Lesson #7, The Old Testament Laws

Speaker A: 00:00:29

From Bible 805 and Yvon Prehn this podcast is a somewhat unique and I trust, a helpful historical and thematic commentary on the readings in the Bible. It's not a verse by verse study, but one that I pray you'll find thoughtful and challenging.

New episodes are released each Wednesday and today our lesson is

The Old Testament Laws, Why read them, how to understand them and apply them today

Why not bail out? Why not skip these outdated laws and odd ceremonies that we find in the first five books of the Bible? We're all very busy today.

We know reading the Bible is good for us. But this section of the Bible, reading about building the tabernacle, all the laws and regulations, what does it have to do with us? Why are we taking time to read them in the first five books of the Bible? These are valid questions and the answers are important to understand.

Following are some reasons why.

First, our eternity depends on it the Christian faith and how the Bible defines it is the most important topic we can study because it's about life or death, heaven or hell in this life and the next.

Though you wouldn't know that from much Christian messaging today, Christianity is not simply an alternative philosophical system to help you live your best life now. It's more than tips on how to have happy relationships, spend your money wisely and be kind to others, though it does talk about those things.

Ultimately, the Christian faith is about salvation from eternal separation from God by means of the death and resurrection of Jesus, and nothing is more important than a correct understanding of it.

Second, anything you want to learn of value takes time and effort to understand and master it, whether it's learning about a sport or how to play an instrument, mastering a topic of study, a career, learning to cook or sew, learning the Bible, getting to know our God, our Savior, and learning how to live a life pleasing to him requires a similar, if not even more intensive effort than any of these things. Because what you learn influences again, not only your life now, but how you will spend eternity.

And part of that is taking time to read and learn about the challenging parts of the Bible. God put them there for a reason, and to understand the entire Bible, you need to understand these parts.

But they are difficult and the lessons on them that I have for you will help you understand and apply them. Now here's what we're going to cover in this lesson about the laws of the Old Testament.

We're going to look at the purpose of the laws and then based on that, what is valid and what isn't valid for us to follow today and what do we primarily learn from them? Next, we're going to look at the historical context of the laws. Why?

The specifics of many of them will make more sense to you when you understand the contemporary culture that they were part of. We'll also talk about the typology of the Old Testament.

This is about the foreshadowing of what was coming in the New Testament and was physically illustrated in the tabernacle, festivals and sacrifices. Topology is an important theological concept that will help you understand how the Old and New Testaments fit together.

We'll also, as we go through, look at applications for suggestions for how God wants us to live today based on these passages. And there is applications for us, even though it might not seem like it.

First of all, the purpose of the Old Testament laws.

The apostle Paul in the New Testament clarifies it.

In the book of Galatians, it says in the ESV version, so then, the law was our guardian until Christ came in order that we might be justified by faith. And today's living Bible puts it this way. The Jewish laws were our teacher and guide until Christ came to give us right standing with God.

And through our faith, the law was a guardian, a teacher, a guide, a tutor. That's what it was. Because we honestly and people needed it.

Let me just say people needed it back then, as we do today, because we honestly oftentimes don't know what's wrong at times until God points it out to us a little more on that specific time, on why it was needed and what it needed to teach the people.

God called Israel out of Egypt to be his people, people, his representatives on earth, as God said, now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all the nations, you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. The challenge is, how are they supposed to do that?

They wouldn't learn it from Egypt, its customs or religions, or any of the surrounding nations. Following God doing what he wants doesn't come naturally to us in our day either.

They needed detailed instructions in every part of life for how to live, because God cares about every part and he wants us to acknowledge him in every part. They were like young children learning how to live as God wanted them to live.

Remember, they'd been slaves in a pagan society with no worship of Jehovah, God and a very different morality. That is the reason why the laws are as detailed as they are and the punishment as strict as it is.

