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Genesis 26:5 says,
“because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my
charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my
laws.”
What commandments,
statutes, and laws did Abraham have to keep?
Moses wrote Genesis as a history for the
new nation of Israel so they could know
God’s dealings with the human race up to their time. Before this
time there was no written record. God had
commandments and laws before he made His
covenant with Israel. In order for Abraham
to obey God’s “commandments, statutes and
laws,” he first had to know what they were (Gen. 26:5).
Adam, Noah and Abraham must have been
taught laws directly from God, or passed down
from former times but we do not have a
record of what those laws were exactly. We
do know the
Patriarchs were given some instructions
regarding: being fruitful and increasing in
number: Gen. 1:26-22; ruling over the earth:
Gen. 1:28; their diet: Gen. 1:29-30; 2:16-17; Gen. 9:1-4; marriage: Gen. 2:24; Gen. 34:9;
offerings: Gen. 4:3-4; 14:20; altars: Gen. 8:20;
priests: Gen. 14:18; and circumcision: Gen. 17:10.
Abraham kept all of the commands given to
him up to his time. Those people who say the
Ten Commandments and the Sabbath existed
before God gave them to the nation of Israel
deny what the rest of scripture says about
when God gave the Ten Commandments to Israel as a
legal code.
The Law with the
Ten Commandments was added after God made
His covenant with Abraham.
Galatians 3:17, says, “This is what I mean:
the law, which came 430 years afterward,
does not annul a covenant previously
ratified by God, so as to make the promise
void.”
The Bible says that
sin was in the world before the Law was
given.
Romans 5:12-14 says,
“Therefore, just as sin came into the world
through one man, and death through sin, and
so death spread to all men because all
sinned — 13 for sin indeed was in the world
before the law was given, but sin is not
counted where there is no law. 14 Yet death
reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those
whose sinning was not like the transgression
of Adam, who was a type of the one who was
to come.”
According to Romans 5:13,
people were not charged with sin in the
sense of breaking a commandment before God
gave Israel his laws on Mount Sinai. Since
people still died, they were guilty as a
consequence of Adam’s sin (Romans 5:12).
Before the Mosaic law was given, mankind was
held accountable for the consequence of
having transgressed the universal moral
principles written on their hearts and in
their consciences.
Romans 2:12-16
says, “For all who have sinned without the
law will also perish without the law, and
all who have sinned under the law will be
judged by the law. 13 For it is not the
hearers of the law who are righteous before
God, but the doers of the law who will be
justified. 14 For when Gentiles, who do not
have the law, by nature do what the law
requires, they are a law to themselves, even
though they do not have the law. 15 They
show that the work of the law is written on
their hearts, while their conscience also
bears witness, and their conflicting
thoughts accuse or even excuse them 16 on
that day when, according to my gospel, God
judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.”
The Law
was given through Moses, not before his
time.
John 1:17 says, “For
the law was given through Moses; grace and
truth came through Jesus Christ.”
We
do know this, many of the laws included in
the Mosaic Covenant were new and for Israel
alone.
God made covenants with some
people before he gave Israel the law at Mount
Sinai. Adam, Noah and Abraham all received
commandments from God but the Sabbath
command, the dietary restrictions to not eat
unclean meats, the cleanliness laws, the new moons celebrations,
all of the Holy Days, annual feasts and the
Levitical Priesthood were all new to Israel.
Deuteronomy 5:2-6 says, ”The LORD
our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. 3
Not with our fathers did the LORD make this
covenant, but with us,
who are all of us
here alive today. 4 The LORD spoke with you
face to face at the mountain, out of the
midst of the fire, 5 while I stood between
the LORD and you at that time, to declare to
you the word of the LORD. For you were
afraid because of the fire, and you did not
go up into the mountain. He said: 6 “‘I am
the LORD your God, who brought you out of
the land of Egypt, out of the house of
slavery."
The Sabbath was not
given to anyone before God gave it to Israel
in Exodus 16.
The Bible is
completely silent on the subject of the
Sabbath until the time of the exodus. The
first time the Hebrew word for Sabbath,
(“shabbat” i.e. resting from work), is used
in the Bible is not until thousands of years
after the Creation week in Exodus 16. God
had laws which Abraham obeyed (Gen. 26:5),
and most of the Ten Commandments are alluded
to in one or more places in Genesis, but the
Sabbath is never mentioned. The first
explicit mention of Sabbath observance dates
from approximately 1440 B.C.
when manna was given to Israel in the desert
of Sinai in Exodus 16. Shortly after that, God made the Sabbath a
commandment for the
Israelites to keep when He entered into the Mosaic
Covenant with them.
Nehemiah 9:13-14
says, “You came down on Mount Sinai and
spoke with them from heaven and gave them
right rules and true laws, good statutes and
commandments, 14 and
you made known to them
your holy Sabbath and commanded them
commandments and statutes and a law by Moses
your servant."
