“The law is an ass…” Mr Bumble proclaimed (at the pen of Charles Dickens) in Oliver Twist; and many share his sentiments today! Perhaps this famous and oft-quoted indictment of the law is best explained by humanity’s common reaction to a set of rules: resentment at the restriction on freedom that they represent. The Mosaic Law, however, was not given by God to be a burden but a blessing.
God’s Law is Good
It is clear that God’s Law was not intended to be a burden because it was founded on grace. It was given to a people whom God had already redeemed (Exodus 19:4-6). Gratitude, therefore, was to be a major motivation for obedience (Deuteronomy 6:20-25; 15:12-15). "The law is given to the people saved by grace as their way of grace, to set forth the privilege and blessing of the covenant." [1]
The people of God regarded His Law as an exceptionally great gift, beyond all material blessings. The Torah (Hebrew word for the ‘Mosaic Law’), was intended to be a source of joy and delight for the Israelites and the basis of their thinking about life and their relationship with God (see Psalm 119).
David McIlroy writes (page 50):
“Instead of being an exhaustive written legal code, Torah was intended to be a source of guidance for the Israelites. The priests were to instruct them in it [Leviticus 10:11]; they were to teach it to their children [Deuteronomy 6:7; 11:19]; they were to internalise it [Deuteronomy 6:6-9]; to grasp the gist of it; and meditate upon it; and to apply its guidance to the varying circumstances of their lives. … Obedience to Torah was meant to cultivate character, inform values and teach wisdom, so that a wise man would know how to apply the Torah in each of the circumstances of his life.”
In addition, according to the Mosaic Law, every individual was personally responsible to keep its commands. Maintaining order by keeping the law was not just the task of king or government.
The benefits of the Mosaic Law, however, were not intended to be confined to the Israelites. God’s plan was for all nations to be blessed through Israel (Genesis 12:1-3). Israel was to be a priesthood in the midst of nations (Exodus 19:6). Israel was meant to be a model, visible to the nations, of what a redeemed people looks like, revealing the best way to operate a society (Deuteronomy 4:6-8).
The covenant between God and Israel included stipulations that would display the wisdom of the God of Israel to other nations. Israel’s example should draw others to follow God and his rules as well. The Israelites, therefore, were to be different and distinctive from the surrounding nations. They were to be holy like the God who made them, whose character was reflected in His Law and in His instructions on how they were to treat Him and those He had made (Leviticus 18:3-4; 19:2).
God’s Law, however, is beneficial not simply because it reveals God’s standards/principles, which facilitate a just and righteous society, but chiefly because it points people to Jesus Christ (Galatians 3:24). The standards/principles of God’s Law (together with the Holy Spirit) convict people of their sin. We see how far short we have fallen and begin to grasp the effects of the Fall when we gaze upon the standards/principles of the Law. In short, the Law shows us our need for a Saviour, Jesus Christ.
God’s Law is Practical
God’s Law is practical. It set certain boundaries and sanctions for failure to adhere to those boundaries. It encouraged good conduct and discouraged misconduct. However, was incapable of doing more than this; law could not and cannot deal with the root problem of sin.
Furthermore, the Law did not fully express God’s ideals. It encouraged people to love God, but it could not force them to do so. God’s ideals require there to be an element of choice on the part of individuals and society because of the value and respect He accords to free will. The Law, therefore, only sought to mitigate the worst effects of evil, by setting outer boundaries and sanctions, without enforcing God’s highest principles and standards. It dealt with those forms of evil that represent the worst outrages against God’s pattern for life – accepting that there are some structures and patterns of evil which cannot, as a matter of practice, be outlawed because of the way that society functioned.
The Mosaic Law, then, worked within the confines of the society in which it operated. It accepted some of the norms of its society which do not accord with God’s ideals but restrains their worst excesses. It dealt with evils that were particular causes for concern in that society, and which would destroy it if left unsanctioned.
God’s purpose for law therefore is that it should accept and recognise man’s sinfulness, and indeed makes provision for it, but it should work within these practical limits to curb sin’s worst effects without outlawing all that is contrary to God’s ideals (see for example Deuteronomy 15:7-10).
God’s Law is Relevant
Is God’s Law of relevance to us today? Yes, for two reasons. First, in 2 Timothy 3:16-17 we read:
“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
This applies to the Law as much as it does to the whole of the Old Testament.
Second, Jesus himself on many occasions affirms the Law (e.g. Matthew 5:17-20).
David McIlroy writes (page 48):
“Jesus summed up the teaching of the Law and the Prophets in the two great commandments: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind’ and ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’ (Mt. 22:37-40). His analysis was not an alien intrusion into the logic of the Mosaic Law. On the contrary, the commandments he identified as the greatest are to be found in the Old Testament text itself, in Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18 respectively.
The vertical obligation of ‘Love for God’ was to be matched by the horizontal obligation to ‘Love your Neighbour’. The connection between the two dimensions of holiness was such that, the Sabbath was understood as an obligation and responsibility towards God himself, to be expressed through one’s land and one’s relationship with impoverished fellow Israelites.’ ‘You honoured God by keeping a law which benefited your poorer brethren.’”
In His summary, Jesus identifies the two core principles behind the 613 Mosaic Laws; He endorses a principle/core value based approach to understanding and applying the Law. In reaffirming these core principles, Jesus is in effect endorsing the Mosaic Law as a cultural expression of the unpacking/extrapolation of these core principles for a particular society.
