ZOBOLI
Lawful and Legal
Fri Oct 3 17:59:33 2003
216.199.194.83

The Difference between Lawful and Legal

Lawful: "The principle distinction between the terms 'lawful' and 'legal' is that the former [Lawful] contemplates the substance of law, the latter [legal] the form of law. To say of an act that it is 'lawful' implies that it is authorized, sanctioned, or at any rate not forbidden, by law. To say that it is 'legal' implies that it is done or performed in accordance with the forms and usages of law, or in a technical manner. In this sense 'illegal' approaches the meaning of 'invalid.' For example, a contract or will, executed without the required formalities, might be said to be invalid or illegal, but could not be described as unlawful. Further, the word 'lawful' more clearly implies an ethical content than does 'legal.' The latter (legal) goes no further than to denote compliance, with positive, technical, or formal rules; while the former (Lawful) usually imports a moral substance or ethical permissibility." Black's Law Dictionary (4th edition, 1957 & 1968), page 1032.
‘Lawful’ has to do with the substance of Law. ‘Legal’ has to do with the shadow (or form) of Law. Similar to how 'character' is distinguished from 'reputation' ('Character' representing what is lawful, 'reputation' representing what is legal).


Character: "Character consists of the qualities which constitute the individual, while reputation is the sum of opinions entertained concerning him. The former is interior; the latter external. The one is the substance; the other the shadow. Character is what a person is. Reputation is what people say of him." Ballentine, Self-Pronouncing Law Dictionary, (1948), page 138.
Character means something. Reputation means nothing; it's source is hearsay. What people say about you is worthless, because God doesn’t care what people say about you, he’s not a respecter of persons (Acts 10:34). Man sees the exterior, God sees the interior (1 Samuel 16:7, 2 Corinthians 10:7).
How will we know what is a 'lawful' word and what is a 'legal' word? How will we know which is the substance and which is the shadow? The giver of the Law will determine this. If the giver of the Law is God himself, then the words of that Law have substance, because they have their origin in Him who spoke all Substance into being. If the giver of the law is man, then the law has no substance, but is only an image, vapor, shadow, or form of law, because man really can never create law but only an image of the law, only a fiction in law, or as it is called in man's law, the "color of law."

Let us briefly go over three important points to remember:

1) The only words which have substance are nouns. Nouns have substance, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, etc., do not. Verbs are not substantial, they only indicate action. The substance is in the noun. For example, the word party was previously only a noun, but now it’s a verb, now it’s an act. Instead of saying, "let’s go to a party", we say, "let’s party". We see how the English language, through its evolution, changes the substance of a word into nothing.

2) We cannot take an unclean word and make it clean. For example, let's take the word ‘nice,’ which is derived from the Latin ‘nescire.’ In Webster's New World Dictionary, Third College Edition, 1988, page 914, the archaic definition of nice is defined as, "strange, lazy, foolish, stupid, ignorant, not knowing, to be ignorant, difficult to please, fastidious, discriminative," etc. When we use the word ‘nice’ today, we are trying to make clean that which is unclean, by trying to change its meaning to the exact opposite. But Scripture tells us we can’t do that: Job 14:4, "Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one." They say it's an archaic word, but the substance of all words are in the meaning. The meanings never change; the usages of them change, but that doesn't change the original meaning of them. So we can’t make clean that which is already unclean.

Here are other examples of definitions that mean the exact opposite of what they were originally defined as. These are from Webster's New World Dictionary, Third College Edition, 1988:


Corpse: "A living body." Page 311. (Today it means, "a dead body").
Awful: "Highly impressive. Reverential." Page 96. (Today it means, "very bad, ugly, unpleasant, etc.").


And here are some examples from a law dictionary, These are from A Dictionary of Law, William C. Anderson, 1893:

Bank: "A judge's seat; also, a court sitting for the decision of matters of law." Page 104. (Today it means, "An institution for the deposit, discount, or circulation of money").
Caucus: "See BRIBERY." Page 155. (Today it means, "a meeting of a committee of a political party or faction to decide on policy, pick candidates, etc., without bribery").

Elopement: "The act in a wife of voluntarily leaving her husband to live with another man." Page 398. (Today it means, "the act of running away secretly in order to get married").

Lobbying: "Seeking to influence the vote of a member of the legislature by bribery, promise of reward, intimidation, or other dishonest means. Lobbying is a felony, by the constitution of California and Georgia." Page 636. (Today it means, "Seeking to influence the introduction of or voting on legislation or the decisions of government administrators, by honest means, and it is not a crime").

Permanent: "Does not always embrace the idea of absolute perpetuity." Page 769. (Today it means, "Lasting indefinitely without change").

Sea-worthy: "Not capable of going to sea or being navigated on the sea." Page 926. (Today it means, "Fit to travel on the open sea; sturdy").

Surcharge: "Overcharge; an excessive or unlawful charge." Page 995. (Today it means, "An additional amount added to the usual charge, lawfully).

Willful; willfully: "In common parlance “willful” means intentional, as distinguished from accidental or involuntary; in penal statutes it means with evil intent, with legal malice, without ground for believing the act to be lawful. The ordinary meaning of “willful” in statutes, is not merely “voluntary,” but with a bad purpose. Sometimes it means little more than “intentional” or “designed.” But that is not its ordinary signification in criminal and penal statutes; in them it most frequently conveys the idea of legal malice in greater or less degree – implies an evil intent without justifiable excuse." Pages 1114-1115. (Today it means, "Said or done deliberately or intentionally, without an evil intent").

Therefore, we must be careful, for we may be condemning ourselves, unknowingly, if we use these words to describe us.
3) The way a word is spelled determines its meaning, and what law one is under. There are at least three ways to spell any one word. Let's take, as an example, the spellings of "rich," "Rich," and "RICH." The first spelling, "rich," means "wealthy." This word is an adjective and has no substance; it merely describes the person of man, but not the man himself. The spelling "Rich," on the other hand, has a completely different meaning. It is a proper name, and refers to the man himself. This word has substance. By spelling this word lawfully, it brings you under the Law that created it. Since God created man, this would bring you under God's Law. And the last spelling, "RICH," has a completely different meaning than the previous two spellings. You won't find any words spelled in all capital letters in the dictionary, because these words do not exist. They are fictions. And by spelling a name in all caps, it brings you under the law that created it; which would be the fictitious laws of man. This is why all corporations are spelled in all capital letters, because they are fictions created by man, and not substance created by God.