What is the law according to the Bible?

The law given through Moses is the efficacious, continuous action upon man as a creature, when fallen, of the righteous requirements of the Creator over and from man.

Law: the proclamation of the righteousness of a sovereign God; the people being yet unfallen. Typically, the obedience which grace enables for and makes necessary to the redeemed.

To begin with we must distinguish between "the law" and "law" without the definite article in the original Greek. If we possess the "New Translation" of the late Mr. Darby we can pretty easily do this, even though we are unable to handle the Greek text. "The law" is specific, and indicates the law of Moses whereas "law" is characteristic, and sets before us rather that principle or feature which characterized the law of Moses, viz., God formulating and codifying His righteous demands upon man, and then basing His attitude towards man upon man's attitude towards Him as revealed by his response thereto.

This question may be very simply answered. The law reveals what man ought to do. This is what is written in the law. We often hear it said that “The law is the transcript of the mind of God.” This definition is altogether defective. What idea should we have of God were we to regard “the ten words” uttered on the top of Mount Sinai, mid thunderings and lightnings, blackness, darkness and tempest, as the transcript of His mind? How should we know God if “the ministration of death and condemnation, written and engraven in stones,” is the transcript of His mind? May we not, with great justice, inquire of the framers of the above most objectionable definition, “Is there nothing in the mind of God except death and condemnation? Is there nothing in the mind of God except thou shalt and thou shalt not? If there be more than these, then it is a mistake to affirm that “The law is the transcript of the mind of God.” If it be said that “The law declares the mind of God as to what man ought to do,” we have no objection to offer, for that is what we hold the law to be. But then, let the reader remember that the declaration of what man ought to do and the revelation of what God is, are two totally different things. The former is the law, the latter is the gospel. Both are perfect — divinely perfect — but they stand in vivid contrast; the one is perfect to condemn, the other is perfect to save.

In His life Christ presents this love of God, God Himself manifested in love to man; in His death He is as man before God, made sin for us in order that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him, and that the righteous God, the God of love, never might remember our sins. In the history which we are considering He manifests God's love towards man. The law was the perfect rule of that which man ought to be as son of Adam; it demanded of man that he should be such, and pronounced a curse upon the man who did not do that which it required. It added God's authority to that which was fitting to the relationships in which man finds himself, and gave a perfect rule for conduct to man in these relationships; a rule easily forgotten or broken in the fallen state of man. It did not give life, nor strength, nor objects to attract and rule the heart; but it established the relationship of man with God and with his fellows, and cursed all those who had not kept it, that is, all those that were under it.

3 The people, come out of Egypt, are led through the desert to be tried, and at last are brought to Sinai. And now a principle quite new is presented to them. The covenant of the law is offered to the people; that is to say, the blessing and the enjoyment of promises under condition of obedience to the law of God. "If ye obey my voice," said Jehovah to the people; "thou shalt be a peculiar treasure unto me." "Do this, and thou shalt live." This then is the principle of the law of God, a principle perfectly just, like the law, which was the rule of conduct which God proposed, and which the Lord Jesus summed up in those holy words: "Thou shalt love Jehovah thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy mind, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and thy neighbour as thyself." It was a perfect and admirable rule of what man ought to be, and which would secure happiness to the creatures living according to its requirements. Jehovah therefore proclaimed the law, under the form of Ten Commandments, with His own mouth to the people, at Sinai. If they kept it, they should be blessed; if not, they would be condemned and cursed.

God gave the Sinaitic law to His people Israel after their liberation from Egypt. With its juridical, ceremonial and moral commandments it was from the beginning meant for that people only (Deut. 4: 8; Rom. 9: 4), just as the Old Covenant was only made with Israel. Christians often overlook this fact.

The law of Sinai was a God-given system of claims on, and promises for, His earthly people. The moral laws were, so to speak, God's minimal claims on natural, unregenerate men. The ceremonial laws regulated the worship and service of the people and were at the same time a shadow of things to come which became reality in Christ (Col. 2: 17; Heb. 10: 1).

Let me first say a word in connection with this subject of the law. What is to be here understood by the law? Is it the ten commandments? We read certainly in Scripture of the law of Moses. Turning to the Old Testament we read of the ten commandments engraved on two tables of stone, handed to the Israelites by Moses for them to keep. But there was a great deal more beside the ten words; there were rites and ceremonies associated with the law of Moses carried on from century to century. To some extent they were being observed in the days of our Lord, and after His resurrection and ascension to heaven the ritual was still in some respects performed until the destruction of the Temple by the Romans.

At the giving of the law to the Israelites through Moses, God's government was mediated through the various categories of the law This does not mean that He never spoke directly but it does mean that His principal mode of government was the Mosaic code, which was a new thing Introduced at that time. It also means that the responsibility upon mankind was conformity to that code -- again a new responsibility, for prior to the giving of the law people were obviously not held responsible for something that did not exist.

"Wherefore then serves the law; It was added because of transgressions, till the Seed should come," etc. Here we have God's answer to the query. All hope of salvation for men rested from the first on the long-promised Seed — the Son of God. For His advent the pious yearned and prayed for ages. God filled the waiting time with instruction of the deepest possible importance, using various means for this purpose. Thus the law was given in order to make manifest the awful evil of sin, God intending in this way to prepare men for the coming of the Sin Bearer. Tested by the holy enactments of Sinai, men found themselves transgressors. Such is man's nature that the application of God's law to it only provokes its evil. Hence the startling statement "the strength of sin is the law" (1 Cor. 15:56). As a natural consequence, therefore, "the law works wrath" (Rom. 4:15); it can do naught but curse all who are under its claim (Gal. 3:10). In keeping with this the law is described in 2 Cor. 3 as the ministration of condemnation and of death. As a plummet it shows man his crookedness; as a mirror it shows him his vileness; but help him it cannot. "It is weak through the flesh" (Rom. 8:3).