Revealed in the Law - Introduction
Why is it so challenging to read through the Book of the Law - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy?
What is God trying to tell us about Himself and us with all those genealogies, sacrifices and rules?
Does any of it still apply to me as a modern day Christian or if I'm still seeking answers?
If you have asked any of these questions, or are simply someone seeking to know more about the Bible, I encourage you to read on - you're in for a God-sized treat!
This study became a reality while taking a seminary class in Old Testament (OT) History. It was in this class that I learned to apply proper literary interpretation methods, like genre analysis and literary types, to get at the heart of the ancient Hebrew writings - and therefore at the heart of God Himself. There are many people whose work I have read and studied to be able to better understand what I'm about to summarize for you about a very small, but foundational, part of the Old Testament. That list can be found in the credit post of this study. However, the main summarization which simply arrested my heart for this project was in Survey of the Old Testament by Andrew E. Hill and John H. Walton, whose work for this section of Deuteronomy is based on the work of Stephen Kaufman (1.1). Thank you my fellow Bible scholars!
Before we go further, I encourage you to read my About Me page to see my faith viewpoint from which I am basing this teaching. To be an informed student of the Bible, you need to be discerning about who you listen to as you seek to know more about God's Word. There are a lot of differing opinions out there and not all of them take you down correct paths, so know your sources. Let's be Bereans together! (Acts 17:11)
There is SO much to tell of God's story, and of who He is, and this study can only touch one portion, but I feel it's an important one to tell. How can we possibly give our hearts to a God we don't know or understand? As a life-long Christian, I couldn't believe what I found in the pages of the Law that I have never been taught before and feel it's absolutely vital for every Christian to know it! Curious? Great! Let's get to it.
To answer the first question at the top of the page, quite frankly I was scared to tackle these books! I have tried to read them several times prior to seminary, and they were just hard to get through. Some of the stories in the books after Genesis seem so removed from us and the language so inaccessible. Especially all those genealogies and sacrifice details (doubly so since I am a long-time vegetarian!). A quick note about my usage of "law" and "Law." Just as the Apostle Paul did in Romans 3:21, the "Law," or in some other translations "the writings of Moses," is the entirety of the first five books of the Bible, the Pentateuch, and the "law" are the 613 individual laws given as part of the Sinai Covenant.
Let's tackle the purpose of the genealogies first. A good way to look at it is that the focus of the story is actually the...genealogies! (1.2) Yup, tracing from the first of humankind to be created, Adam, down through Jesus (the new and exponentially improved Adam) is one of the focuses of the Old Testament. Since the fall, God has worked to bring us back into relationship with Him as we were in the garden, but desires to elevate us to an even better status than in the garden (Revelation 22:1-3; Ephesians 2:6). God chose a seemingly random man (to our eyes), Abraham, who apparently had a heart open to God's teaching and truth (not like the rest of the world... God had recently called a "do-over" with the flood!) and decided to make Abraham's descendants a model people who would appropriately reflect God's image to the rest of the world (sound familiar?) (Genesis 26:4).
The genealogies tell of this "seed" line that will lead to Jesus, the divine priestly King who will atone for our sin once for all time as both the Lamb offered and the One who offers it, and therefore mediate our restored relationship with God. Occasional genealogies of the "non-seed" line appear as well, which hint at God's heart for including the Gentiles in His overall plan even from the beginning. But there is so much more in the text than the genealogies you say. Yes there is! The narrative interludes tell us about the many times the Israelites' selfish ways, mistakes, sinful natures, and the devil tried to intervene and disrupt the "seed" line! (1.2) Each time, God sovereignly steers us back on track. The Lord saved the Israelites from themselves over and over and over again in the Old Testament before they ever got near the events recorded in the New Testament!
