Preservation

Preservation

The Law of God instills a vision for the generations.

“And the LORD commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the LORD our God for our good always, that he may preserve us alive, as we are to this day.” Deuteronomy 6:24

The Law of God preserves a worldview intended for the generations. By the various means written into the Law, the people of Israel were to work to preserve the blessings of the Law for the generations to come. This they would do, in the first place, by learning the Law and teaching it to one another, especially to their children.

Beyond this, however, the Law of God includes vigorous institutions which helped to ensure the durability of God’s Covenant to generations to come—marriage, the system of justice, the priesthood and sacrificial system, the economic system, and so forth. These institutions involve protocols, symbols, and traditions which helped to keep the teaching of God’s Law before the minds of the people.

The Law also includes a “story-telling” component, focused on Israel’s past—the promises to the fathers and the deliverance from Egypt—but pointing toward the future and promised prosperity of the Lord. Thus each successive generation would be situated within a story line and challenged to carry on the vision and hope of their forebears according to the promises and commandments of the Lord.

It was every Israelite’s duty to participate in preserving the blessings and promises of God’s Covenant for the generations to come. By taking an active role in learning and teaching the Law, by participating lawfully in all the institutions of Israelite society, and by rehearsing the story and promises of the God’s Covenant, every Israelite would help to preserve the worldview of God’s Law for the generations to come.

It is not difficult to see in this how the worldview of God’s Law helps to shape the worldview of God’s covenant people today. We, too, have a responsibility to ensure that the blessings of the Gospel and the Kingdom are passed on to our children and to their children by teaching, institutions, and story-telling according to the work of Christ and the generations of His people.

Visit our website, www.ailbe.org, and sign up to receive our thrice-weekly devotional, Crosfigell, featuring writers from the period of the Celtic Revival and T. M.’s reflections on Scripture and the Celtic Christian tradition.

–

In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T. M. Moore, editor of the Worldview Church. He serves as dean of the Centurions Program of the Wilberforce Forum and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of twenty books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are The Ailbe Psalter and The Ground for Christian Ethics (Waxed Tablet).

Scripture quotations in this article are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, (c) copyright 2001, 2007 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.