Ep. 15 | The Covenantal Law of the Old Testament
Speaker: Jesse Turkington
Summary: Keeping the Law didn't make a person righteous. It was a way for people to express their faith in God through their faithfulness to His Law.
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Music created by Chad Hoffman
Artwork created by Anthony Kuenzi
Jesse’s Personal Notes:
The Covenantal Law of the Old Testament
Introduction
Hey guys, welcome to Pickled Parables! My name is Jesse, I’m the host for this podcast.
Last week, as well as this week, is a slight detour from our Galatians series. Because we’re trying to gather up some context that can help us with our study in Galatians.
So last week we talked about Abraham and the promises of God concerning him, along with the sign of the covenant that God made with him.
And now this week, we’re going to talk about the Law of the Old Testament and the significance that it has on this side of Jesus’ empty tomb.
So, after this episode, we’re go back to Galatians and pick things back up again in chapter three. But for right now, let’s take a look at the Law of the Old Testament.
Transition from Last Week
Abraham had many sons. Many sons had father Abraham. And one of those sons was a result of God’s promise that He would make Abraham into a great nation and that through him all the families of the earth would be blessed.
Now Abraham had several kids out of an effort to uh … “help?” God achieve His promises but God was very specific by saying things like, “No, this man will not be your heir, your very own son will be your heir.” And then later, “No, but Sarah your wife will bear you a son, and you will call his name Isaac.”
You see, God had a very specific plan that involved Abraham not because Abraham was a shinning model of God’s agenda and like was worthy to be put into this sort of spotlight but because God was gracious and Abraham was a man who feared God and who believed that God would fulfill His word.
And fulfillment, actually, is kind of the main point of this lesson. Without the Old Testament setting up these expectations; Jesus’ birth, death and resurrection would have little meaning for us today.
God was intentional with establishing a lineage of people who would prepare the way for Jesus to enter this world as a sacrificial Lamb. And through Jesus’ life and actions, He would fulfill the very words and promises of God.
One of these expectations that’s set up, is the Law of the Old Testament.
So, after Abraham and Sarah had Isaac, Isaac had a kid named Jacob. Later his name was changed to Israel. Which means “one who wrestles with or struggles with God.”
And man, what a prophetic name because the kids that come from this guy become a distinct ethnic group of people known as the children of Israel or the people of Israel and they struggle and they wrestle with God throughout their storied history.
It’s important to note, again, that God did not choose to work with the people of Israel out of a sense that they were the best option out of the catalog of humanity. God works with weak people to demonstrate His strength.
There came a time when God had to intercede and rescue the people of Israel because they had fallen into slavery. In fact, God predicted that his would happen during one the times that He reaffirmed His promise to Abraham.
In Genesis chapter fifteen, He told Abraham:
Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. (Genesis 15:13-14 ESV)
This is so interesting, because the nation that they become enslaved to is Egypt. The same place that Abraham went to and deceived the Pharoah and then brought plagues upon the land and then left with a bunch of possessions. A very different situation but similar outcomes. It’s like a mirror of situations.
Now God does rescue them – that’s recorded in the book of Exodus – and He takes them out to a mountain in the wilderness for an identity conference.
You see, the people of Israel had lived under oppression for so long that it’s quite possible, even probable, that Israel began to forget the God of their forefathers.
They were submerged in a completely different culture, they had to observe completely different gods. And being slaves for hundreds of years could make anybody asked,
1. “Is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob like a territorial God?”
2. “Like, does he not come down to Egypt?”
3. “Is He not around?”
4. “Are these Egyptian gods more powerful He is?”
So, God answered these potential questions with ten plagues that directly addressed the Egyptian gods and their domains demonstrating that, yes, God did indeed have authority over them.
God delivered Israel from slavery with a hand of protection and ultimate victory. It’s truly a spectacular story and hopefully we can explore it more thoroughly at another time.
But after their deliverance, God took them to Mount Sinai and reminded them about who they were before God.
I’m gonna say something that might stagger you.
Mount Sinai
The Old Testament Law was the best thing God ever gave Israel because it set before them God’s very heart, His values and His worldview.
Typically, Christians have a negative understanding of the Old Testament Law but that’s because we have the benefit of hindsight and the knowledge that Jesus has accomplished the law and given us something better. But for the Israelites who received this, this was the best thing they had ever been given.
The Law was how Israel could demonstrate their obedience and practice the faith that they had in God.
By keeping this covenant and obeying its law, Israel would live out its calling of being a holy nation of priests. Listen to this from Exodus chapter nineteen:
(this is God speaking) Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; 6 and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. (Exodus 19:5-6 ESV)
The Law was meant to structure Israel’s daily walk with God. And so, through this medium they were supposed to express their faith in God through their faithfulness to His Law.