The sacrifices. I'll do my best to summarize a highly complex concept concisely. God is Holy, Pure, Righteous (Innocent), Good ... -- so much so that He cannot be in the presence of anything that would defile. Believe it or not, we were created this way! But once Eve disobeyed and took a bite of that fruit, her eyes (and Adam's when he ate too) were opened to evil - to self-will, to selfishness, to indifference, to immorality and perversion, to cruelty, to neglect, to coveting and war, to pride. And as anyone who has ever been sucked into an activity or behavior against their best judgment knows, these things are addictive and impossible to turn away from. It's like living on the edge of a huge black hole in space always being pulled at by the monstrous forces in the vortex. We are sinful because now we have knowledge of evil and are enticed by it and can't turn away or escape from it, all of us. We are not divine and do not have the power to overcome it on our own. Some give in to it and/or struggle more than others, but we all have this brokenness that leads to the total depravity of the vortex (just read the OT historical books!) without the redeeming grace and power of God - which comes as God Himself keeps all His covenants and promises made by giving us Jesus. The Old Testament shows us over 28 generations of people who, left on their own, were not ever faithful to Him and always chose themselves, other "gods" to worship (with the notable exception of David), and their own wisdom over His. We see this also reflected in every generation since Jesus and certainly in our current generations! The law was given to us to show us what sin is (Romans 7:7-8), and to give us the ultimate hope in the future work of Jesus (1.3).
To be apart from God is to die a spiritual death (consider this as you re-read Genesis 3:4-5) (1.4). God tells us in Deuteronomy 12:23 that life is in the blood of a living creature. So, to come into God's holy presence, lifeblood must be shed to atone for our unholy sins. Physical life for spiritual life. As part of the Sinai Covenant, God gave the Israelite's sacrifices they must specifically obey in order to be clean and holy enough to come into God's presence in the Tabernacle (Lev 17:11, Heb 9:22). God was significantly more specific for the Levitic priests who were the mediators between the people and God. God graciously allowed them to spill the blood (physical death) of His precious Creation in place of their own blood though only they themselves deserved it to regain their spiritual life. As that covenant only applied to the Israelites at that time, we are no longer under that covenant, including the Ten Commandments (1.5), and do not need to continue to make blood or food sacrifices (Heb 10:4)(1.6). We are under the New Covenant of Jesus's blood that was shed once for all (Heb 9:12). But the spirit of the Law remains (Jeremiah 31:33-34; Hebrews 10:14-18).
It is when you strip away all the descriptions of the sacrifices in the law,
It is important for me to stress again that modern day Christians are no longer under the Sinai (Old) Covenant of the law as stated above. This study is meant to teach only about what the Ten Commandments portion of the law tells us about the character of God - so we can know Him better, know better who He created us to be (a kingdom of priests Exodus 19:6; 1 Peter 2:4-5, 9), and be inspired to respond even more to His love. That said, knowledge of the Old Testament Law gives us so much context for understanding our human history, the history of us as God's people, and just exactly what Jesus did for us, so we have a responsibility to read it and know it (1.7). As we now have the spirit of the Law written on our hearts, we need to recognize it! It also makes our understanding of the New Testament so much fuller because the new covenant is built upon the foundation of the old covenants! (1.8) (For more on the story of the Bible and how Jesus fulfills the covenants, read my post "A Synopsis of the Bible in 1200 Words.")
My next post will talk about a brief overview of the structure of the Law (they weren't all given at once!) and some important background because it's in this structure and against this background that we can see what God's heart is.
A few words about the structure of this study as we begin:
Here are a few questions to ponder before you continue:
How do you see in yourself just in this past week your self-reliance?
How often do you seek God - to learn something new about Him or yourself, to connect with Him in relationship like you would your spouse or child or parent, to thank Him for all of the good things you have?
What are your pre-understandings of the laws and the Old Testament?
What are your pre-understandings of who God cares about in this world (just believers, or everybody)?
How would you describe God using His character traits?
What is God trying to tell us about Himself and us with all those genealogies, sacrifices and rules?
Does any of it still apply to me as a modern day Christian or if I'm still seeking answers?
If you have asked any of these questions, or are simply someone seeking to know more about the Bible, I encourage you to read on - you're in for a God-sized treat!
