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God made no
distinction between the moral and ceremonial
laws in the Mosaic Covenant. The
expressions, the “Law of God”, and the “Law
of Moses”, are simply different ways of
referring to the same Law.
The scriptures tell us that God gave the Law
of Moses and Moses gave the Law of God.
God gave the Law of
Moses:
Ezra 7:6 says, “this
Ezra went up from Babylonia. He was a scribe
skilled in the Law of Moses that the LORD,
the God of Israel, had given, and the king
granted him all that he asked, for the hand
of the LORD his God was on him.”
Nehemiah 8:1
says, “And all the people gathered as
one man into the square before the Water
Gate. And they told Ezra the scribe to bring
the Book of the Law of Moses that the LORD
had commanded Israel.”
Moses gave the Law of
God:
Nehemiah 10:29 says,
“join with their brothers, their nobles, and
enter into a curse and an oath to walk in
God’s Law that was given by Moses the
servant of God, and to observe and do all
the commandments of the LORD our Lord and
his rules and his statutes.”
2 Chronicles 34:14
says, “While they were bringing out the
money that had been brought into the house
of the LORD, Hilkiah the priest found the
Book of the Law of the LORD given through
Moses.”
There was no
distinction ever made between the moral and
ceremonial laws in the Mosaic Covenant. The
“Law of God” and the “Law of Moses” are the
same Law.
Nehemiah 8:1,
“And all the people gathered as one man
into the square before the Water Gate. And
they told Ezra the scribe to bring
the Book
of the Law of Moses that the LORD had
commanded Israel.”
Nehemiah 8:2, “So
Ezra the priest brought
the Law before the
assembly, both men and women and all who
could understand what they heard, on the
first day of the seventh month.”
Nehemiah 8:3, “And he read from it facing
the square before the Water Gate from early
morning until midday, in the presence of the
men and the women and those who could
understand. And the ears of all the people
were attentive to the Book of the Law.”
Nehemiah 8:8, “They read from the
book, from the Law of God, clearly, and they
gave the sense, so that the people
understood the reading.”
Nehemiah 8:18 “And day by
day, from the first day to the last day, he
read from the Book of the Law of God. They
kept the feast seven days, and on the eighth
day there was a solemn assembly, according
to the rule.”
In these verses,
Nehemiah was reading to the people from the
Law that they had not heard read their
entire lifetimes. Nehemiah wanted to restore
the people to a lifestyle of
covenant-keeping. Notice, the passage uses
the terms interchangeably, leaving no doubt
about what the covenant can be called. The
terms that are used are: “The book of the
Law of Moses” i.e. the Mosaic Covenant
(verse 1); “the Law” (verse 2); “The book of
the law” (verse 3); and the book of the “Law
of God” (verses 8, 18).
Nehemiah used
the different terms interchangeably. He
wrote these verses with an almost prophetic
eye toward the future when some groups would
come along and falsely claim that there were
two different covenants when in fact, there
is just one. The Jews have always known this
and it has been the consistent teaching of
the Church throughout most of its history.
Only a few small groups have come along
(mostly Sabbatarians) that teach that there
are two separate laws. The Seventh-day
Adventists have a special need for this to
be true since their entire system stands or
falls on its meaning.
The Old
Covenant was made up of 613 laws, not ten.
The website, Judaism 101 says this about
the Old Covenant laws, “According to Jewish
tradition, G-d gave the Jewish people 613
mitzvot (commandments). All 613 of those
mitzvot are equally sacred, equally binding
and equally the word of G-d.”
[1]
The Ten Commandments were the actual
words of the covenant.
Exodus 34:27-28 says, “And the LORD said to
Moses, “Write these words, for in accordance
with these words I have made a covenant with
you and with Israel.” 28 So he was there
with the LORD forty days and forty nights.
He neither ate bread nor drank water. And he
wrote on the tablets the words of the
covenant, the Ten Commandments.”
And
Deuteronomy 4:13 says, “And he declared to
you his covenant, which he commanded you to
perform, that is, the Ten Commandments, and
he wrote them on two tablets of stone.”
