seek to understand and live out God's design laws, we must be careful not to fall into legalism or judgmentalism. God's laws are about life, health and flourishing - not arbitrary restrictions. We should approach them with gratitude, seeing them as a reflection of God's love and wisdom. At the same time, we must have compassion for those struggling with sin, recognizing that we all fall short of God's ideal and need His grace.

In conclusion, grasping the nature of God's design laws helps us better understand His character, the mission of Christ, and the process of salvation. It shifts our focus from mere rule-keeping to heart transformation and restored relationships. As we internalize God's design laws, written on our hearts by the Holy Spirit, we become living demonstrations of His character to the world around us. This is the high calling of every Christian - to be remade in the image of Christ and to shine as lights in a dark world, hastening the day of His return.

Article created from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GohsuK3eh8o

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