This study became a reality while taking a seminary class in Old Testament (OT) History. It was in this class that I learned to apply proper literary interpretation methods, like genre analysis and literary types, to get at the heart of the ancient Hebrew writings - and therefore at the heart of God Himself. There are many people whose work I have read and studied to be able to better understand what I'm about to summarize for you about a very small, but foundational, part of the Old Testament. That list can be found in the credit post of this study. However, the main summarization which simply arrested my heart for this project was in Survey of the Old Testament by Andrew E. Hill and John H. Walton, whose work for this section of Deuteronomy is based on the work of Stephen Kaufman (1.1). Thank you my fellow Bible scholars!
Before we go further, I encourage you to read my About Me page to see my faith viewpoint from which I am basing this teaching. To be an informed student of the Bible, you need to be discerning about who you listen to as you seek to know more about God's Word. There are a lot of differing opinions out there and not all of them take you down correct paths, so know your sources. Let's be Bereans together! (Acts 17:11)
There is SO much to tell of God's story, and of who He is, and this study can only touch one portion, but I feel it's an important one to tell. How can we possibly give our hearts to a God we don't know or understand? As a life-long Christian, I couldn't believe what I found in the pages of the Law that I have never been taught before and feel it's absolutely vital for every Christian to know it! Curious? Great! Let's get to it.
To answer the first question at the top of the page, quite frankly I was scared to tackle these books! I have tried to read them several times prior to seminary, and they were just hard to get through. Some of the stories in the books after Genesis seem so removed from us and the language so inaccessible. Especially all those genealogies and sacrifice details (doubly so since I am a long-time vegetarian!). A quick note about my usage of "law" and "Law." Just as the Apostle Paul did in Romans 3:21, the "Law," or in some other translations "the writings of Moses," is the entirety of the first five books of the Bible, the Pentateuch, and the "law" are the 613 individual laws given as part of the Sinai Covenant.
Let's tackle the purpose of the genealogies first. A good way to look at it is that the focus of the story is actually the...genealogies! (1.2) Yup, tracing from the first of humankind to be created, Adam, down through Jesus (the new and exponentially improved Adam) is one of the focuses of the Old Testament. Since the fall, God has worked to bring us back into relationship with Him as we were in the garden, but desires to elevate us to an even better status than in the garden (Revelation 22:1-3; Ephesians 2:6). God chose a seemingly random man (to our eyes), Abraham, who apparently had a heart open to God's teaching and truth (not like the rest of the world... God had recently called a "do-over" with the flood!) and decided to make Abraham's descendants a model people who would appropriately reflect God's image to the rest of the world (sound familiar?) (Genesis 26:4).
The sacrifices. I'll do my best to summarize a highly complex concept concisely. God is Holy, Pure, Righteous (Innocent), Good ... -- so much so that He cannot be in the presence of anything that would defile. Believe it or not, we were created this way! But once Eve disobeyed and took a bite of that fruit, her eyes (and Adam's when he ate too) were opened to evil - to self-will, to selfishness, to indifference, to immorality and perversion, to cruelty, to neglect, to coveting and war, to pride. And as anyone who has ever been sucked into an activity or behavior against their best judgment knows, these things are addictive and impossible to turn away from. It's like living on the edge of a huge black hole in space always being pulled at by the monstrous forces in the vortex. We are sinful because now we have knowledge of evil and are enticed by it and can't turn away or escape from it, all of us. We are not divine and do not have the power to overcome it on our own. Some give in to it and/or struggle more than others, but we all have this brokenness that leads to the total depravity of the vortex (just read the OT historical books!) without the redeeming grace and power of God - which comes as God Himself keeps all His covenants and promises made by giving us Jesus. The Old Testament shows us over 28 generations of people who, left on their own, were not ever faithful to Him and always chose themselves, other "gods" to worship (with the notable exception of David), and their own wisdom over His. We see this also reflected in every generation since Jesus and certainly in our current generations! The law was given to us to show us what sin is (Romans 7:7-8), and to give us the ultimate hope in the future work of Jesus (1.3).
