The History and Theological Context of the Law of Moses
(Bible Study - March 1999) If salvation comes through the operation of faith and grace, what justification could we find for the giving of the Law of Moses? Salvation has always been by grace, not works. Why would God add something ineffective after already establishing the efficacy of faith? What could God be teaching in giving hundreds of commands when He fully knew that the Israelites had no chance of keeping them, and, even if they did, they wouldn’t gain salvation through them anyway? This article will provide some possible answers to these questions as we explore the "big picture" perspectives on the Law of Moses in its historical and theological context.
For our first lesson, we refer to the first article of this series, where we examined the Biblical use of contrast. God showed us law first, so that we could see grace in perspective. We know the concepts of grace and faith better for having seen the operation of law. To fully appreciate Messiah, the living manifestation of the one true omnipotent and merciful Heavenly Father, we had to first experience the dead code of written law (Heb. 1:1,2, II Cor. 3:4-9). This point -- the law as a contrast to the dispensation of grace -- stands as the central idea of giving the law first. We will also find other lessons in scripture, mainly from Galatians, for the giving of the Law of Moses.
The priority of salvation through faith
First we note a critical chronological point, drilled home by Paul in both the Roman
and the Galatian epistles: the New Covenant preceded the Old, effectively reversing their
titular designations. Paul uses two different lines of reasoning to establish this
teaching, one from within the life of Abraham, and one from the broad sweep of
Israel’s history. From these expositions we have full reason to call the New Covenant
also the First Covenant.
In Galatians, Paul explains that faith had precedence over law because the Lord God made promises to Abraham, according to his faith, four centuries before the giving of the law. Paul refers specifically to the Lord God’s ultimate promise made to Abraham in Genesis 22:17-18 (Gal. 3:8, 16-17). He states that a later addition cannot annul these promises. His citation of the 430-year span from the promise to the giving of the law seems to emphasize this immutability. It’s as if Paul had written, "Not just precedence, but precedence by more than four centuries!" The law cannot annul the promises (Gal. 3:15-18); therefore the operation of faith, which brought the promises, retains priority over the law.
In Romans, the argument hinges on a sequence of events within Abraham’s life: God accepted Abraham’s faith as righteousness (Gen. 15:6) before He gave the ordinance of circumcision (Gen. 17:10). Even in the microcosm of Abraham’s life, justification by faith preceded the giving of the ritual (Rom. 4:9-12). Just as Abraham preceded Moses, Abraham’s belief in God’s promises preceded Abraham’s ritual circumcision. Paul adroitly used both examples, ironically skewering the law on the issue of precedence, itself a point of law. With the law thus made secondary, the New Covenant of justification by faith has a dual legacy of precedence over the Old Covenant. We call it the New Covenant because it replaced the Law of Moses, but it also represented "that which was from the beginning" (I John 1:1).
Added because of transgressions
We move on to Galatians 3:19, where Paul asks, and then answers, the very question
upon which we based this article: Why then the law? "It was added because of
transgressions." That’s the answer, but just what does "because of
transgressions" mean?
These transgressions correlate in meaning to Romans 7:13, where Paul states that the law given to Moses exposed and magnified sin, making it "exceedingly sinful." Paul had also made the same point just a bit earlier in Romans 5:20: "The law entered, that the offense might abound." It seems that the magnifying of sin would hardly serve any spiritual purpose; however, God had two lessons to teach us. In the rampant transgressions of the law, we see both our innate refractory sinfulness, and our utter inability to achieve righteousness through a set of rules and rituals.
Thus being proven both depraved and destitute, we could readily seize the magnificent offer of salvation by faith. God be thanked that He would reckon our faith as righteousness, for we can claim neither inherent goodness nor due payment of works. Therefore, the magnification of trespass, manifested by raking our sinful nature over the coals of the law, necessitates our approaching the Heavenly Father with nought but a faithful appeal for His mercy.
The schoolmaster
Paul continues in Galatians, calling the law a "schoolmaster" (KJV)
to bring us to Christ (3:24). Other translations render this word
"custodian," "trainer," "guardian," and so
forth. The word "schoolmaster" may lead us to consider the law as an
instructor, with its shadows and hints teaching the "faithful Israelite" about
Messiah. Scripture, however, does not take this view. For instance, Hebrews emphasizes the
contrast, not the similarities, of Christ and the Law of Moses. The idea of
"shadow" means a very poor representation, not some sort of approximation.
Certainly, Christ was a high priest who entered the sanctuary (Heb. 9:24). The point here,
however, is not that the Mosaic rituals prefigured Messiah’s eternal mission, but
that the Mosaic rituals paled in contrast with the eternal verities.
Moreover, when the shadow precedes the reality, can one really expect to discern the reality? We all know of the children’s game of making shadow figures on a wall. We can stick our hands in front of a bright light and make animals such as a rabbit or a dog. However, if you had never seen a rabbit before, would you have even the slightest notion of a rabbit based on the shadows of two fingers suggesting ears? Only because we have already seen a real rabbit does the shadow make any sense, and even then it’s still the crudest of representations. Certainly the Israelites could not discern the nature and mission of Messiah -- whom they had never seen -- from the various aspects of ritual law, any more than we could know what a rabbit is like from a hand shadow on the wall.
In our retrospection, having the entire New Covenant and the life of Messiah in mind, we can project backwards and note the various symbols, hints, and types contained in the Law of Moses. But it seems extravagant to think that the faithful of Israel, not having seen the revelation (I Pet. 1:10-12), would come to these same conclusions and thereby construct a faith in the future Messiah. What they saw was the vanity of the law, not the reality of its shadows.
