A couple weeks ago I sent you a video of a song by Derek Webb called “A New Law” and asked for your comments. I could tell from those who did comment that some of you didn’t get it. That’s not a put down, because I didn’t get it either until about the third time through. The song is made to make you listen carefully and figure it out – something you don’t encounter very often in Christian music for the very reasons this song criticizes. Most Christian music is blatantly straight forward, bringing the answers right to you. This song uses a subtle form of hyperbole that, unless you catch it, you won’t get the full impact. It also shows a keen understanding of the shenanigans of legalism.

To make it even harder, the New Testament talks about a new law – the law of love – and if you get thinking in that direction, it can throw you off. Because the message of this song is worth the time, I’m going to make sure we all get it today.

The key to understanding this message is that everything until the final “Do not be afraid” tag is from an old covenant perspective. The new law is not the new covenant, it’s just another form of the old one – one that may be easier to do, which only makes it more dangerous.

In case you can’t access the video link above, here are the lyrics.

Don’t teach me about politics and government
Just tell me who to vote for
Don’t teach me about truth and beauty
Just label my music
Don’t teach me how to live like a free man
Just give me a new law

I don’t want to know if the answers aren’t easy
So just bring it down from the mountain to me
I want a new law
I want a new law
Give me that new law

Don’t teach me about moderation and liberty
I prefer a shot of grape juice
Don’t teach me about loving my enemies
Don’t teach me how to listen to the Spirit
Just give me a new law

I don’t want to know if the answers aren’t easy
So just bring it down from the mountain to me
I want a new law
I want a new law
Give me that new law

What’s the use in trading a law you can never keep
For one you can that cannot get you anything
Do not be afraid
Do not be afraid
Do not be afraid, etc.

The last two lines, along with the video, are the key to understanding the rest of the song. In the video, everyone is in some stage of wearing a blindfold signifying that the law blinds you to freedom, liberty, beauty, truth, and any life in the Spirit that requires thinking for yourself. Many people are willing to give up that freedom, because what you get in return is an easier, less complicated, more clearly defined world, where the answers are all provided, and your thinking is done for you.

This is the same blindness that blinded the Pharisees. The Pharisees took the law Moses brought down from the mountain, and made it into something that was easier to perform – tedious, indeed, but not impossible to do. That’s why Jesus reinterpreted that law in His Sermon on the Mount as something that none of us can accomplish in our fallen humanity.  Jesus taught that the law has to go all the way to the heart, and at that level, all of us are guilty. In Jesus’ interpretation, hate is murder, lust is adultery, and love has to stretch all the way to include one’s enemies. Unless you cannot follow the law perfectly, it is not accomplishing what it is meant to accomplish in your life. In other words, if you make the law into something you can do, you make Jesus irrelevant.

But we do this all the time when we make Christianity into a set of behavioral standards – religious things we do and cultural things we don’t do – in order to make it easier to control what it means to be a Christian. In doing so, we trade a law we “can never keep for one [we] can that cannot get [us] anything.” The woman at her desk in the video, who takes off one set of blindfolds, carefully puts it away in her drawer, and pulls out another identical set and puts them on, says it all. Any way you cut it, it’s still old covenant legalism that blinds us to truth, beauty and freedom in the Spirit.

The “Do not be afraid” section at the end of the song is brilliant, because it reveals that fear is behind the appeal of the “new law” (the one you can do). This new law makes a scary world safe, it makes complicated decisions easy, it turns what is really gray into what is black and white, and we all like that because we don’t have to do the work of being mature. Taking the blindfold off means freedom, but it also means greater responsibility. It means you have to learn to be led by the Spirit, to think for yourself and make your own decisions. It means you might not look and choose like everyone else in your group or fellowship. It means living with questions and unresolved issues. It means trusting the Spirit instead of the system. It means walking with your eyes open. It means freedom with responsibility. It means learning not to be afraid because we trust the Lord completely. Either way, we pretty much get what we want.

Mr. Webb has done us a real favor with this song and video. It deserves a deeper look.