Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Walk Through the Law

My desire is to know the Word of God and to make the Word of God known. Over the past few weeks I have been doing a very interesting study on the first five books (known as the Torah or Pentateuch) of the Bible and would like to share that briefly with you all. A lot of people get the sacrifices and all the laws mixed up, so let's clarify shortly on the three types of law that are found in the first five books of the Bible.

CIVIL CODE (Exodus 20-23; Numbers 5, 6, 15, 28-30): This was the law followed by the Israelites while they were in the desert. Before they made it to the promised land they had to follow what we call the civil code. Remember, they had no idea how to live as a nation nor as a civilized people because they had just been set free from slavery in the land of Egypt. God gave them this portion to tell them how to live together while they were on their what we could call, "camping trip".

CRIMINAL CODE (Leviticus): This was Israel's hand book on how to approach a Holy God when you are not holy. We have in the beginning five sacrifices the burnt, grain, peace, sin and guilt offerings. The first three have nothing to do with sin but more to do with surrender and thankfulness to God, these are often called the soothing aroma sacrifices. The last two, sin and guilt, are those that dealt with sin. The rest of the book tells the Israelite people how and when to apply said sacrifices.

CONSTITUTIONAL CODE (Deuteronomy): This book was for the Israelite people when they entered the land of Israel. They needed a constitution and the book of Deuteronomy was just that. It's what made a Jew a Jew. Inside of Deuteronomy we find 15 different subjects or codes of law.

In the remaining part of these five books we find stories about the lives of others. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, the journeys of Israel, etc. This part can be used as a guide for learning from mistakes and successes. We see men who followed God but definitely screwed up along the way, also we see people who's hearts were far from God and how the Lord dealt with them. As many know we can learn in two ways, example or experience, we all know that learning from example hurts a lot less.

When reading these portions of Scripture we must first have in mind that it was written to Jews
not to us. However, it applies to us in the sense that we can find good principles on how to live a holier life or on how to approach our Holy God as an unclean people. My prayer is the you too can find the richness found in the beginning of the Bible instead of believing those who say, "it's too dry and really has nothing to do with me." God bless you all!

1 comment:

Lindsey S. said...

Gary, thank you so much for writing this. I think you laid it out very clearly and truthfully. I definitely would like to use this as a guide if someone were to ask me about it, because I don't have it laid out this clearly in my Bible. :) I miss you, Gary!