The Law and Creation – The Kingdom Curriculum II (4)

The Law and Creation

And Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.’” Mark 10:5-8

The Law of God was given to Israel at a critical moment in her history. Up to the time of Jacob’s descent into Egypt, the people of Israel were a small family unit – only around 70 persons – and were thus easily governed by their understanding of the promises of God, their history as the descendants of Abraham, and the Law of God written on their hearts (Rom. 2:14, 15). Apart from that, the only external additions God had made to govern the affairs of His covenant people were that they should dwell in the land of Canaan and practice circumcision.

However, 400 years after Joseph the people of Israel had become a vast multitude who had never known freedom, never had to govern themselves, nor ever had the luxury of owning real property or living in their own land. God delivered His people from Egypt so that they might get back on track with His original design for them in the context of His promises to Abraham. His commandments would point the way to the life He intended them to life (Lev. 18:1-5).

But the commandments, as Jesus pointed out, were even themselves a concession to Israel’s sin. Although they are a holy and righteous and good standard for life (Rom. 7:12), they do not fully recover the original purposes of God for humankind in the day He made them. As Jesus indicates in the matter of divorce, when God created marriage He intended the hearts of spouses to fasten on one another, with no impediments or distractions, and for them to remain together, thus fastened, for life.

There is thus a sense in which every teaching of the Law invites us to look back and look forward. We must look back to Genesis 1 and 2 and ponder the meaning for the human situation of such words as “good” and “upright” (Eccl. 7:29). Thus we may begin to penetrate through the letter of the law to its heart and spirit. And we must look forward to Jesus and the Apostles in order to gain their understanding of the Law in the light of God’s revelation through them. We must not think of any of the commandments or statutes of the Law in isolation; rather, they must be studied, pondered, embraced, and applied against the backdrop of all the counsel of God. For only thus will be in the best position to discover, through the lens of the Law, God’s original good and upright purposes for men.

Order your copy of The Law of God today. Go to www.MyParuchia.com, Publications, Waxed Tablet, to place your order and take up the Kingdom curriculum of our Lord.

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“In the Gates” is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T.M. Moore

T. M. Moore is 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.

Editor’s note: The use of a translation other than the Authorised Version in an article does not constitute an endorsement in whole or in part by The Christian Observer.