CENTRAL THOUGHT
The law serves the primary purpose of directing the hearts of men to the Lord Jesus Christ to receive the grace of God.
HYMN: AMAZING GRACE! HOW SWEET THE SOUND!
TEXT: Galatians 4:1-10;
Romans 4:1-18.
INTRODUCTION
The eternal purposes of God cannot be fully comprehended by man; they can only be appreciated as they unfold. In God dealings with the nation of Israel, He started with Abraham, instructing him with one singular command: “leave your country, your people and your father’s household, and go to the land then I will show you” (Gen 12:1). Abraham’s obedience to that command was sufficient in giving birth to a nation. But as the nation grew in population and a civil society came into place, it became necessary to give the ten Commandments and other ordinances (the law) to regulate the religious, social, and economic aspects of the life of this nation.
At the time of its enactment, the law showed the people how they should worship and serve God; how they should relate to their leaders; how they should relate to one another, and stipulate the consequences of flouting the law. The law certainly served a good purpose. To Israel, obeying the law was supreme and constituted their entire obligation to God. The Jews could not imagine that it was only a stop-gap measure intended to serve a greater eternal purpose of directing men and women to the Lord Jesus Christ.
When the Lord Jesus Christ came to our world and told the Jews that the purpose of the law what’s to school then to a knowledge of Him, the stumbled terribly. They simply fail to appreciate eternal plans of God. They rejected him as their messiah and killed him. Today, Jesus is alive with the same message that the law is fulfilled with him.
People still stumble at the fact that is through faith in Christ the entire requirements of the law are met. They charge that it is too simplistic; they think that to please God requires enormous human effort, which could entail inflicting pain on one’s body and be involved in some extraordinary activities. As Paul asserts, “such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence,” (Colossians 2:23).
LESSON OBJECTIVES
The objectives of this study are:
- To have an understanding of the law.
- To explain the usefulness of the law to the nation of Israel under different circumstances.
- To discuss the qualities of the law.
- To know the weaknesses of the law.
- To know how Israel stumbled at the law.
- To know how to avoid the failure of the Jews.
BIBLE TRUTH
Q1. WHAT IS THE LAW?
In the most restrictive sense, the law consists of the ten commandments which were given to Moses on Mount Sinai in a magnificent display of power in glory of God’s presence (Exodus 20:1-17; Deuteronomy 5:1-21). They represented this some and basis of the covenant relationship between Israel and God. After the ten commandments were given, other Commandments, instructions, statues, decrees, and ordinances were giving to the people of Israel, but these were essentially an expansion or extension the ten commandments. These expanded expressions the ten commandments are found in the second half of the book of Exodus, and most of Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, and there are over 2700. All these commandments are called the law of Moses. These commandments touched on, among others, how the Jews should worship God
(Exodus 20:4-6), relate between sexes (Exodus 20:16-17, Leviticus 20:10-21), keep the day of Sabbath (Exodus 20:8-11), related to parents (Exodus 20:12), and civil laws of murder, adultery, stealing, and dealing with the one’s neighbor (Exodus 20:13-17). These commandments, ordinances, statutes, and decrees are sometimes classified into two moral and ritualistic or ceremonial commandments. Those who follow this classification indicate that the moral laws apply for all ages and all people, whereas the ceremonial and ritualistic laws apply for a time and to the children of Israel. For example, “Thou shall not steal” (Exodus 20:15) is considered a moral law, whereas is statute, “And when any will offer a meat offering unto the Lord, his offering shall be fine flour; and he shall pour oil upon it, and put frankincense” (Leviticus 2:1) is considered a ceremonial commandment. Most of the commandments which were first given to Moses were moral in nature, while the later ones, which regulated the religious and civil life of the nation of Israel, were ceremonial and ritualistic in nature. All these numerous commandments were summarized into two by Jesus Christ. In Matthew 22:37-40, Jesus stated, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.
All the laws and the prophets hang on these two commandments.” In providing this summary, Jesus indicates to us that the law is fulfilled in loving God and your fellow man. This summary was quite timely because at the time of the earthly ministry of Christ, because the law had lost its meaning to the average Jew and had become a set of human dogmas being followed mechanically to serve the human religious institution of Judaism. “You have a fine way of setting aside the commandments of God in order to serve your own traditions.” (Mark 7:9). The Lord would say the same to us today who turn his word into a set of human dogmas to satisfy our self-styled religious institution.
