Law, Gospel and Moses.
Three sets of law were propounded on Sinai: moral, ceremonial and judicial. It is with the moral law we are taking to do at the moment and we would, first, consider it as a law requiring obedience and, second, as a covenant.
As requiring obedience, the moral law differs in some respects from natural law2. The Gentiles retained only natural law; some positive parts of the moral law, such as the Sabbath, were lost to them. This positive law was reaffirmed at Sinai. Again the clarity of the moral law puts a greater obligation on man. Sinners who break the moral law lie under greater condemnation than those who only have natural law. The first table of the moral law requires true worship, which gives it a more spiritual and comprehensive nature than natural law. This law was given to redress the moral damage done to the Israelites in Egypt, where they had learned the ways of the Egyptians. It was also given so that they, and we, might know what sin is and thus be humbled. At the same time it set forth the holy nature of God and, by commanding the nation of Israel to be holy, they were set apart from the other nations by virtue of having such wise laws. Hosea speaks of the law as a great gift given to the Jews and speaks of this gift of God’s law as an evidence of His love. “He hath not dealt so with any [other] nation” (Ps 147:20).
As a rule of obedience, the moral law was complete. The prophets and apostles only added explanations of that law. And when Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, laid down several precepts, they were not new additions to the moral law; rather they were given to counter the corrupt interpretations advocated by the Pharisees. At Sinai the law was given in a solemn and majestic manner, calculated to give it authority. Though the ceremonial and judicial laws were given at the same time, and all parts of the law came from God, by Moses, to Israel, yet the moral law exceeds the other two as it is the foundation for them. It is permanent and was written by God Himself on the two tables of stone.
Moses’ 40 days on the Mount involved his miraculous preservation and this gave weight to Moses and to the moral law among the Israelites. Augustine says of Moses’ action in breaking the first set of stones: “O anger prophetic, a mind not disturbed”. He was saying that this was no carnal anger but that Moses realised salvation would never be by the law as a rule of obedience. Moses was instructed to prepare a second set of stones, and God again wrote His law upon them. These tables were laid up by themselves in the ark of the covenant. Though the Word speaks of Aaron’s rod that budded and the golden pot that had manna being with the two tables, Burgess understands the word wherein in Hebrews 9:4 to refer to the Holy of Holies, not to the ark itself.
As noted above, the first set of tables of the law were broken, and this demonstrates that there was no salvation for man by the law alone. The second set of stones lay in the ark to demonstrate that the keeping of the law had a central place even under the gospel. Thus the law is to be seen as a law for His covenant people, even now. A high place was thus given to God’s moral law by God writing it with His own finger, by its unique place in the ark of the covenant, and by its rule over the consciences of God’s covenant people.
Moses was also instrumental in revealing the gospel of God more fully. Christ was typically set before the people in the tabernacle and its furniture. His saving work was anticipated in the offices of prophet, of priest and of king. The covenant relationship, including its strength, was demonstrated in the ceremony by which they became His people. Moses read the book of the law, the people assented to it and agreed to be bound by it. He then took the blood of the sacrifice and sprinkled the altar, the people and the book of the law. Their relationship with their God was a covenant relationship, and it was a sure covenant because it was sealed with blood.
Subsequently they were reminded every day of the substitutionary nature of the gospel and the solemn truth that “without the shedding of blood is no remission”. No day began and no day ended without the death of a lamb. Nor did the gospel in the ceremonial law make the moral law void. Quite the reverse. In the wilderness, the ark went before them to seek out a place of rest for them. Within the ark were the two tables of the law by themselves, and covering the ark was the mercy seat, where the blood was sprinkled on the day of atonement. The law was not only preparatory to the gospel but accompanied the gospel in all the progress the Church made in the wilderness in moving away from Egypt towards Canaan. The believer needs the law in the great work of sanctification.
The ark was termed the ark of the covenant, and that covenant was reflected in the prologue to the moral law: “I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage”. Israel were in covenant with Him and He with them; He was theirs and they were His. They were therefore to keep the Ten Commandments. The covenantal nature of the Commandments, as part of the covenant between God and His people, is reflected in this description of the moral law: “He declared unto us His covenant, which He commanded you to perform, even ten commandments” (Deut 4:13). In the scene on Sinai, already recalled, we see all the elements of a covenant: (a) God willing to be their God, (b) the full consent of the people, (c) the agreement written in a book, (d) the outward sign of sprinkled blood. The covenant nature of the transaction is expressly stated: “Thou hast avouched the Lord this day to be thy God, and to walk in His ways . . . and the Lord hath avouched thee this day to be His peculiar people” (Deut 26:17,18).
But is the covenant which God made with the Israelites a covenant of works or a covenant of grace? It bears the following marks of a covenant of grace: God declares Himself to be their God, and that is grace. The Second Commandment declares God to be a merciful God and this was reiterated at the giving of the second set of tables of the law. Had the law been strictly applied, nothing but judgement could have been expected, as the breaking of the first set of the stones showed. But the giving of the second set clearly showed God’s forbearance and His purpose of grace through a covenant of grace. Again, the visible seal of this covenant was a sacrifice and the sprinkling of blood, which foreshadowed Christ and grace through Him. The law was that found in the covenant made with Israel: “Wherefore it shall come to pass, if ye hearken to these judgements, and keep, and do them, that the Lord your God shall keep unto thee the covenant and mercy which He swore unto thy fathers” (Deut 7:12).