God was teaching his people an entirely different way to live. Does that mean we need to follow all the laws today? The short answer is no, and here's why.

aith goes all the way back to: 1646

Now there's some discussion of the exact breakdown of what belongs into each one, but overall, here's how it works out.

We only need to completely obey the Moral Laws of the Mosaic Law. These include the Ten Commandments and the commands repeated in the New Testament.

Jesus, in fact, you know, in his Sermon on the Mount, he says, I didn't come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. And he even expands on things where he says, you've heard it said, you shall not commit adultery.

But I say to you, if you even look at a woman with lust in your eyes, you've committed adultery. So these things are long lasting what God wants us to obey.

We do not need to obey the Ceremonial Laws.

These were the laws governing how to worship sacrifice, and also many of the dietary laws, many of which pointed to the coming Messiah and were fulfilled with the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. And there is debate on these, but that's a subject for other and deeper study. But then the next one is kind of interesting.

Our obedience to government and the courts is based in large measure on the Civil Laws. Now, of course, we don't follow them in that we are not a theocracy, we're not governed by priests and all that stuff.

But many of the underlying principles of the law codes of much of our world today are based on the Mosaic laws.

For example, here's some of an expectation of equality before the law, the foundation of truth in the courts, in addition to even lesser things like the laws of redemption, how you can buy back a property and all sorts of things, things like this, they all have their foundation in the Old Testament laws of Moses.

Now, how understanding the historical context helps us. Okay, that all makes sense. But why were some of those odd laws given if they no longer apply?

You need to understand the historical setting for this to make sense. And when you do, it'll make much more sense.

When you understand the historical context, and I'm only going to give you a few examples, you'll be able to answer critics of the Bible in large measure who go, well, why did they do this and why did they do that? Many things are pulled out of their historical context.

But when you see where they actually fit and how they reacted to the times, it makes more sense. Let's look at some examples. The first one is the misunderstanding of eye for an eye. That sounds so cruel and so awful and really harsh. But.

But you need to look at the historical context of that specific statement as an example of many.

Now, even though it reflected some current laws of its time, it was also extremely revolutionary for its time because Hammurabi's Code, which was an ancient code that has for many been held up as really an example of fantastic justice and law and all that. Listen to how it describes similar situation.

It says, "If a man has destroyed the eye of a man of a gentleman class, they shall destroy his eye. If he has destroyed the eye of a commoner, he shall pay one minute of silver. If he has destroyed the eye of a gentleman's slave, he shall pay half the slave's price."

The Babylonians and other ancient people clearly did not live under a social system that treated all people equally.

Now, do you see the difference in justice between the two law codes, one that God set up and one that was common in their day?

And think of how astonishing it must have sounded to this group of former slaves that their justice or punishment would be the same no matter what their social status. And it was only a limitation of an eye for an eye. It didn't say you could cut off their hand.

As God's people, wealth and status has no meaning in justice. Equal punishment and protection are for all.

One last little thing, as one commentator said, even though this does sound very harsh, we have no examples in the Bible or historically of an eye actually be taken for an eye. The basic teaching here is equal justice for all. The second historical context example is there are many laws in these books on sexual purity.

Just as we need God's standards on sexuality today on how to contact our lives, because our world is really, really different. It was then also, for example, in Egypt, marriage between brothers and sisters and between other family members was common.

God clearly shows in his laws this was not acceptable. And also during that time and into the New Testament, pagan worship always involved sexual rites.

Common sexual practices of the time were the use of sexual prostitutes and the exploitation of both young men and young women. God forbid these practices and clearly defined how, when and where his people were to worship him.

Why then, though, we might wonder, did he have sacrifices? I mean, that seems kind of barbarian. Why sacrifices of any kind? Well, this is really interesting.

We are often told that animal sacrifices foreshadowed the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. And that's true. But why even that? Why is it that in Hebrews 9:22 it says without the shedding of blood, there's no forgiveness? Why is that?