Q2. WHAT WAS THE USEFULNESS OF THE LAW TO THE JEWS?
As a young upcoming nation, it was necessary for Israel to know God’s standards for righteousness. Having lived over four hundred years with the Egyptians and their polytheistic beliefs and low moral values, it was necessary to reinforce in the heart of the Jews that “You shall have no other gods before me.” (Exodus 20:3). The law raised the standard or morality. Whereas prostitution was a part of the religious activities of most heathen nations, the law found greater use in preserving the identity of the Jews as a people who worship the true God, Yahweh. The law makes sin truly what it is. “What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed, I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said ‘do not covet’. (Romans 7:7) In essence, then, the law does not deliver one from the grip of sin, it brings about the consciousness of sin. In this way no one can excuse himself when he has sinned; his heart (conscience) is sensitized the moment he sins against the Lord. Especially for the young nation of Israel, the law restrained people from doing evil to their fellow compatriots; it helped in maintaining civil order and hygiene of the civil society.
The law served to test the obedience of Israel to God. The only obvious way and Jew could assess whether his heart was for God or not once his obedience to the law. When is Israel lived in obedience to the law, it was also well with them; they prospered economically and were at peace; because the Lord showed His favor upon them, and conversely when they lived in disobedience. Because the law could only show and Individual what sin is and not deliver him from its power, the law serves the role of a tutor who showed the students his inadequacy and then directed him to the remedy. As a tutor, the law directed men to Christ who is the only remedy for sin (Galatians 3:24). The inadequacy of the law in not saving men from the power of sin was met by the Lord Jesus Christ. “for what the law was powerless to do in that it was weekend by the sinful nature, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering.” (Romans 8:3)
The law stipulated the consequences of disobeying the law, and in this way the offender knew the punishment for his actions. In a limited way, this served as a restraint against lawlessness. But it did not help the individual to obey the law in the spirit of the love for God which was God’s original intent for giving the Commandments. The Lord would prefer a people who would obey him out of love rather than out of constraint. Most civilizations in human history have base their civil and societal laws on the commandments given to Moses. That in itself confirms the divine inspiration behind law. These commandments have restrained men from doing evil against their fellow men. Can it be imagined what society will be without laws? The daily news from war-stricken societies where law and order have broken down give us a simple glimpse of what it is like to have a society without laws.
Q3. WHAT ARE THE EQUAL TIES OF THE LAW?
Two phrases from that letter to the Romance and the book of Psalms summarize the qualities of the law. They are: “I agree that the law is good” (Romans 7:16), and “the law of the Lord is perfect.” (Psalms 19:7) To appreciate what it means when Paul says that the law is good, we may need to recall God’s thoughts after he created the universe:” God saw all that he had made, and it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). The law is good to the individual and the society. It warns the individual against flouting the law, thereby constraining him to derive the benefits from obeying it (Psalm 19:11;119:9).The commandments that promote chastity and godly living (abstaining from sex before marriage, and being faithful to one’s spouse, etc.) were almost a thing of the past in most modern cultures until the HIV/AIDS epidemic engulfed our world, promoting men who give no regard to the Word of God to call for a return to Jewish-Christian values. No individual who has kept the word of God has ever regretted doing so. “In keeping them (God’s commandments) there is great reward” (Psalm 19:11b), The same can be said of societies which have modeled their civil laws according to the law. Such societies have enjoyed peace and un-paralleled prosperity. Verse 7 through 13 of Psalm 19 needs to be committed to the heart and practiced by the young and the old.
The commandments of God will produce in us godly wisdom that will keep our feet from being ensnared by the evil ones. The statutes of the Lord are right and will produce in our hearts joy of untold magnitude. Obedience to the commandments of the Lord will illuminate our eyes so that we can walk in God’s light. The ordinances of the Lord will help us walk in righteousness. When we come to appreciate that the commandments of God are designed to do us good, then we will consider them more precious than gold and sweeter than honey.
