The Mosaic Covenant: The Law
“Love does no wrong to a neighbor. Love, therefore, is the fulfillment of the law.”
~Romans 13:10
Growing up in the church, I committed several things to memory at a young age—The Lord’s Prayer, Psalm 23, and the Ten Commandments. Memorizing verses has never been all that easy for me. I can paraphrase a lot. I can probably direct you to a book where a verse is located, but actually memorizing a verse and reciting it verbatim is far more difficult for me. There are endless methods out there for memorizing Scripture, but the luxury of having it at your fingertips makes memorizing Scripture much more difficult. I have made many attempts over the years, with some verses sticking better than others.
It is remarkably easy to forget.
The Israelites are told to “be careful not to forget the LORD who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the place of slavery” (Deut. 6:12). They are told to keep God’s word in their hearts, to tell them to their children, talk about them, and write them down (6:6-9). They are not to forget because otherwise they will invite God’s wrath to fall upon them. They are told to remember so that they can fear the Lord and worship Him only “for [their] prosperity always and for [their] preservation” (6:24b).
Even with the warnings, Israel forgets.
They forgot to love and worship the Lord alone. They forgot to obey His commands above all others. They forgot that they were to reflect God’s image to the nations.
Instead:
“They exchanged their glory for the image of a grass-eating ox.
They forgot God their Savior, who did great things in Egypt…
They despised the pleasant land and did not believe his promise…
They aligned themselves with Baal…
They angered the LORD with their deeds…
They mingled with the nations and adopted their ways.
They served their idols, which became a snare to them.
They sacrificed their sons and daughters to demons.
They shed innocent blood…so the land became polluted with blood.
They defiled themselves by their actions and prostituted themselves by their deeds.”
(portions of Psalm 106)
The heart of the Old Covenant is the law that God gives Israel via Moses. God gave them His law after delivering Israel from Egypt on Mount Sinai in thunder and lightning, with the sounds of trumpets blaring, and smoke covering it all. They were a baby nation, brand new in the eyes of the world. They had been living in Egypt for so long, Egypt and her gods were all they knew. Now, they needed something else. God chose Israel to be His kingdom of priests and a holy nation. Therefore, Israel’s role was to reflect God’s image to the nations. But how could they possibly do that if pagan nations like Egypt still influenced them?
So, God made them new. He gave them a name, a land, and a purpose. He gave them the chance to be the blessing to the nations that He first promised Abraham.
He begins by giving them the Ten Words (Exodus 20). Interestingly, different Christian traditions have different views on how to divide these commandments. If you want to read more, check this website out. Regardless of how the commandments are actually separated out, people usually view them as having two categories. Essentially, the first group of commandments explains how Israel needs to relate to God, and the second group explains how Israel needs to relate to one another. Gentry and Wellum write that the Ten Words are “the foundation of the true social justice and the basis of what it means to be a son or daughter of God” (395). The law intends to guide our relationship with God and with others. Jesus summarizes it the best when He says, ‘“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and most important command. The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands”’ (Mt. 22:37-40).
But, they failed.
To be fair, they couldn’t possibly have succeeded. They were human, and we all know that is synonymous with making mistakes, failing, choosing the wrong things, and disobeying God. The law was never meant to make them perfect or make them completely right with God. The author of Hebrews wrote:
“Since the law has only a shadow of the good things to come, and not the reality itself of those things, it can never perfect the worshipers by the same sacrifices they continually offer year after year. Otherwise, wouldn’t they have stopped being offered, since the worshipers, purified once and for all, would no longer have any consciousness of sins? But in the sacrifices there is a reminder of sins year after year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.” (10:1-4)
The law’s whole underlying purpose was to show Israel just how much they needed God. They could not make themselves holy, and they would never be able to do away with their sin on their own. They would need Someone greater than the law, greater than the priests, greater than the tabernacle to save them.
Jesus would be the one to finally fulfill the law, and in so doing, make it obsolete. In Matthew, Jesus says, “‘Don’t think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to abolish but to fulfill’” (5:17). The law made provisions for the people, so they could partially draw near to God, but the law could never fully remove the weight of sin from them. Christ took on that burden for us. He perfectly obeyed the law and offered the perfect sacrifice that finally covered our sins once for all time. Now, all we have to do is put our faith in Christ.
Paul, writing to the Romans, tells us how to do just that:
“This is the message of faith that we proclaim: If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. One believes with the heart, resulting in righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, resulting in salvation. For the Scripture says, Everyone who believes on him will not be put to shame, since there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, because the same Lord of all richly blesses all who call on him. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (8b-13)
The choice is yours.
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Author’s Note:
Please realize that the resource list is a work in progress, and not all the sources listed are ones that I necessarily used or heavily considered in the development of this series. I also realize that a variety of schools of thought may be represented. I am not intentionally promoting one theological system over another. I also recognize that there are multiple approaches to the study of covenants, and I am not here to promote one over another. My goal is to present a basic understanding of the various covenants and how they progressively reveal God’s overarching plan of salvation for humanity.