How then did the law teach Israel? The word for "schoolmaster," at its roots, means "child leader." Today we have the English word "pedagogue" as the transliterated descendant of the Greek word. But while a pedagogue now means an educator or teacher, the ancient pedagogue was a slave put in charge of the children as a keeper and disciplinarian. "To understand it as equivalent to ‘teacher’ introduces an idea entirely foreign to the passage, and throws the apostle’s argument into confusion," wrote lexicographer W. E. Vine in the Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words. The term schoolmaster is a misleading translation. What Paul had in mind was not the teaching of the law, but the constraints of the law.
Paul says we were "shut up" under the pedagogue, meaning the law restrained us. Restraint is good for those who need it. Paul refers to our condition as children, for whom restraining rules are appropriate, though they’re hardly a guarantee of obedience. Adults have learned to make the right choices without having been told what to do, but children need to be told. Children need a rule such as "wash your hands before dinner;" adults know to do this without being told.
The Law of Moses was for the newborn children of Israel when they exited Egypt via the birth canal of the Red Sea. When Israel grew up, God removed the rules and gave them Christ, so they could live by faith and do righteousness of their own volition. This, as Paul writes in Galatians 4:1-5, is all allegorical, representing the growth of faith in the individual.
What the faithful saw in the law
We can speak at length on the symbolic meanings of all the details of the tabernacle,
sacrifices, priestly garments and activities, and other aspects of the law. However, the
accuracy of our exposition resides in our hindsight. In their own time, the faithful of
Israel could not have this vision, but they would have the perspective of faith. They
would see a priest all decked out in his glorious finery, and ask, "How does this
relate to faith?" The priest’s garments would no more impress them than the
accoutrements of an orthodox cleric would impress us today. The faithful would see through
the law, as well as into the law.
The big picture
We also spend most of our time looking at expositional trees of the law, not the whole
forest. We look at the trunks and the bark and the leaves and the roots with microscopic
care, finding symbolic meanings and types and shadows at every detail. However, put that
aside for the moment. Take a few steps back, and get the big view. Look at the whole
system of law as a unit, or integrated whole. Look at the entire landscape, and see that
it has all manner of ceremony and ritual. We know now what the writer of Hebrews knew and
what the faithful of Old Testament times knew: rules and rituals weren’t going to get
you salvation.
People had to see through the whole system for their faith to operate. They had to come to the conclusion that Paul came to in Colossians 2:21-24, because faith has never changed. While the faithful Israelite couldn’t look forward with any exactitude about what the law signified, he could look at the whole system and think, "This system has to change, because it can’t give righteousness. It’s based on rules."
The faithful Israelite would recognize, at one level of understanding, that this vast system of regulations and ceremonies in some way represented the Divine mind. He also knew that God was really trying to show them "the just shall live by faith."
The O.T. estimation of the law
When the insightful and faithful Israelite, such as an Isaiah or a David or a
Jeremiah, looked into the ritual law, they saw not so much the likeness of Deity, but the
vanity of ritualized religion (e.g., Isa. 1:11-16, Psa. 50:9-14, Psa. 51:16,17). They saw
the failure of rules to breed morality (Isa. 1:4). They saw the weakness of human flesh
exposed (Jer. 7:21-26). They saw the hypocrisy of feigned obedience without moral
commitment (Amos 8:4-6). They saw that ritual works lacked the power to generate the right
attitude, and they saw the nation lapse into hypocritical worship. Psalm 50 especially
reflects the emphasis on attitude (sacrifice of thanksgiving) as superior to the mere
ritual aspects of animal sacrifice. We have in these passages clear indication of how an
insightful, faithful Israelite viewed the efficacy of ritual religion. They knew that a
better covenant would some day remove the shackles of the law. Jeremiah prophesied of this
new covenant, written not on tablets of stone, but written on their hearts (Jer.
31:31-34).
The people’s choice
People have always wanted religion to go the easy way. "Give me the rules to
follow" is much easier to embrace than, "I commit my life to spiritual
growth, self-denial, self-sacrifice, and serving others." We would feel safer
dealing with God through rules than a face-to-face confrontation. Rules and rituals are
ever so much easier to deal with; hence the popularity of ritualistic religion in the
world today.
We have an established principle that God gives people the desires of their hearts in order to prove them. He gave Israel King Saul at their insistence (I Kings: 8:19-22; see also Rom. 1:24 and Mt. 25:24-26). Although we have no explicit text in which people ask for a set of rules and regulations to live by, the giving of the law could imply, "This is what you want, so I give you into the power of your own desire. Prove to me your obedience and faith by these rules."
God gave Israel 1500 years of life under the law to demonstrate their spirituality. What did He find at the end? His original ten moral precepts and 613 commands had multiplied into thousands of regulations, but faith was nowhere to be found. He came looking for fruit in His vineyard, but He found wild grapes, and His people rejected His son (Mt. 21: 33-43). So God ended the experiment, concluding for all time that "the righteous shall live by faith." The veil of the temple, torn in two at the crucifixion, meant the death of the dispensation "added because of transgressions." Transgression had shown all of its ugliness, and then lay defeated, ironically, by its own provision, in the body of the sinless Messiah hanged on the tree.
So the Law of Moses never effectuated salvation, and has now gone extinct. Yet it lives on as a necessary part of the development of our theology of grace. It gives us the perspective of grace by showing us the opposite. It magnifies transgression, thus driving us to God’s mercy. And it shows us that while rules are necessary for children, faith is for the mature.
David Levin