The Israelites were
introduced to the Sabbath in Exodus 16, but
they were not told its significance until
the Law was given on Mount Sinai. Nehemiah
makes it clear that God made his holy
Sabbath known to Israel at that time, not
before!
Notice that the
Sabbath served as a covenant sign for the
children of Israel alone.
Exodus 31:13, 17 says, “You are to speak to the
people of Israel and say, ‘Above all you
shall keep my Sabbaths, for this is a sign
between me and you throughout your
generations, that you may know that I, the
LORD, sanctify you… 17 It is a sign forever
between me and the people of Israel that in
six days the LORD made heaven and earth, and
on the seventh day he rested and was
refreshed.’”
And Ezekiel 20:12, 20
says, “Moreover, I gave them my Sabbaths, as
a sign between me and them, that they might
know that I am the LORD who sanctifies
them…. 20 and keep my Sabbaths holy that
they may be a sign between me and you, that
you may know that I am the LORD your God.
These two passages make it perfectly
clear that God gave Israel the Sabbath to
keep as a ceremonial sign of their covenant
with him. Covenant signs like the Sabbath
were used to validate a person was a
party to the covenant.
The Sabbath
could only serve as a sign of the Mosaic
Covenant if it was unique to Israel. It had
to distinguish them from all the other
nations. A sign sets
something apart from the rest. In fact, one
of the main reasons God gave Israel for
keeping the Sabbath was to remind them of
how he delivered them from
Egyptian bondage (Exod. 16:23, 29; 31:13-18;
Deut. 5:12-15).
If everyone was meant
to keep the Sabbath then it could not
function as a distinguishing sign for the
covenant that God made with the people of
Israel.
The Old Covenant
predicted the Sabbaths given to Israel would be brought to an
end because of their unfaithfulness.
Isaiah 1:13 says, “Bring no more vain
offerings; incense is an abomination to me.
New moon and Sabbath and the calling of
convocations— I cannot endure iniquity and
solemn assembly.”
Lamentations 2:6
says, “He has laid waste his booth like a
garden, laid in ruins his meeting place; the
LORD has made Zion forget festival and
Sabbath, and in his fierce indignation has
spurned king and priest.”
And Hosea 2:11 says, “And I will put an end to all her
mirth, her feasts, her new moons, her
Sabbaths, and all her appointed feasts.”
Israel had intermingled their worship of
the Lord God with the worship of false gods
from the time of their exodus from Egypt, so God condemned
their feasts and Holy days as futile because
the people did not celebrate them out of
love for God (cf. Amos 5:26; Acts 7:43).
The New Covenant tells us that
the Sabbath and all of the other ceremonial
requirements of the Old Covenant came
to an end.
Colossians 2:16-17
says, “Therefore let no one pass
judgment on you in questions of food and
drink, or with regard to a festival or a new
moon or a Sabbath. 17 These are a shadow of
the things to come, but the substance
belongs to Christ.”
Galatians 4:10-11
says, “You observe days and months and
seasons and years! I am afraid I may have
labored over you in vain.” (cf. Eph. 2:11-16;
Gal. 4:21; 5:1-4; Rom. 14:5-12).
The Law was added to reveal
mankind’s sinfulness and our need for a
savior.
Romans 3:20 says,
“For by works of the law no human being will
be justified in his sight, since through the
law comes knowledge of sin.”
Galatians 3:19 says, “Why then the law? It
was added because of transgressions, until
the offspring should come to whom the
promise had been made, and it was put in
place through angels by an intermediary.”
God gave the Law to make us even
more accountable to Him.
Romans 5:20-21 says, “Now the law came in to
increase the trespass, but where sin
increased, grace abounded all the more, 21
so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also
might reign through righteousness leading to
eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
And Romans 7:6-8 says, “But now we are
released from the law, having died to that
which held us captive, so that we serve in
the new way of the Spirit and not in the old
way of the written code. 7 What then shall
we say? That the law is sin? By no means!
Yet if it had not been for the law, I would
not have known sin. For I would not have
known what it is to covet if the law had not
said, “You shall not covet.” 8 But sin,
seizing an opportunity through the
commandment, produced in me all kinds of
covetousness. For apart from the law, sin
lies dead.”
The Law arouses
our sinful passions and produces fruit
leading to death.
Romans 7:5
says, “For while we were living in the
flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the
law, were at work in our members to bear
fruit for death.”
The only
solution for our sin problem is belief in
the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Galatians 3:22 says, “But the Scripture
imprisoned everything under sin, so that the
promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be
given to those who believe.”
Jesus was born under the law to redeem us
from the curse of the law.
Galatians 4:4 says, “But when the fullness
of time had come, God sent forth his Son,
born of woman, born under the law, 5 to
redeem those who were under the law, so that
we might receive adoption as sons.”
The New Covenant has its own laws. The Apostle Paul
said he was under the
law of Christ, not the laws of the Mosaic
Covenant.
