The Law of God for Healing from Trauma

THE LAW OF GOD AND TRAUMA

Why do we turn attention to the Law of God for healing from traumatic events? It is very simple: The process of healing the human soul is the process of making one right with God. How do I know I am in right standing with God? It is when I satisfy God’s requirements for righteous living, becoming EHAD with God. The Law of God is the divine manual for righteous living under the fallen conditions of this world. It postulates spiritual guidelines for attitudes and behaviors with God and people that are universal. The elaborate 613 Old Testament laws and precepts directed people to live righteously with God. Yet, the Scripture declares that, 

There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one. (Romans 3:10-12; Psalm 14:1-3; Psalm 53:1-3)

This is the curse of the Law of God. No human can meet the righteous requirements of the Law. Jesus, God Himself, came to redeem humanity from this curse. Only through faith in Him is the believer granted the capacity to meet the righteous requirements of the Law of God. The impartation of the Holy Spirit sanctifies the whole spirit, soul, and body, making the believer blameless (1 Thessalonians 5:23). 

Human beings, being made after God’s image, integrate in themselves the physical (body) and the spiritual (soul and spirit) realms of God’s creation. 

The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground (physical realm) and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life (spiritual realm), and the man became a living being. (Genesis 2:7)

Even before God created the first man, God created the physical means for his survival. The provision for life’s necessities assured the support of physical life through that same realm. 

Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. I give every green plant for food.” And it was so. (Genesis 1:29-30)

However, life in wholeness and health is not solely sustained by the provision for Adam’s physical needs. Such oversight would have neglected an intrinsic part of his nature, his soul and spirit. God’s assurance for life in wholeness also included provision for his spiritual needs. God Himself was the source of spiritual sustenance. Adam was allowed into the presence of God, and there was nothing to hinder their relationship. He walked in the garden in the cool of the day, remaining under God’s blessing, seeing and hearing God, and enjoying His fellowship (Genesis 3:8-10). With the Fall, though, Adam lost all. He was cut off from the very source of life that sustained his spiritual and physical health. The entire human race inherited this condition. Return to the original divine design is only possible through faith in Christ.

The Law of God - The Foundation of Life in Fullness

The sovereignty of God as Creator is visible through the things and the beings He created. His stamp of divine craftsmanship is displayed by supreme intelligence behind the diversity of life forms and the unmatchable conditions for their existence within the vast dimensions of time and space. There is a perfection of unity, integration, and interdependence between the creation's smallest and greatest elements and between the living and the nonliving. The core of this balance is based on God’s irreversible physical (natural) and spiritual laws. 

With the creation of the first man, the physical and the spiritual realms became integrated, coming into existence on full display. God is Spirit; angels and demons are spirits also. Only humankind integrates the physical and spiritual realities in a living form. Demon oppression and possession are a kidnapping of the human faculties so that demons experience the pleasure of life through the human senses, which they otherwise don’t have. Since they are evil creatures, the oppressed people exhibit evil behavior, causing them to trespass God’s Law, assigning them a condemnation to Hell. During His earthly ministry, Jesus broke the chains of many oppressed people, such as Mary Magdalene (Luke 8:2) and the demon-possessed man in Gerasenes (Mark 5:1-20; Luke 8:26-39). Jesus was accused of associating with sinners, but He responded to His accusers:

It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners. (Mark 2:17; Luke 5:31-32; Matthew 9:12) 

Jesus had compassion and empathy, not condemnation for the oppressed by evil forces. The story of the woman at the well ( John 4:1-42) and the story of the woman caught in adultery (John 8:3:11) are biblical narratives that exemplify His heart for the oppressed. Our attitude toward them should also model empathy and compassion, not hatred and condemnation. Yet, we should never depart from the spiritual truth that freedom from oppression is only possible when the evil spirits, who exhibit the vile behaviour through the oppressed person, must be evicted and expelled. Spiritual deliverance must include the full cooperation of the victim. Knowledge of spiritual reality is a must so that people can make informed decisions about their eternal destiny in Heaven or Hell and agree with the process of deliverance. The Church must preach and teach the truth in love; it is a divinely assigned responsibility to care for God’s creation. This is the way of love, Jesus thought. EHAD with GOD teaches this way to freedom through self deliverance. 

The preservation of human life was assured under one condition: Human beings would acknowledge and obey the natural and spiritual laws that governed the realms. Natural laws govern the material world within which humans live. Life on earth runs according to the precise and irrevocable functioning of these laws that continue to sustain the existence of life to this day. Spiritual laws govern the spiritual realm. They are God’s standard for moral living and prescribe the ways for sustained spiritual health. Since the beginning, the physical realm is governed by numerous natural laws, like the law of gravity and the laws of thermodynamics, for example. They are mere descriptions of the way the world functions. God, however, gave only one law to govern the spiritual realm. The Lord God commanded man not eat from the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:17).

After the Fall, the number of physical laws remained the same while the number of spiritual laws drastically increased: From one, they became ten—The Ten Commandments (Deuteronomy 5:6-21). This tenfold increase was necessary to preserve humans’ spiritual life under the fallen conditions. The trespassing of the spiritual law resulted in a drastic deterioration of humans’ standing with God: From being a “very good” creation (Genesis 1:31), humanity turned into an object destined to destruction (Genesis 6:7). The rapid deterioration was caused by alienation from God. Adam, Eve, and their offsprings could no longer live according to the righteous requirements of the spiritual laws. They became corrupted.

God expelled Adam and Eve from The Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:23), which consequently placed their life in a dangerous situation. Without God’s presence, they were now exposed relentlessly to devious deceptions and crafty manipulations of Satan. Their disobedience gave the Devil a foothold (Ephesians 4:27) to lodge himself into the human soul and manipulate the mind. Under these conditions, the seed of sin grew rapidly and manifested itself through the escalation of humans’ wickedness: Cain’s anger (Genesis 4:5) speedily led to the premeditated act of Abel’s brutal murder (Genesis 4:5,8).

The Ten Commandments are the power God gave humans to counteract the evil influence of the Devil. The Mosaic Law is a God-given guide to practice God’s presence under the fallen condition. Obedience to these laws assured that humans would retain their human nature and restore their position for close fellowship with God, ultimately becoming once again EHAD with God, receiving “fullness in Christ” (Colossians 2:10). Sin is a transgression of God’s Law (1 John 3:4). Holiness, then, is conformity to the God’s Law (Romans 7:12).

God never needed to clarify any of His physical laws, but throughout human history, He continuously revealed His spiritual commandments through the Bible. Their significance is the subject matter throughout the Old and New Testaments. The Bible teaches to choose life through obedience to God’s Law (Deuteronomy 30:19). It offers free redemption through Jesus, the Messiah (John 3:10). It conveys the core truth about the healing of the human soul, body, and spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:23). 

The Israelites recognized the importance of God’s Law by making it a central part of their governing system. The early Rabbinic tradition, known as the Oral Torah, acknowledges the supremacy of the spiritual laws over the physical laws and teaches that God looked into the Torah (the Law) and created the world. He designed the Universe to make it possible for human beings to carry out the commandments. God did not lower His standards and expectations for humans to meet the requirements of His Law. God created humans with full capacity to measure up to God’s holy standard.  

Today, we continue to reap the consequences of Adam’s disobedience. Even more, despite the advantage of the abundant historical and biblical narrative from which to learn, we continue to ignore God’s warning that disobedience to His spiritual laws is sin and “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23a).