One of the most distinguishing features
of the Ten Words is that they are the only
laws specifically referred to as “the
covenant” (Exod. 34:28). They represent the
entire covenant. That is why they were among
the items placed inside the Ark of the
Covenant.
Notice the
temporary nature of the Old Covenant:
• The law had to change for Jesus to
become our new High priest (Heb. 7:12).
• The law was weak, useless and made
nothing perfect (Heb. 7:18-19).
• God
found fault with the Old Covenant and
created a better covenant, enacted on better
promises (Heb. 8:7-8).
• The Old Covenant
is obsolete, growing old and ready to vanish
away (Heb. 8:13). [The book of Hebrews was
written before the destruction of Jerusalem
in A.D. 70.]
• The law written on stone
tablets were part of the obsolete covenant
(Heb. 9:1-4).
• The Law was only a shadow
of the good things to come and can never
make someone perfect (Heb. 10:1).
When the New Covenant says the Old
Covenant is obsolete, it means every law
contained in the covenant. All 613 laws,
including the Ten Commandments.
Hebrews 8:13 says, “In
speaking of a new covenant, he makes the
first one obsolete. And what is
becoming obsolete and growing old is ready
to vanish away.”
The law
written on stone tablets was part of the
covenant that was abolished.
Hebrews 9:1, 4 says, “Now
even the first covenant had regulations for
worship and an earthly place of holiness... 4 having the golden altar of
incense and the
ark of the covenant covered on all
sides with gold, in which was a golden urn
holding the manna, and Aaron’s staff that
budded, and the
tablets of the covenant.”
The
Seventh-day Adventist Church, along with
some of the other Sabbatarian groups teach
the false, “two law” theory. They believe
that there were two separate legal
agreements, or covenants that God gave to
Moses for the nation of Israel to keep. They
say the Ten Commandments and the ceremonial
laws were two separate and distinct laws, or
covenants.
Romans 7:1-7 says that the law is
no longer binding on us, “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.” The written
code was made obsolete by the New Covenant
(2 Cor. 3). What law was Paul talking about
in Romans 7?
At conversion, believers
die to the law (Rom. 7:4), with the result
that they are now able to serve in newness
of life (Rom. 6:4). They have a new life in
the Holy Spirit, not in the old way of the
letter, the old way of trying to gain life
by means of law-keeping (Rom. 8:1-11).
Romans 7 says that we no longer
live by the “written code.”
Which law is the
written code? Romans 7:7 says it was the law
that said, “You shall not covet” from the
Ten Commandments in Exodus 20:17
and Deuteronomy 5:21.
According
to Romans 7:1-7, there can be no mistaking
that the law Christians are to die to, the
law of the written code (2 Cor. 3:2-11), is
the Ten Commandments along with all of the
other Old Covenant laws. Romans 7:6 is
perfectly clear, “we are released from the
law, having died to that which held us
captive, so that we can serve in the new way
of the Spirit and not in the old way of the
written code.”
Those groups that make
an artificial distinction between the Law of
God (the Ten Commandments) and the Law of
Moses are simply wrong. There is no
distinction ever made in the Bible. They are
one and the same law! They were the Old
“Mosaic” Covenant that was replaced by the
New Covenant of Jesus Christ. There is no
difference between the “Law of God“ and the
“Law of Moses.”
Sabbath-keeping
along with all of the other ceremonial
requirements of the Old Covenant Law were
never
required for Christians who live under the New
Covenant (Matt. 11:28-30; 12:1-8; Acts 15:1-20;
Col. 2:14-17; Gal. 4:10-11; Rom. 14:5-12; Eph. 2:11-18;
2 Cor. 3:3-11; Heb. 3:7-4:13; 8:6-9:4; 10:23-25).
References:
1. See: Aseret
ha-Dibrot, “The
Ten Commandments - Judaism 101” Also: “The
Decalogue: Ten Commandments or Ten
Statements?”
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