To be clear, keeping the law didn’t make a person righteous, it was simply the avenue of demonstration for a person’s faith in God.
Chronologically speaking, it’s already been established that righteousness is given by God to those who believe His promises. It’s not earned, it’s not discovered – it’s given.
And (God) brought (Abram) outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” And (Abram) believed the Lord, and (the Lord) counted it to him as righteousness. (Genesis 15:5-6 ESV)
This is why Abraham is called a man of faith, because he believed the Lord and then from that belief was rewarded or probably a better word is given righteousness.
There is no way for mankind to produce righteousness because we are entirely in the wrong. We do not have a righteousness of our own. Only through belief we become aligned with God and then we become covered by His righteousness.
For the Israelites, the law was how they could demonstrate their belief.
And just like their name suggests, they really struggled with it.
While the law was being given, the Israelites constructed a golden idol that resembled a calf because they wanted to make a god that they could control.
The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob was scary. He was untamable. They could not control Him! And they we’re terrified of Him, so they tried to take control of the situation and create their own version of Him.
This all happened right after God had said:
“You shall have no other gods before (or besides) me.
You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. (Exodus 20:3-6 ESV)
Immediately after this, God then gave specific instructions for building a mobile temple and outlining how they could honor Him and worship Him.
But instead of doing that, the people of Israel did this:
When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, “Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” So Aaron said to them, “Take off the rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” 3 So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf.
Notice how this very sentence includes everything they were not supposed to do. He used a graving tool to fashion and carve out an image of an animal so that they could worship it.
And they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord.”
The Lord?!
And they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. (Exodus 32:1-6 ESV)
I don’t think this is needed to be said, but this was not a demonstration of belief. This was not a demonstration of obedience. This was rebellion caused by the desire for control and the fear of submission. This was their continual struggle, which is reflective of all mankind, really.
Some people have asked, “Could God’s law be kept by people? Is it even possible to keep God’s law?”
Paul claimed that he did but that he did it for the wrong reason. He created a self-righteousness from his obedience. He wasn’t keeping the law to align himself with God, he was keeping the law because he was using it to replace God.
If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more:
This is Paul talking – circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.
But whatever gain I had, I count as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. (Philippians 3:4a-11 ESV)
The Law’s Completion
During Jesus’ earthly ministry He said this:
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:17-20 ESV)
The Hebrew scribes and Pharisees were doing the same thing that Paul was talking about. They were creating a self-righteousness that looked pretty good but it had no measure to the rightness and the correct way of God. They needed a righteousness that was not self-produced.
Jesus said that He came to fulfill the Law, to accomplish it, and He did that in every needed way.
Paul wrote:
“Jesus forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross” (Colossians 2:14 NIV)
Jesus’ final words on His cross were: “It’s finished!”
Something else Paul wrote, is:
Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. (Romans 10:1-4 ESV)
And:
… we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified. (Galatians 2:16 ESV)
We need to be aware that the Law of the Old Testament was God’s relational covenant with the ethnic nation of Israel. We also need to be aware that Jesus accomplished the purpose of the Law and established a new covenant that He now offers to a multiethnic church. This new covenant supersedes the old covenant.
There is still benefit to the Law in that it gives incredible value in revealing who God is and what sin is like. However, because of Jesus, the Law does not serve as a regulation for us today but it serves as a revelation for us to better understand the heart of God.
The Law represented a conflict of nature – the righteous nature of God and the sinful nature of mankind.
That’s why Jesus was the only Person who was able to fulfill the Law, because, “For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily” (Colossians 2:9).
Righteousness is not earned through the Law. It is given by a graceful God to those who believe Him.
This is integral to the Gospel message, because if the Gospel message was anything different it truly would not be good news.
This is what Paul was fighting for in Galatians. A clear and comprehensive defense for the integrity of the Gospel. And now that we have the context for his defense, we are better able to understand his divinely inspired defense and correction.
Conclusion
The Law was so special to the Israelites. Sometimes they would abandon it but other generations valued it so highly. There’s an entire Psalm dedicated to it. Psalm 119. It has 176 verses in it and its just complete praise and thanksgiving for God’s Law.
We shouldn’t forget, despite being fulfilled and accomplished, the Law still has value for us today. While it’s not regulatory for us, it is revelatory in that it shows God’s values, His worldview and His very heart towards people.
Righteousness is not earned through the Law. It is given through belief in Christ.
Next week, we’ll take this weeks and last week’s context to Galatians chapter three and get back into our study there.
So until then, I’ll catch you later.