Portent

Portent

The Law of God continues to be of value in the Kingdom.

“The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him; and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.” Genesis 49:10

The Law of God presents a worldview. It sets forth a way of seeing and living in the world which is designed to promote love for God and create communities of justice, righteousness, and peace. It sets forth a vision, defines the way that vision is to be pursued, and explains how that vision can come to expression in the lives of God’s people.

But the Law of God, while it presents abiding norms of holiness, righteousness, goodness, and truth, is an historical document, intended for a particular people and a particular place and time. The Law was preceded in the revelation of God by His promises, and the Law cannot, therefore, cancel or supplant those promises (Gal. 3:17). The Law was intended for Israel as the means whereby, in her particular historical situation, she might lay hold on as much of God’s precious and very great promises as could be realized, given the fallen condition of humankind and the progress of God’s redemptive plan.

It is thus a mistake to see the worldview of God’s Law as in any way final or salvific. The Law of God, in its given form, was for a stage in the covenantal history of God and His people; it was not given to save Israel then, and it has no saving benefit for the people of God today. Moreover, given the changing historical circumstances and the onset of the Kingdom of God, we should expect to see some serious changes in the way God’s Law is applied to the covenant and human situation today.

That said, the Law of God continues to have much benefit in the age of the Kingdom in which we presently live (Matt. 5:17-19). But we need to understand the role of the Law, and the worldview it presents, in their proper context—not as an end in itself or a means to salvation, and not as intended solely for the people descended from Abraham, whether by physical or spiritual descent.

From the earliest pages of divine revelation, God can be seen to be mapping out a plan for all humankind—all peoples and nations in every culture and time. This is evident in His declaration that One would come to undo the work of Satan in having deceived Adam and Eve (Gen. 3:15). It is clear in God’s promises to Abram that through the patriarch God was planning to reach all nations and generations with His blessings (Gen. 12:1-3). And we can see, in Jacob’s blessing and prophecy concerning his son, Judah, that God was already thinking about a way of extending the benefits of His Covenant to all the peoples of the earth through His chosen people.

Thus, as compelling as the worldview of God’s Law is—its glorious promise of knowing God and enjoying His blessings, its prescriptions concerning how we must seek those promises, and its explicit instructions respecting how they who seek the promises of God must live—that worldview can only be properly understood within the framework of all the revelation of God in His Word. The Law itself points forward, as we shall see, to further revelation and greater developments in God’s Covenant yet to come. Thus, since we live in that “yet to come” time, it behooves us to consider carefully the worldview of God’s Law against the larger backdrop of the things to which it pointed, and which we are now coming to know.

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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.