Why is a blood sacrifice needed to forgive, to achieve forgiveness of sins? This is one of those deep mysteries of our faith we don't know.

We don't know that any more than we know why God separates our time into day and night, why there are four seasons, why all people worship. It's simply been that way from the earliest days of creation, from the earliest days of history on the earth.

As you see in the Bible, when Adam and Eve sinned, God killed an animal, shed its blood for the skins that covered them. When Cain and Abel made a sacrifice to God, only the animal sacrifice where blood was shed was acceptable.

After Noah left the ark, he made an animal sacrifice. Job sacrificed for the sins of his children. It also seems to be a universal religious practice throughout the earth.

However, Israel's sacrifices were unique. In the surrounding pagan cultures, there was widespread sacrifice of children.

The worship of Moloch required a live child be placed in the arms of a huge idol and burned alive as a sacrifice. God repeatedly forbids this. Only animals were sacrificed by the Jews.

And in addition to that, there was a specific way to sacrifice an animal, a very hu humane way of killing them before they were burnt, where in the jugular vein of the animal was quickly severed. And when they were killed in that way, they would not feel any pain because the blood is immediately cut off to the brain.

We'll talk more about the meaning of sacrifices later in this lesson and in coming lesson.

But the important thing now is that in the historical context, the sacrifices of the Jewish people were very different and much more tightly regulated than those of the surrounding peoples. The sacrifices are also a primary example of typology, which is a key to understanding the relationship between the Old and New Testament.

It's incredibly important to keep in mind that God is the author of the entire Bible. So often today, people just jump in and read bits of this and here and there, and they don't really realize God planned and wrote the whole thing.

But like any good author, he doesn't tell the whole story at once. As you study the Bible also, always keep God's view of time in mind. God is outside our timeline and he sees all.

And so he can accurately give us a Bible based on future events. Accurately. I have a chart that illustrates this and you can download it off the Bible805.com website but going on typology that we're going to discuss more following is based on the assumption that there is a pattern to God's work throughout salvation history. Henry A. Virkler, in his excellent book on hermeneutics, stated that. And let me give you a short definition of topology.

And again, it's a key tool for biblical understanding. This is where God prefigured his redemptive work in the Old Testament and fulfilled it in the New.

In the Old Testament are shadows of things to be more fully revealed in the New. The ceremonial laws of the Old Testament, for example, demonstrated to Old Testament believers the necessity of atonement for their sins.

These ceremonies pointed forward to the perfect atonement made in Christ. And here's his summary statement from what he said about typology.

Now listen carefully and I'm going to be explaining it more fully because it's going to be confusing what I'm going to read to you. The prefigurement is called the type. The corresponding figure is called the antitype.

Now I think this terminology is really confusing, though you find it all over the place if you read commentaries about how the Old and New Testament work together.

Because when you read many biblical commentaries, they always talk about something being a type of in the Old Testament, for example, the sacrificial lamb in the Old Testament was a type of Christ's future death on the cross. So far that makes sense. But then many commentaries go on to say that Christ's death was the antitype. What doesn't antitype mean?

Something that is a total opposite than the type. That never made sense to me. Using the prefix anti to mean opposite is what it means in common usage.

But the Greek definition, which almost none of the commentaries tell you about, and I don't know who started using this first because it's really confusing. But anyway, the Greek word is of.

Where we get the word antitype is actually the word antitupos, which means corresponding as an impression to the die. When I heard that, it finally made sense to me. Now bear with me on this and I'll explain it.

One of the many jobs I've had in my long work life is that of a publication designer. Part of being a publication designer is an understanding of typography.

The term antitupos corresponding as an impression to the die makes perfect sense when you think of it in terms of setting type as we did in the past. Now it's all electronically done. But in the past, when type was set to the typesetter the type was placed upside down and backwards. It's all there.

But the type isn't easy to read. But when the impression the print is made, the anti tupos, the meaning is clear. Now in the video I have two illustrations.

