Isaiah 33:21-24 NLT
“21 The Lord will be our Mighty One.
He will be like a wide river of protection
that no enemy can cross,
that no enemy ship can sail upon.
22 For the Lord is our judge,
our lawgiver, and our king.
He will care for us and save us.
23 The enemies’ sails hang loose
on broken masts with useless tackle.
Their treasure will be divided by the people of God.
Even the lame will take their share!
24 The people of Israel will no longer say,
“We are sick and helpless,”
for the Lord will forgive their sins.”
God gave the Israelites a series of laws to guide their lives. The central giving of God’s law occurred at Mount Sinai, after God had rescued Israel from slavery in Egypt. But we must note the sequence of events. Israel was enslaved in Egypt, but God delivered them through the Passover and then the Exodus. They crossed the Red Sea and eventually arrived at Mount Sinai. There, God entered into a covenant with Israel and gave them His law. The Ten Commandments are recorded in Exodus 20, although God’s instructions to Israel continued through much of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. But the Law therefore came after salvation from Egypt, not before it. We note that God did not say: “Obey my commandments, and then perhaps I will rescue you.” He first rescued them and then said, in effect: “Because I have rescued you, this is how you are to live as my people.” In Exodus 20:1-2, we read, “And God spoke all these words: ‘I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery”. We pilgrims may decide that we are the people of a New Covenant, but God’s principles do not change. Today, we thank Him for bringing about our salvation. All we have to do is obey Jesus’ invitation to repent so that we might receive the promise of eternal life. Jesus has already pre-empted the outcome by His death at Calvary, where He took on the punishment for our sins that we deserved instead.
But why did God provide the Law? There were several purposes. First, the law revealed God’s character. He is holy, righteous, truthful, faithful and just, and His laws and precepts reflect these characteristics. For example, when God said, “You must not steal,” He revealed His concern for justice and respect for other people’s property. When He said, “You must not bear false witness,” He revealed His commitment to truth. When He said, “You must not murder,” He revealed the value He placed upon human life. When He commanded His people to love God and their neighbour, He revealed the fundamental nature of righteous relationships. The Law therefore wasn’t simply a collection of arbitrary rules. It told us something about the God who gave it.
Another reason God gave His people the Law was to form them into a cohesive society. The Israelites were no longer slaves, but they needed to learn how to live as God’s covenant people. The Law gave them a framework for worship, family relationships, justice, treatment of the poor, honesty, sexual morality, property, leadership, community life, festivals, sacrifices, and holiness. Quite a list; I think we all agree. We can also see the impact the Jewish Law has had on our society today. Imagine what it would take to build a society from scratch without a set of laws and rules for living. Without them, people in a society would be no better than a group of animals. But through the Law, God created a people who were meant to be different from the nations around them. Leviticus 19:2 expresses the underlying principle: “You must be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy.” The law was therefore intended to shape the character and conduct of God’s people.
The Law provided another purpose that becomes increasingly clear as we read the Bible. The law shows us how far we fall short of God’s holiness. Paul said in Romans 3:20: “Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin“. Effectively, Paul was saying that the Law is good, but sinful humanity cannot keep it perfectly. Imagine trying to walk along a perfectly straight line. It is very difficult to do, especially for inebriated individuals, and everyone, sooner or later, will step outside the line. The line itself isn’t the problem because someone fails to follow it. Instead, the line reveals how difficult it is to keep walking along it perfectly. There is another example. Imagine being in an exam to determine how perfect someone is, using God’s standard of perfection. The pass mark is of course 100%. We take the exam, and might achieve a mark of 70%. Someone else might be close behind at 65%. A bad person might be struggling to get a mark for even correctly spelling their name. But the outcome is the same for all those taking the exam – FAIL. They all failed to achieve the pass mark of 100%. Paul wrote, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). God’s Law functions in the same way as the straight line or the exam. It provides God’s standard and reveals our failure to reach it.
But as we will see in the next post, we pilgrims are not living under the Old Covenant. Jesus came to bring a New Covenant, but we believers in Him cannot abandon what was and embrace something new without considering what Jesus said in His Sermon on the Mount. Matthew 5:17-18, “Don’t misunderstand why I have come. I did not come to abolish the law of Moses or the writings of the prophets. No, I came to accomplish their purpose. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not even the smallest detail of God’s law will disappear until its purpose is achieved“.
Dear Heavenly Father. We reach out for more of Your mercy and grace today, as we embrace You and Your teaching. Amen