To be apart from God is to die a spiritual death (consider this as you re-read Genesis 3:4-5) (1.4). God tells us in Deuteronomy 12:23 that life is in the blood of a living creature. So, to come into God's holy presence, lifeblood must be shed to atone for our unholy sins. Physical life for spiritual life. As part of the Sinai Covenant, God gave the Israelite's sacrifices they must specifically obey in order to be clean and holy enough to come into God's presence in the Tabernacle (Lev 17:11, Heb 9:22). God was significantly more specific for the Levitic priests who were the mediators between the people and God. God graciously allowed them to spill the blood (physical death) of His precious Creation in place of their own blood though only they themselves deserved it to regain their spiritual life. As that covenant only applied to the Israelites at that time, we are no longer under that covenant, including the Ten Commandments (1.5), and do not need to continue to make blood or food sacrifices (Heb 10:4)(1.6). We are under the New Covenant of Jesus's blood that was shed once for all (Heb 9:12). But the spirit of the Law remains (Jeremiah 31:33-34; Hebrews 10:14-18).
It is when you strip away all the descriptions of the sacrifices in the law,
and look closely at the rules
based on how they are structured within the Hebrew language
and compared against the culture of the day,
that a breathtaking image of the character of God is revealed.
It is important for me to stress again that modern day Christians are no longer under the Sinai (Old) Covenant of the law as stated above. This study is meant to teach only about what the Ten Commandments portion of the law tells us about the character of God - so we can know Him better, know better who He created us to be (a kingdom of priests Exodus 19:6; 1 Peter 2:4-5, 9), and be inspired to respond even more to His love. That said, knowledge of the Old Testament Law gives us so much context for understanding our human history, the history of us as God's people, and just exactly what Jesus did for us, so we have a responsibility to read it and know it (1.7). As we now have the spirit of the Law written on our hearts, we need to recognize it! It also makes our understanding of the New Testament so much fuller because the new covenant is built upon the foundation of the old covenants! (1.8) (For more on the story of the Bible and how Jesus fulfills the covenants, read my post "A Synopsis of the Bible in 1200 Words.")
My next post will talk about a brief overview of the structure of the Law (they weren't all given at once!) and some important background because it's in this structure and against this background that we can see what God's heart is.
A few words about the structure of this study as we begin:
- As I go along, I will highlight the character traits of God that are revealed through our analysis, not just reported by me.
- Besides this introduction post, there are 11 more posts. Each will take you approximately 15-20 minutes to read through, depending upon your style of digesting information. Each post has a handful of reflection questions at the end. I include links to previous postings at the bottom of each post, as well as all posts can be found under the Archives section of the left menu.
- The next post is some key context and background, then the framework of the Ten Commandments as found in Deuteronomy 6-26. Each commandment then has an elaborative post (with commandments 6-8 grouped together), followed by a concluding post.
- I recommend that you read no more than one post a day in order to allow the knowledge to soak in and to take the time to reflect and respond to God as you go along. Each post builds upon the previous, so please do not skip ahead.
- If you are leading a group through this study, I recommend that you read and reflect ahead of the group so that you are ready for some thoughtful discussions and consider any additional reflection questions based on the unique makeup of your group. I have also included a Resources page (in the left menu) for all readers interested in digging deeper, but leaders may find these resources especially helpful.
Here are a few questions to ponder before you continue:
How do you see in yourself just in this past week your self-reliance?
How often do you seek God - to learn something new about Him or yourself, to connect with Him in relationship like you would your spouse or child or parent, to thank Him for all of the good things you have?
What are your pre-understandings of the laws and the Old Testament?
What are your pre-understandings of who God cares about in this world (just believers, or everybody)?
How would you describe God using His character traits?
Next Post: Some Background
Credit Notes
I encourage respectful and edifying dialog. All comments are subject to approval.
Last updated: June 28, 2018
Credit Notes
I encourage respectful and edifying dialog. All comments are subject to approval.
Last updated: June 28, 2018
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I encourage respectful and edifying dialog, though please know that all comments posted are subject to approval.