Why would anyone say God’s law brings freedom? Isn’t true that most of us see laws as restrictive and burdensome?

Yesterday, my reading took me to the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20: the primary call to obedience for all humanity, but especially those who know and love God. Perhaps the most striking aspect of the Commands is the prologue:

“And God spoke all these words: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.” (Exodus 20:1–2, NIV)

Before God breathes a single word of law, he wants us to know who he really is and what he really wants for us. “I am a rescuing God. I love you. I want you to thrive in freedom that honours me … and this is how you can do that.”

This is the frame God gives us for understanding his law. Perhaps even any law. God wants life to thrive in every context, for every person, no exceptions. Even foreigners, who may not know God, or care about him. Even itinerant, nomads, refugees, people who are different to “me” and “us” – God still wants them to rest and to thrive and to find fullness of life in him. Read through the commands, especially those about Sabbath, and you see that God even wants animals (and so, creation itself) to thrive and to rest.

The best life is found where people follow these commands, right? When there’s no murder, no deception in marriage, no thieving or corruption, no abuse of children, or women, or men. Who doesn’t want that?

God gave these laws to his people, sure, so that by living them they would find freedom. But also, so the nations around them would look at his people, and see how life might abound should they live his way. Even an imperfect, but largely compliant communal or national response to these commands would be evidence aplenty that God is loving, keen to rescue and save, one who brings redemption – even to us.