The Law

Today I'm reading Joshua 1:7-9, ⁷ “Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. ⁸ Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful."

Yesterday I spoke on the importance of gaining guidance from God's Word and the promises given to Joshua. The "Book of the Law" that's mentioned refers to the first 5 books of the Bible that are called the "Torah" or the Pentateuch. They cover creation through Israel getting ready to enter the Promised Land. In addition to the Ten Commandment the Torah contains contain long lists of regulations, rules and laws, especially in the books of Deuteronomy and Leviticus.

Every week it seems there's some news story that shows how confused people are (even within the church) about how we are to relate to these 5 books of Moses and all the laws they contain. For example this story that appeared in USA Today over the weekend:

SHAWANO, Wis. -- A gay couple with school-age children is outraged over a column in a local high school newspaper that cites Bible passages and calls homosexuality a sin punishable by death...

Not only do stories like this make all Bible believing people look stupid, it also shows how people don't know how to deal with the "Book of the Law" or understand how to read it as Christians. So that's the topic of this week's blog.

The first thing we need to understand as a basic principle is that there are the different kinds of law in the Torah. (1) Moral Law (2) Ceremonial Law and (3) Civil Law.

Moral law is universal – for all people in every culture for all time. Like the 10 Commandments. The moral law reflects the very nature of God. God defines what is good and what is evil based on God’s own nature. God is the Creator of all things and the moral law is how he desires for us live as his creatures so that we are in harmony with his nature.

Israel existed as a Theocracy. That means they saw God as their ruler; and their government and their religion and their social society were intertwined in a special covenant relationship with God. All the laws were intermingled and they did not make any effort to separate out the three different threads. In the Pentateuch, and in the life of ancient Israel, all three were woven together in one strand. This covenant law guided Israel. So, if the moral law was violated it had religious and legal consequences. Stoning to death (a civil penalty) was what they did to punish capitol offenses and those could be offenses against any of the legal threads. A moral one (like the prohibitions against homosexuality), or a religious one (touching the Ark of the Covenant). The civil penalties were meted out as their form of justice.

The Law of the Covenant was in effect to govern Israel through all their ups and downs until God finally said they had broken the covenant severely enough that he allowed their national destruction under the Babylonians and Assyrians, and the Hebrews were finally taken into exile in 580 BC and the temple was destroyed.

The moral law is eternal and always in effect, but the ceremonial law and the civil law are no longer valid. Why? Not because we don’t like the OT laws. But because the New Testament says so.

Jesus affirmed the moral law constantly, and he broke the ceremonial law repeatedly because he was trying to demonstrate that he was the fulfillment of all the religious ceremonies of Israel. He was the Lamb of God, the ultimate sacrifice, so the whole sacrificial system was no longer needed. He was Lord of the Sabbath so the Sabbath laws were fulfilled in him. For example it says in Mark 7:19 "'For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.' (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean)."

Also, Jesus affirmed that the people of Israel were no longer in charge of the civil law and did not command them to return to the civil law. Rather he (and the New Testament writers continued this) urged them to obey Roman law. Remember, “render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s”?).

So Jesus did away with all the ceremonial needs to perform the sacrifices. They no longer had the civil authority to enact punishments (that's why it was the Roman governor who had to condemn Jesus to death, not the Jewish leaders). They no longer lived in a Theocracy with God as their ruler. They were conquered and ruled by Rome.

So, the moral law is still in effect, but not the ceremonial or civil law. The key is then to be able and read the Torah and discern the difference. But it is easy to see that in no way should Christians be calling on anybody to be stoned to death. That's just ignorant nonsense.

Better to focus on Jesus's summary of God's moral law: Matthew 22:36-40 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a] This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b] 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (a. Deuteronomy 6.5, b. Leviticus 19:18)

Some good stuff in that Book of the Law.

Jeff