I'm going to describe them to you for the podcast, but if you get a chance, do go to YouTube.com bible805 for this lesson and you can see the illustrations. First of all, I have one on a Christmas card that's an upside down Merry Christmas. It's upside down, it's backwards.

But then mentally flip it over, hit the paper with it and you have Merry Christmas.

And then also too, I have an illustration that I got from an old typography book where you see what's called a slug of type, where you see the words in this. In this bracket type thing that says the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog and feels if he.

And feels as if he were in the seventh heaven of typography together with Hermann Zaf.

Herman Zaf was a famous type designer.

And this is just used as an illustration because then when you turn it over and print it out, even though it's very hard to read backwards and upside down, when it's printed, the impression, the antitype, the words become clear. Now here's some specific examples. I hope that wasn't too confusing. Again, check out the video. I think it'll make much more sense to you.

But moving along, here are some specific examples of how typology relates to the passages that we're studying.

The Jewish tabernacle and all associated with it is commonly seen as a series of types of Jesus Christ, in other words, images that he will later specifically fulfill. Jesus describes himself as the door and the only way to God.

And the type prefiguring that was that there was only one door to get into the tabernacle court. Many other aspects of the tabernacle represent other aspects of the coming Messiah.

The bread set out each day in the tabernacle and then Jesus later described himself as the bread of life is another example of this. When his Jewish audience heard him describe himself in these ways, they would have thought of their heritage of worship immediately.

The sacrificial lambs were perhaps the most significant in all of this because they were the type, the illustration of the coming sacrifice of Jesus. In the New Testament, when John sees Jesus coming to be baptized, he says, behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world.

If you were a Jew constantly experiencing the death of innocent lambs, the power of Their meaning was a huge shock, but also a revelation to them of oh, that's who he is. If you're a modern day Bible reader, you'll miss the impact entirely.

If you haven't read the story of the sacrificial lamb in the Old Testament, you won't know what in the world John's talking about. One more example.

In the Tabernacle there was a large veil that blocked the Holy of Holies, so no one could see the Ark of the Covenant and enter the most holy place. Only the High Priest was allowed behind it once a year to make the sacrifice for sins in Jesus Day.

The veil in the Temple of Jerusalem that did the Same thing was 60ft long, 30ft high and 4 inches thick. Massive, impressive, intimidating, blocking man from God until in Matthew 27 it tells us, Jesus again, crying out loud, breathed his last.

And that moment the Temple curtain was ripped in two, top to bottom. There was an earthquake and rocks were split in pieces. Access to God was now free and open.

What had been a symbol, a type of separation, now became one of free access. But again, that New Testament passage won't make any sense at all to you if you don't know how significant it was in the Old Testament.

An Expansion of the Importance of types the equip.org site has this really interesting quote. Let me read it to you. Biblical typology, as evidenced in the writings of the New Testament always involves a heightening of the type in the antitype.

It is not simply that Jesus replaces the Temple as a new but otherwise equal substitute. No, Jesus is far greater than the Temple. It's not as though Jesus is simply another in the line of prophets with Moses, Elijah, Isaiah and Jeremiah.

No, Jesus is much greater than the prophets. Note that this heightening of the type is also known as progressive revelation.

God doesn't tell us the whole salvation story at once, but part by part reveals it through biblical history.

To clarify that, the above article continues on the future purpose of types where it says finally, it's important to point out that antitypes what is fulfilled in the New Testament from the Old Testament type themselves may also function as types of future realities. Communion, for example, is the antitype the future fulfillment of the Passover meal.

Jesus celebration of the Passover meal with his disciples on the night of his arrest symbolically points to the fact that he is the ultimate Passover lamb who takes away the sins of the world. Though the Last Supper and the corresponding sacrament of communion serve as the antitype or the New Testament fulfillment of the passover meal.