1 Corinthians 9:19-23
says, “For though I am free from
all, I have made myself a servant to all,
that I might win more of them. 20 To the
Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win
Jews. To those under the law I became as one
under the law (though not being myself under
the law) that I might win those under the
law. 21 To those outside the law I became as
one outside the law (not being outside the
law of God but under the law of Christ) that
I might win those outside the law. 22 To the
weak I became weak, that I might win the
weak. I have become all things to all
people, that by all means I might save some.
23 I do it all for the sake of the gospel,
that I may share with them in its
blessings.”
Paul stressed that he
was not under the Law of the Jews because he
was under a different law, the law of
Christ.
The laws that God has
required of mankind have changed over time
because of the different covenants each
person lived under. The Mosaic Covenant
came to an end when Jesus gave God’s people
the New Covenant to live by.
Many things from the Law have
plainly changed:
Under the
New Covenant, where is anyone commanded to
keep the Old Covenant Sabbaths,
circumcision, the dietary restrictions,
cleanliness laws, new moons celebrations,
Holy days, annual feast, the Levitical
Priesthood, or animal sacrifices?
There have been three basic
periods in human history (Hebrews 1:1-2).
1. From Adam to Moses: They had animal
sacrifices. After the flood they could eat
any living creature, and after Abraham they
had circumcision. They had no Levitical
priesthood, no Sabbaths, no Holy days, no
baptism, no Lord’s Supper, and no permanent
indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
2.
From Moses to Christ: They had animal
sacrifices, circumcision, the Levitical
priesthood, the Sabbaths, Holy days and
dietary restrictions. They had no baptism,
no Lord’s Supper, and no permanent indwelling
of the Holy Spirit.
3. From Christ to
the Second Coming: Under the New Covenant,
we have baptism, the Lord’s Supper and we
can eat any living creature. We have no
circumcision, no Levitical priesthood, no
Sabbaths, no Holy days, and no animal
sacrifices. And finally, we are blessed to have the permanent indwelling
of the Holy Spirit.
God’s laws change
depending on what covenant you live under.
If a Christian wants to know what laws they
are expected to keep they have to read the
terms for the New Covenant, not one of the
covenants that came before it.
A
Covenant is a legally binding agreement, a
contract. Just like today, each covenant has
special rules that must be followed. The
First, or Old Covenant was written down in
five books and given through Moses. The New
Covenant terms were given to the Apostles
and Prophets who wrote the twenty-seven New
Testament Gospels and Epistles. The Mosaic
Covenant had 613 laws designed to govern
every aspect of Hebrew life.[1] The New
Covenant has its own laws based on the
principles of loving God and our fellow man.[2]
Love fulfills the Law’s purpose.
Galatians 5:13-14 says, “For you were
called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use
your freedom as an opportunity for the
flesh, but through love serve one another.
14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one
word: “You shall love your neighbor as
yourself.”
And Romans 13:10 says,
“Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore
love is the fulfilling of the law.”
When we are born again we are led by
the Spirit, not the law.
Galatians 5:18 says, “But if you are led by
the Spirit, you are not under the law.”
The New Covenant is better than the Old
Covenant was in every way! When we focus on
Christ we will naturally strive to do the
right thing out of love. Rather than being
law-focused, we are told to be Spirit-filled
and Christ-led (Gal. 5:16-25).
The Old and New Covenants have some
similarities and differences.
The Law of Christ and the Law of Moses
have similar commandments, but just because
nine of the Ten Commandments can be found in
the New Testament, it doesn’t mean that the
Law of Moses is still in effect. If a
Christian steals something, they break the law of
Christ, not the Law of Moses. If we choose
to keep part of the Old Covenant law, such
as the Sabbath or the dietary restrictions,
we are free to do so, but keeping the Law of
Moses out of the belief that we are
obligated to do so denies the perfect and
finished work of Jesus Christ.
The
Apostle Paul wrote over one-third of the New
Testament and never once told anyone to keep the Mosaic Law or the
Sabbath. In fact, none of the other apostles did
either.
Abraham kept those laws that
had been passed down to him, or were written
on his conscience, but he was not given the
Ten Commandments to keep. The Bible makes it
clear that those came 430 years
after his time (Deut. 5:2-6; Gal. 3:17). The only laws Christians are
required to keep are those laws that are
expressly given in the New Covenant. Not a mixture of laws from both the
Old and the New Covenants.
The New
Covenant has its own laws, but Christians
aren’t told to live by a set of rules. We
are told to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ,
and make no provision for the flesh, to
gratify its desires” (Rom. 13:14). And we can only
do that when we yield to the Holy Spirit’s
control, and let Christ guide us into all
truth (Gal. 5:16, 24, 25; Rom. 8:1-4; John 16:13).
References:
1.
A List of the 613 Mitzvot (Commandments).
2.
The 1,050 New Testament Commands.
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