Law vs. Legal

Law

(The legal system of God)

VS.

LEGAL

(The lawful system of man)


To investigate is the way to know what things are really lawful.1

“Because of what appears to be a lawful command on the surface, many citizens, because of their respect for what only appears to be a law, are cunningly coerced into waiving their rights, due to ignorance.”2

In the above statement, the Supreme Court talks of “what only appears to be law” “on the surface.” Of what are we so ignorant that we would mistake something for law that is not law? We have grown up hearing phrases like, “The law is the law,” and “Ignorance of the law is no excuse.” What is law and what makes something law?

Since, “The origin of a thing ought to be inquired into,”3 then it would follow that we should look into the origin of the word “law” to give us some idea of its meaning today.

Unlike many of the terms used in the legal system of the United States, the word “law” does not come from the Latin, but from the Anglo-Saxon word lagu and the Middle English lawe, laghe meaning “just, right and fair”. In Latin, “law” would be translated jus (juris), from which we take the word “justice”. The Romans had another word, lex (legis), from which we get the word “legal”, meaning “statute, bill, principle, rule; contract, condition…” What is legal (connected by contract) becomes lawful (just) by consent.

A legal system based upon freedom has no lawful power to “command” until an individual binds himself to it “for lex (law) is derived from ligare (to bind), because it binds one to act.”4

“All government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery!”5

If the Romans, from whom we take much of the principles upon which the present legal system relies, saw fit and necessary to use two separate and distinct words, one lex and the other jus, then why do we often use them interchangeably. It is in the distinction between these two words that much of our honest confusion lies.

While, “The law (jus) is the rule of right; and whatever is contrary to the rule of right is an injury,”6 we find that “human laws (lex, leges) are born, live, and die.”7 “That which bars those who have contracted will bar their successors also.”8 Therefore, “The contract makes the law”9 for our children, as well as for ourselves.

“We shall have world government whether or not we like it.

The question is, whether world government will be achieved by conquest or consent.”

http://hisholychurch.info/study/gods/cog2lvl.php