They also point forward to their ultimate fulfillment in the wedding supper of the Lamb. On that glorious day in heaven, the purified bride, true Israel, will be united with her bridegroom in the new heaven and new earth.

In other words, there were examples in the Old Testament that would point to fulfillment in the New Testament and in the New Testament that are examples that point to our eternal future. You may be asking, why all this complexity? Why take so long to tell the biblical story of salvation?

In some ways this goes along with the question of why does it take so long for God to work out everything? Because it seems like he always seems to take longer than we want.

Ultimately, only our God knows why he tells us what he does, why he does it in the order that he does it in the way he does it, and how long it takes. We don't know.

But I suspect there's much more going on in the spiritual realms than we're aware of and that it takes as long as it does for God to tell his story as is needed to tell it well. In response to that, we must simply trust.

I've also wondered if God is telling us things bit by bit throughout biblical history that maybe it's a little bit of a test to see if we're paying attention and do we take the time, work and study to truly understand. In response to that, determine to study, read, learn all the Lord has for you when you get into His Word, consistently and deeply.

Here's some practical reading suggestions though I trust this explanation of the purpose of the laws, historical context and typography is useful, here's some additional advice on reading these books of the law. Don't get bogged down or overwhelmed by them. Read them even if you don't understand them as you go along.

Fully understanding them is a long term project and much of the Bible will make more and more sense as you read and get to know all the Bible as you read it through again and again. I constantly encourage you to read the entire Bible, but don't just stop doing it once.

Your understanding will increase each year that you do that again.

Never read or learn these details just for knowledge, but for application as we are to be the living sacrifices and a people of priests to represent our God in our world today in many ways. Now think about this. You are the fulfillment of these Old Testament pictures because we're told in the New Testament as God's people today.

The Apostle Paul says, I urge you brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living Sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This is your true and proper worship. Don't conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Then you'll be able to test and approve what God's will is. His good, pleasing and perfect will.

And as so often happens, there's an even clearer way to say this in the message translation, which I'll read to you now where it says, so here's what I want you to do.

God helping you take your everyday ordinary life, your sleeping, eating, going to work and walking around life, and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for Him.

Don't become so well adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you and quickly respond to it.

Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings out the best of you, develops well formed maturity in you as you do that.

Who you are is clarified in 1st Peter 2, 9, 10, where it says, but you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, people for his own possession that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you're not a people, but now you are God's people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you've received mercy.

And in Revelation it talks about us in this way to him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve His God and Father to him be glory and power forever and ever. Amen. You are the walking fulfillment and current example of all that we've been reading about.

So a few additional encouragements as we read these books. They're not fun to read and we live in a world where fun is seen as the highest value.

To read these books, to learn God's expectations is hard to get through. And as part of that, reading about infectious diseases and spreading mildew isn't easy.

But just because something is hard doesn't mean we should avoid it. As we have said before, many things worth learning take time and effort and we're working to build our eternal souls. Do the work.

The results are worth it and final application for us. God has a purpose in including these books in our Bible. They are not simply odd, outdated laws and ceremonies commanded for no reason.

They had very practical purposes at that time and many things mentioned in them are also types that point to future realities. To understand all the Bible better, we need to read all of it. Don't get bogged down on the details.

When you first read books like these, you won't understand them all, especially the first time you read them. Be patient. Read and reread them.

They will give you a foundation of clarity and depth as you get to know God's Word as a whole and learn to trust him to work out the story of your life according to his perfect and loving plan. That's all for now.

For notes from this lesson, related resources and links to teaching materials, go to www.bible805.com in closing, I'm Yvon Prehn, your fellow pilgrim, writer and teacher for Jesus, and I'd like to close with this benediction.

May you know the invitation of God to move from confusion to clarity, from wandering to rest, from loneliness to knowing you are loved, from turmoil to peace, from wherever you are on your spiritual journey to a growing knowledge of God's Word and in your personal relationship with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.