Some people ridicule the idea that Old Testament law should be consulted for how to live today. For example, if you cite Leviticus 18:22 as proof that God disapproves of homosexuality, some respond contemptuously, Well if you’re going to follow that law, then why not sacrifice bulls, own slaves, and execute adulterers, too? Many have convinced themselves that Old Testament law originated in the imagination of an unsophisticated, ancient desert people and thus has little if any relevance today.
In truth, that law is a perfect expression of God’s mind. The Almighty Creator’s understanding of law—governing all aspects of the physical realm, of human relations, of economics and everything else—makes the most brilliant minds in our world today look like children.
The Bible is clear that certain aspects of this law no longer apply—but far fewer than most people would believe. We are bound by the spirit, intent and principle of far more of those laws than people would care to admit. In addition, even those laws that are done away have much to teach us.
Study Deuteronomy 8:1-3. As we have seen, God gave His law so the Israelites could enjoy abundant success. It was up to them, however, whether or not to obey. The laws were not suggestions from which they could pick and choose. God’s people were to live “by every word.”
The spirit of this command applies to Christians today. Read the first four verses of Matthew 4 to see how Jesus Christ quoted and confirmed this truth. Clearly, Christ studied Deuteronomy and the law. He lived by every word. Why don’t more people who call themselves Christians follow His example?
Read how the Apostle Paul also reinforced this point in 2Timothy 3:16-17. This was penned over 30 years after Christ’s death. Do you believe that even the scriptures about sacrificing bulls, owning slaves, and executing adulterers are profitable—for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness? Paul certainly did. Even the instruction in the minutiae of sacrifices and rituals we no longer perform is there to help perfect us. We must reject the notion that any part of Scripture isn’t supremely valuable.
Jesus Christ and the Law
Read the prophecy in Isaiah 42:21 of what Christ would do with God’s law. When Jesus Christ came to Earth, He did not abolish the law. He elucidated the abiding spiritual principles that animated the creation of some of the specific Old Testament laws. He gave penetrating insights into those laws, showing how truly relevant they are for us today.
Read Luke 2:21-24 to note the details surrounding Christ’s birth. Compare this passage with the laws in Leviticus 12 and Exodus 13:2. Clearly, the household within which God chose to rear His only begotten Son was a law-keeping family. People today would call it legalistic, but that impressed God. Jesus grew up in an environment of respect for all of God’s law.
Notice in the passage in Luke 2 that “the law of Moses” is synonymous with “the law of the Lord.” Moses relayed the law, but God is the Lawgiver. Like Luke, the author of this Gospel, we must view even the ordinances of Leviticus 12 as “the law of the Lord.”
A thorough study shows that the God of the Old Testament—the One who gave Israel the statutes, judgments and commandments—was the very Being who became Jesus Christ. Nothing Jesus said or did while in the flesh contradicted what He said or did anciently. God and Christ are love, and they do not change (Malachi 3:6; Hebrews 13:8). God could never make a law contrary to His nature.
Read Matthew 5:17-20 to see Christ’s answer to anyone who would say that He came to do away with the law.
Christ beautifully endorsed the value of the whole of God’s law. Read Matthew 7:12 to see how He summarized God’s entire law in a single sentence. This statement reveals the spiritual principle behind every one of the several hundred specific laws contained in the Old Testament. It is true that there are details on whether or how specific laws still apply—but the bottom line is, they all elucidate spiritual truth and reveal God’s mind. So in a real sense, they all still very much apply on some level.
As we saw in Part One, God’s law is, simply, love. Herbert W. Armstrong referred to it as the way of give. In principle it covers every act—even every thought! “The law of God is a way of life. It is all-encompassing, in principle—that is, according to its spirit. It is an attitude,” he wrote. “It may be summed up in one word: LOVE. …
It is then magnified into the two great laws—love toward God, and love toward neighbor. In turn this is magnified into 10 general principles—the first four of the Ten Commandments express the principle of love toward God, the last six the principle of love toward man” (Good News, March 1979).
Read Matthew 22:35-40 to see where Jesus Himself spoke of the two great principles of the law of love. Where did Christ get those? They aren’t in the Ten Commandments! Those two laws came from the rest of the laws given to Moses: Find the first in Deuteronomy 6:5 and the second in Leviticus 19:18. Christ said all the law and the prophets hang on those two laws. So clearly, Christ believed and upheld the law of Moses—beyond the Ten Commandments. It was binding at the time of His ministry and is still binding today.
“In the Bible God does not write down every specific detail of the PRINCIPLE or SPIRIT of His law!” Mr. Armstrong continued. “He expects us, with His Holy Spirit, to apply the principle to every circumstance, act or question.” You can see, then, why every detail God did write down is so valuable. It is by studying and thinking on what we do have that we gain understanding about those principles and how to apply them.