This is confirmed in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus does not only look to the letter of the law but to the reasoning and principle behind the law. In doing so He highlights the limits of the law by advocating a higher law – God’s ideals – which the Mosaic Law cannot enforce.
Jesus fulfilled the law by being the embodiment of its values and principles. He was the perfect Israel who never sinned, and so He lived out the perfect righteousness of God. In the Sermon on the Mount He gave the Mosaic Law its fullest meaning by expounding God’s ideals i.e. He taught and unpacked the spirit rather than the letter of the law.
Jesus fulfilled the ceremonial element of the Mosaic Law by sacrificing Himself for our sins on the cross. Nowhere do we read that He thought that the ceremonial law was wrong. The ceremonial law revealed that we cannot worship and serve a holy God in our natural state because of our sin. Then praise God that He sent His own Son, so that our righteousness should not come from ourselves but come from Him (2 Corinthians 5:21).
Jesus saved us from condemnation under the law, but the indwelling Holy Spirit enables us to live by God’s standards as first revealed through the law (Romans 8:1-4). This means obedient living in response to God’s salvation, not legalism in an attempt to earn salvation.
God’s Law is Applicable
To understand the application of the Law today, it can help to consider the function and purpose of different laws in light of a traditional three-fold division of the Law into moral, ceremonial and civil/social/‘separation’ aspects, as each aspect is fulfilled in different ways by Christ’s coming: His sinlessness, His death and priesthood, and His joining of Jew and Gentile into a new separate ‘holy nation’ of believers. However, caution should be exercised so as not to assume that each law contains only one aspect; many laws have elements of more than one. For example - the Fourth Commandment, to keep the Sabbath day holy (Exodus 20:8-11) was a command which made the nation of Israel distinctive from the surrounding nations. Observing the Sabbath separated them from the other nations and bound them together as a people. The Sabbath also had a clear ceremonial aspect: it was the day that was holy to the Lord (Exodus 16:23) when Israel would gather together for worship. But the Sabbath also had a moral aspect: it was a day of rest not only for the rich but also for their servants, their labourers, and even their animals (Deuteronomy 5:14). This aspect of the Sabbath was picked up by Rix LJ in Copsey v WWB Devon Clays Ltd (2005), as “one of the earliest and closest to universally recognisable texts of employment law in favour of the employee of which we have knowledge.”
Christopher Wright suggests that the Mosaic Law should be viewed as a God ordained set of rules for a particular society at a particular time; a contextual expression of God’s timeless and unchanging principles/standards. [2] The Hebrews were a unique society that experienced significant societal transitions. They moved from a nomadic society to a partly agrarian society on reaching Canaan and to a semi urban one as their conquests took in cities and countryside.
He argues that we should take account of these transitions and look therefore at the principles and reasons behind the Mosaic Law which reflect the character of the God who ordained it. We should look at the system as a whole, observing how each part fits together with the rest to see what God had in mind. We can then seek to apply those God given principles and reasons to a different culture as they reflect what is best for mankind.
Wright suggests that to understand any law, or group of laws, we should ask the following questions:[3]
• What kind of situation was this law trying to promote, or prevent?
• Whose interests was this law aiming to protect?
• Who would have benefited from this law and why?
• Whose power was this law trying to restrict and how did it do so?
• What rights and responsibilities were embodied in this law?
• What kind of behaviour did this law encourage or discourage?
• What vision of society motivated this law?
• What moral principles, values or priorities did this law embody or instantiate?
• What motivation did this law appeal to?
• What sanction or penalty (if any) was attached to this law, and what does that show regarding its relative seriousness or moral priority?
In thinking about the Law’s application to our modern context, we should therefore ask:
• What kind of situations or people in our society are comparable to those in the Old Testament Law?
• What should our objectives be?
• How should the principles found in the Law be applied in practical life today – in my own life, in the church, in wider society?
• What, in Christian terms, is our motivation now for responding to God’s law in obedience?
This list of questions is not exhaustive, and in each case we need to be sure our answers are guided by Scripture, and don’t simply reflect our prior assumptions about how a society should work. There are four contexts in the plan of God, which are essential to consider. In searching for principles behind Old Testament Law we need to recognise the movement of God in time and history and in our world today. When dealing with any ethical question, we should consider creation, the fall, redemption in the Old and New Testaments, and eschatology (the Last Judgement, the Second Coming, etc.). This raises the questions:
• How are the creation ideals to be represented in law?
• How is human sinfulness to be taken into account in framing law in a fallen world? What sins can the law deal with? What can it not deal with? What is to be controlled or enforced? What allowances are to be made for sin?
• How do redemption issues feature? Can hope for a prospect of change be represented in the law? Can there be greater movement back to creation ideals?
• How do eschatological issues of perfection, judgement and future reconciliation of all things impact on what is feasible now, what God alone can do and on what justice really involves?
In seeking to answer all of the questions outlined above it is vital that we fix our eyes on Jesus and how He has fulfilled the Old Testament Law. We should consider how the New Testament illuminates the way(s) in which a particular law points to Christ. In light of this we should seek to apply this law in a way that points to Jesus Christ today.
Suggested further reading: Chapter 3 of David Mcllroy's A Biblical View of Law and Justice pp. 41-67.
[1] Rushdoony, Rousas. The Institutes of Biblical Law (Vallecito: Chalcedon/Ross House Books, 2020, vol. 1), page 16.
[2] Wright, Christopher. Old Testament Ethics for the People of God (Leicester: IVP, 2004).
[2] Ibidem, page 323.