Those places where law and grace are opposed speak of law in its strict sense – for example, Galatians 3:18: “If the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise: but God gave it to Abraham by promise”. On the other hand, the two sons of Abraham – Ishmael by Hagar the bond woman, and Isaac by Sarah the freewoman – are contrasted in Galatians 4:22-31. As Ishmael was born of Hagar, a slave, into bondage, so Israel was born of Sinai bound over to fleshly ordinances and carnal commandments. “Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar. . . . But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.”
Such was the burden of carnal ordinances laid on Israel at Sinai, and such was the fleshly trust placed in these carnal ordinances by many Israelites, that the whole system could be used as an allegory for the covenant of works and could be contrasted profitably with the covenant of grace into which every child of the promise is born. The same contrast is noted by the Apostle in the Epistle to the Hebrews: “Ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched . . . but ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God (12:18,22).
Law, Gospel and Christ.
Calvin comments on Romans 10:4: “The law in all its parts has references to Christ, and therefore no one will be able to understand it correctly who does not constantly strive to attain this mark”. As noted above, the moral law was foundational to the ceremonial law and the civil law. Christ’s keeping of the moral law was foundational to all His work in the salvation of His people. He had a positive delight in God’s law, “To do Thy will I take delight, O Thou My God that art” (Ps 40:8, metrical). His divinity gave a heavenly lustre to His observance of every holy requirement; and, by His keeping of every jot and tittle of the law, the entire breadth of the law was honoured.
Such adherence to the moral law meant that the Lamb to be offered was without spot or blemish; it was a worthy offering to a holy God. Christ’s divinity and His holy delight in the law also ensured that the High Priest offering the sacrifice “became us”, for He was “holy, harmless, undefiled and separate from sinners” (Heb 7:26). By that holy offering of Himself, Christ satisfied divine justice in relation to the sins of His people and thus took away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. Fairbairn quotes Augustine as saying, “The law is fulfilled when the things are done which are commanded. . . . Christ came not to destroy the law but to fulfil it: not that things might be added to the law which were wanting, but that the things written in it might be done – which His own words confirm; for He does not say, ‘One jot or one tittle shall not pass from the law’ till the things wanting are added to it, but ‘till all be done’.”3
The civil law was the outworking of the moral law in God’s kingdom of Israel. By shadow and type, the ceremonial law demonstrated how a sinner could keep the first table of the law, by worshipping Him aright; and the civil law demonstrated how he might keep the second table of the law, by loving his neighbour as himself. Jesus said, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets: I am not come to destroy but to fulfil” (Matt 5:17). He fulfilled the law by exemplifying perfect, perpetual and spiritual adherence to every precept of that law. He also satisfied, in the place of His people, an offended law by paying to God the Father the ransom due for their sins. He thus exalted the moral law and made it honourable.
Christ fulfilled the ceremonial law by giving substance to every jot and tittle, shadow and type of the Old Testament in a manner which eye had not seen nor ear heard nor had entered into the heart of man. Christ interpreted and extended the civil law in laying down the laws of His kingdom for His subjects as their King and Lord. He said to them: “If ye love Me, keep My commandments”. He explained the spiritual nature of these commandments, and their exceeding breadth, in the Sermon on the Mount and on numerous other occasions.
As well as conforming to the moral law and fulfilling the civil and ceremonial laws, Christ gave that excellence to the New Testament which Paul describes: “Even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth” (2 Cor 3:10). The ministration of condemnation had a glory of its own, but the ministration of righteousness so far exceeds it that its glory became as nothing before the glory of Christ revealed in the gospel. Reisinger notes that the glory of Christ shone through His words, for no man spoke like Him.4 It shone forth when He declared Himself to be the Redeemer, to be the resurrection and the life, and to be God. Some saw His glory on these occasions and believed on Him. His power over the elements, and even the dead, displayed His glory. There was a glory about His death which caused the earth to shake and the graves to give up their dead. It caused the sun to become dark and made the centurion say, “Surely this was the Son of God” (Matt 27:54).
When the Lord of glory appeared to Abraham, he saw that glory in the face of Christ – for he saw the day of Christ and was glad. Paul saw the glory of Christ on the Damascus road, above the glory of the midday sun, and he walked, in a greater or lesser measure, in the light of that glory thereafter. This is the “glory that excelleth”, which shines in every regenerate heart: “God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor 4:6). Above all, He fulfilled the law and the prophets by coming Himself, glorious in holiness, doing wonders. In Him all the promises of God were yea and Amen. As the two natures of Christ exist in Him without conversion, composition or confusion, so law and gospel coexist in perfect balance in Christ without conversion, composition or confusion.