“The whole duty of man is keeping God’s law in the spirit—far more than the specific detailed letter. It is the attitude or the principle of the law,” Mr. Armstrong concluded. Thus, studying the specifics of the law becomes an exciting process of discovery as we seek to understand how each detail illuminates a spiritual principle, and then we correct our thoughts, attitudes and deeds to conform to it.
The Carnal Mind Needs Detail
Look at Romans 13:8-10 to see how Paul specifically showed that the second of the two great principles is expanded in the second half of the Ten Commandments. Those commands give us detail about how to love our neighbor.
Generally, the more carnal someone is, the more specific the law must be. With a small child, for example, you can’t just issue a general principle like, “Don’t break anything.” You have to point out each and every breakable item and say, “This is no,” or, “No touch.” As he gets older, he begins to grasp the principle: OK, basically Dad and Mom want me to treat things with respect. Just because they didn’t specifically say no to something doesn’t mean I’m free to destroy property.
The principle of God’s law says to love one another. An extremely carnal person might erroneously believe it is “love” to commit adultery. So God specified, You shall not commit adultery. The carnal mind might then assume, OK—no adultery. But I guess it’s still OK to have sex before marriage—or for a man to have sex with a man—or with your mom or your sister—or with an animal! Thus, God broke that commandment down into several specifics on how to use the gift of sex in a way that complies with the God Family law of love.
The existence of some specific laws expose just how carnal the Israelites really were. Read, for example, Deuteronomy 22:13-21 to see how God specifically addressed an abominable situation that never should have existed.
God intends for a marriage to be a happy occasion between two young people who are virgins, who love each other, who want to build a family. It points to the spiritual reality of God Family life. But in Israel, apparently there were young women who were deceiving their husbands-to-be into thinking they were virgins—and young men who were bedding their new brides and then falsely accusing them of unfaithfulness so they could put them away! This law shows how hard the Israelites were—and how God gave specific instruction to keep them in line with His eternal law of love!
Will this specific precept be in force during the Millennium? Certainly the principle of God wanting a young couple to marry as virgins and commit to one another for life will be. But the specifics of this law are already obsolete within God’s Church because we work with young couples and counsel them in order to avoid such situations involving gross deceit and selfishness.
There is a spiritual principle at work, and God gave specifics to help illuminate it. If we all were totally converted, we wouldn’t need things broken down so much. We would grasp the principle and then apply it in every situation.
The Spirit of the Law
It is a mistake to view the Old Testament as mere “letter of the law” and thus of limited value. In fact, Moses understood the spirit of God’s law. Read Deuteronomy 10:16 for proof that he saw the spiritual principle behind an ancient physical ritual. That ritual pointed to our need to cut away the sinful nature out of our innermost being. Read Romans 2:28-29 and Colossians 2:11 to see how Paul expounded this truth to New Testament Christians.
Read Deuteronomy 5:22-29 to see how God revealed to Moses that something is wrong with the human heart—that man is, in fact, an incomplete creation. God knew that without the Holy Spirit, the Israelites’ ability to obey would be limited. Israel’s failure proved that important reality.
But the fact remains that the Being who gave those laws was in no way limited! He is the Author, from the beginning, of “the spirit of the law”!
Study Matthew 5:19-48 for Christ’s wonderful exposition of the spiritual principles behind many of the civil laws of Moses. Here He spelled out more specifically exactly what God’s love looks like—including what is going on in our minds.
Verse 38 quotes Exodus 21:24, a law intended to help a judge determine compensation for someone who had suffered an injury. The spirit was that God wanted to ensure a victim received justice in the form of compensation. These Jews misunderstood and took this to be the sanctioning of personal revenge against someone! That totally contradicts God’s spiritual law! The original law didn’t violate that spiritual law; it would be impossible for God to give a law that contravened His own eternal spiritual law. The problem was the way these Jews were applying it.
Speaking of this passage in Matthew, Herman Hoeh wrote that Christ said “He came to fulfill the law, not to destroy it. He then proceeded to magnify the application of the civil laws as they were given to ancient Israel—not abolishing them, but magnifying them and making them more honorable (Isaiah 42:21). He raised them from narrow, national laws—given to a carnal nation to be administered according to the strict letter—to a spiritual plane regulating the whole of human society” (Good News, August 1972).
Note: In the New Testament, not only have we raised the strict letter to the spiritual plane, but there are also some changes required when you move from laws regulating a single carnal nation to laws regulating the whole of human society. The laws as they applied in ancient Israel were specific to a single nation surrounded by nations hostile to God. Today there are differences with a spiritual body living within several nations. And in the World Tomorrow there will be still more differences, when all nations will be keeping God’s laws.
Studying God’s law in detail, it becomes clear that the laws that are done away are few compared to the vast majority that still apply in spirit, if not also in letter, or that will be reestablished when God rules the nations in the Millennium. Even many religious laws, including those related to the temple service such as rituals and offerings, typify aspects of our individual spiritual lives and in the Church.
Our goal in studying the law is to embrace every possible detail that can inform our Spirit-led Christian lives—because all of it “is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works” (2 Timothy 3:16-17).