What is the Law of Moses?

"The law of Moses" does not mean merely the ten commandments, but the first five books of the Bible.

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.

The law of Moses consisted of two tables, one containing laws relating to man's conduct toward God, and the other to his conduct toward his neighbour. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself." These were the demands of the law. There was nothing unholy or unjust in it, and a person coming up at all times, and in all things, to this standard, would prove himself a righteous person, and would live. We may try to modify the law, or to pare down its sweeping demands, or endeavour to excuse ourselves for not complying with it, in order to meet the exercises of conscience; but the law permits nothing of the kind. If the law is broken, curse must follow. Neither did all the ordinances and sacrifices offered under the law alter this or remove the guilt; because it is impossible that the blood of bulls and of goats could take away sin: the most these things could do was to give ceremonial cleanness, and to point to that future sacrifice, which would make an end of sin, and bring in everlasting righteousness. The law was a rigid test to try and make manifest. If there were no laws in the country, there could be no transgression, and, consequently, no punishment; but if laws were made, the offenders would be made known, and its demands executed, for such is the nature of law; therefore it is written, "The law worketh wrath; for where no law is, there is no transgression." (Rom. 4:15.)

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).

Since the law was from God, it was holy and just and good (Rom. 7: 12). If the Israelites had been able to keep it, it would have led them to life and righteousness (Lev. 18: 5; Deut. 5: 29). But this was impossible since natural man lacks the power to fulfil God's claims. Thus the law could only bring knowledge of sin without imparting the power to overcome it (Rom. 3: 20). It revealed sin and this led to death and condemnation (Rom. 7: 10; 8: 3).

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.

Verses 1-17 of Exodus 20 put on record the ten commandments which specially summarized the demands made by the holy law of God. The next chapter opens with the "judgments," which were to be set before them. If we turn to Malachi 4:4, we find both "statutes" and "judgments" mentioned as well as the "law." The three words evidently cover all the legislation that reached Israel through Moses, and as we begin to consider the legislation we shall do well to note that in the days of Malachi, nearly a thousand years after it was first given, it was still as binding as at the beginning. It was for "all Israel," and valid all through that dispensation. What God originates at the beginning of any dispensation stands good, and He never swerves from it however much His people may do so.

A formal rule was given when God brought a people to Himself. The law was given by Moses. It put man, externally redeemed (or the idea would have been impossible), into the place of obedience, on the ground of God's claiming the fulfilment by man of the duties of the relationship in which he stood with God and with his neighbour. It was not now one central head of a race in blessing and obedience, tested when in the enjoyment of blessing, but individuals responsible to God and called to act up to that responsibility, and to their duty towards neighbours, or equal companions in a like position, while sanctioning the natural relations in which God had originally placed man, and which He still maintained. As a hidden principle which grace could find there, there was the claim of love to God and our neighbour as ourselves, and an open positive series of commandments maintaining relationships, and positively forbidding the breaches of them to which sin, self-will, independence, and lust, with ignorant subjection to the devil, now disposed man. Except as the redemption of the people displayed goodness, there could be no claim of a conduct according to it. And even as to this, it was not the expression of a new nature in man (though that alone can fulfil it), but the claim of consistency with the relationship they were in as a matter of duty. Thou shalt love.

In the second place, we find that God gave a certain requirement to man, that he should fulfil perfectly, so as to stand in the presence of God; and this requirement was the law. It requires just what it ought to require from man; and tells him exactly what he ought to be: that he should love God with all his heart, and mind, and soul, and strength, and that he should love his neighbour as himself. That he should not lust, etc. It gave him an exact and perfect rule to that conscience he had received when he had transgressed, and bore with him when he was driven out of the garden: the law came to him and found him a sinner, and nothing else. The law thus given to him would have been unintelligible to Adam in the garden before he fell; if it came to him there and said, "Thou shalt not lust," he would not have known what it meant: there was nothing to lust for, and no lust in his heart. It was a perfect standard, doubtless, and brought out definitely the lusts of a heart that had departed from God. It gave the true, just measure of what we ought to be, while we are not it; and "by law is knowledge of sin." And when it brings the knowledge of sin, it leads also to two discoveries. First, that I had not only done this and that, which it condemns, but, secondly, that there is a something within, an evil root, which led to the commission of such things. Why is it that we have committed sin? Tremendous discovery! Because we liked it! And the perfect standard of God's law brought to light the fact that we loved sin in its nature and practice! It became thus the ministration of death to us. Useful, most useful, in convicting of such things, and bringing death to the conscience, but it belongs to a child of Adam and to none else.

And here I must distinguish between law and the law, not as men do between an essential law and the decalogue, but between its principle and its enactments. Law is practically the principle of requiring from one, subject to the lawgiver, a certain line of conduct which he imposes by authority. So that we have the two principles: requirement, which may take the form of prohibition; and authority. There may be a sanction withal, a motive acting on fears or hopes, as is usual in laws applied to men's conduct. This modifies the character, but hardly enters, I think, into its essence; still it does characterize law as we have to say to it. Adam was under a law: something was prohibited by authority. Men were living without law then till Moses, and Israel was put under law at Sinai — positive requirement by authority. Now this clearly goes on the principle of the responsibility of Adam or his children, men in the flesh. There was no giving of life. Life might be kept or had by fulfilment, it was not given. We have, as to what is required, three cases of law. The law given to Adam was a simple test of obedience. It implied no sin, no lust; but authority and obedience. But if man is put on the ground of responsibility as to right and wrong, I must expect a perfect rule to be given to him, and so there was; but it must not go beyond the duty of the being in the position in which he stood, or it would not be a test of his responsibility. The law given to Adam was perfect in this way. It was a simple test of obedience — perhaps I might add, of confidence.

A word here as to the triple form the law took. First, there was the perfect standard of what man ought to be; secondly, the prohibition of what man was disposed to, a positive standard of what God required, and the prohibition of that to which man was inclined; and, as a third thing, an adjunct of certain ordinances and ceremonies "imposed until the time of reformation," Heb. 9:9-10. What did God do all this for? On the one hand, to demonstrate that man was not righteous; and, on the other, to point out One who (holy and righteous) should suffer "the just for the unjust."