The First Law

In the last post, we discussed the Second Law, of loving your neighbor as yourself. Today, we turn to the First Law: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.” (Matthew 22:37, ESV). We tend to think of love as involving feelings—in the case of loving God, maybe pious feelings. It’s both simpler and more difficult than that. Jesus said, “Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” (John 14:12, ESV). How we feel doesn’t matter much. It’s choices we make.

If we love God, we obey him. (If we don’t obey him, we don’t love him.) If we do obey him, we come to know him. Many people complain that God doesn’t give them guidance, that they don’t feel his presence, they don’t hear his voice, and they aren’t sure what he wants. This isn’t surprising. If we don’t obey God, we don’t come to know him. This is partly common sense. You can’t be intimate with someone you don’t treat with respect and care. Disobedient children and disobedient employees aren’t close to their parents and bosses. God loves the world, but he's only going to be close with those who love him back.

And it’s partly out of mercy to us. If we haven’t obeyed in the small stuff, why would God put a greater load on us that we would then be judged for? Jesus commented that the sheep follow the Shepherd, “for they know his voice.” (John 10:4, ESV). If we don’t follow him, we probably don’t really know his voice.

How does this play out in the legal profession? It’s interesting that the Model Rules don’t mention God or the love of God, or in fact any higher imperative than themselves. They are strictly humanistic, but they do leave some room, in a qualified way, for the love of God.

Rule 1.2 cautions that a lawyer cannot counsel or assist a client do anything criminal or fraudulent. Instead, the lawyer has to withdraw. This means obeying a higher standard than what the client wants. Where the standard comes from, the Model Rules don’t say. Perhaps the criminal statutes, but they also did not appear ex nihilo. Something has to be wrong to be considered a crime in the first place. We are probably safe to argue that criminal or fraudulent behavior would violate God’s commandments as well. And letting a client behave badly without any check is not only lacking in love to the client, but doesn’t support any work that God is trying to do in the client’s life.

Rule 1.16 allows a lawyer to decline to take or to terminate a representation. This gives some space for a lawyer not to take a representation that wouldn’t honor God. Rule 1.16 also provides some room to withdraw if “the client insists upon taking action that the lawyer considers repugnant or with which the lawyer has a fundamental disagreement.” While this doesn’t specify the lawyer’s conscience, or any higher standards, moral objections to a representation would fall here. As everyone knows, it’s harder to get out of a representation than to get into it, so we need to be careful on the front end.

Putting the love of God first always has some possible negative consequences as well as positive ones. Joshua challenged God’s people long ago, “Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve . . .” (Joshua 24:14-15, ESV). Loving God is probably consistent most of the time with the demands of clients and the Model Rules. But sometimes not. And if not, you’ll have to make a choice.

And what about if it is “good in our eyes” to serve the Lord? It sounds easy until you try it. Anyone who has really tried it knows it isn’t easy. As C.S. Lewis said, “No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good . . . Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is.” First comes the choice on whether we will love God first. We’ll talk more later about how it works.