Q4. WHAT ARE THE CURSES THAT ARE ASSOCIATED WITH THE LAW?
One may become puzzled talking about a curse being associated with the law which we had earlier alluded to as being good and perfect. The curse is not with the law per se but arises from the human response to it. “All who rely on observing the law are under curse for it is written: cursed is every man who does not continue to do everything written in the book of the law”, (Galatians 3:10). The weakness of man in failing to obey the law brings curses. Deuteronomy 28:1-14 outlines the blessings in faithfully keeping the commandments of the Lord and the subsequent 54 verses outline the curses in flouting them.
The curses include being cursed in the city and country, famine, cursed offspring, distress of un-paralleled proportions, diseases and plagues, living under subjection to others, failed and bankrupted marriages, fear, defeat, oppression, and lack. These verses were fulfilled many times throughout the history of the nation of Israel, and are being fulfilled in contemporary societies today and all over the world. We cannot violate the commandments of God and not expect the dire consequences.
Q5. WHAT ARE THE WEAKNESSES OF THE LAW?
Throughout the law was good and perfect, it had to deal with a man in a fallen state. In that state it was simply not possible for man to obey a perfect instrument as the law. “We know that the law is spiritual: but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin” (Romans 7:14). The law only showed man what sin was, but provided no avenue of being set free from the power of sin and the devil. Because man could not obey the law, man came under condemnation. He found himself constantly under the judgment of God and without hope of being let off this condemnation. In this trapped state Paul cried out “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24).
It is our experience before we come to know Christ, of being hunted for our sins and unable to extract ourselves from the power of guilt. The Jews found themselves in this trap but failed to recognize the remedy in Christ primarily because of their pride in their religious heritage. They could not understand how the glory of the Lord which attended the giving of the law in Mount Sinai could be replaced with the glory of the new covenant in Jesus Christ. “We are not like Moses who would put a veil over his face to prevent the Israelites from gazing at it while the radiance was fading away” (2 Corinthians 3:13). What the Jews failed to realize was that the glory of Moses faded away with time.
Q6. HOW DO WE AVOID THE FAILURE OF THE JEWS?
The failure of the Jews arose from pride and ignorance; this prevented them from recognizing Christ as their Messiah. Today we must humble ourselves, acknowledge our sins and our helplessness in saving ourselves from the power of sin and the devil, and invite Jesus into our hearts with an implicit faith on the atoning work of Christ at Calvary. “For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous, for the unrighteous, to bring you to God” (1 Peter 3:18). No human effort can override past sin nor make us meet God’s standard of righteousness. Christ’s atoning work at Calvary provides the only efficacious remedy for sin for all ages and all peoples.
Sometimes it happens that an individual acknowledges his sin and accepts the atoning work of Christ, and thereafter thinks that to progress in his Christian walk demands that he lives by the law and dogmas of religious institutions. That was what happened to the Galatian brethren. “Are you so foolish?” Paul questioned, “After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?” (Galatians 3:3). It is easy to fall into the ploy of the devil. We are saved to do good works which come about as we daily trust in the finished work of Christ with the help of His Spirit that dwells in us. In the same way that we accepted Christ by faith, the same way we shall please the Lord in our Christian walk.
DAILY LIVING APPLICATION
“There is no free lunch”, is a common saying. With this kind of thinking, we tend to have the disposition that we have to work ourselves out attempting to obey the law in order to please God. That is a good common sense but very faulty spiritual sense. Many go to the length of walking bare feet, taking special baths with ‘holy water’, sacrificing animals, inflicting pain upon themselves, inflicting hurts on their flesh, and adhering to some weird diet in order to live to please the Lord.
These actions have an “appearance of wisdom with their self-imposed worship”, but they cannot get us to attain God’s standard of righteousness. Salvation is free. It takes one acknowledging by faith what Christ did on our behalf on the cross of Calvary. The law only provides the sign post for morality but it cannot save any individual. Those sign posts are attained and surpassed not by our human efforts in attempting to obtain them but by a life-long, love-based relationship with Christ.
MEMORY VERSE
Romans 3:20
“Therefore, by the deeds of the law, there shall no flesh be justified in His sight; for by the law is the knowledge of sin.”