Today we’re going to revisit a subject we discussed last summer. However, I think it’s good to reiterate on this now as we have new faces in Sunday School but also we’re reaching a point in Acts where it is important to remind ourselves about some important fundamentals. So this week we’re going to discuss what people in the Bible mean when they’re talking about the Law.
What is the “Law?” This is something referenced all over the place in the Bible—not just the Old Testament, but Jesus is constantly talking about the Law—and we’re going to talk about Jesus and his relationship to the Law next week. The apostles also argued constantly about the law, who should obey it, who shouldn’t. Jewish people today even have long discussions and disagreements about to what extent they are required to follow the law: which one of the big divisions between Orthodox, Conservative, and Reformed Jews. So this discussion of “What is the Law and who must follow it” is something that has been debated since Moses all the way until today. For over three thousand years people have been discussing this very topic.
So today we’re going to talk about it. Obviously we can’t get through all the nuances in an hour, but I want to give you guys a decent understanding of what people in Jesus time would have understood the law as.
Please go get your Bibles.
Before we open to anything who can remind us what God’s covenant with Abraham is? [Let them answer.]
That’s right, God made a covenant with Abraham to be his God and the God of his people and to make him the father of many people. At this point we’ve seen how Abraham’s descendants have become many people. You have Ishmael whose descendants formed their own people group. You have Esau, whose descendants became the Edomites. We didn’t study this—but after Sarah died, Abraham remarried and had more children who went on to become different people’s. Also now we have the Israelites who are descended from Jacob, Abraham’s grandson.
God made the initial covenant with Abraham—to be his God—and then renewed it with Isaac, Abraham’s son, and then Jacob, Abraham’s grandson. After all those years in Egypt—over four hundred—it’s possible the Israelites may have worried that the covenant no longer held. But obviously, God went to great lengths and performed many miraculous acts to free them from Egypt. In case that wasn’t enough, God also re-established the covenant in words. Please turn in your Bibles to Exodus 19:3-6.
3 Then Moses went up to God; the Lord called to him from the mountain, saying, “Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the Israelites: 4 You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. 5 Now therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples. Indeed, the whole earth is mine, 6 but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the Israelites.”
God reiterates that the Israelites are his people—that they are the children of the covenant. And that he will make them a “priestly kingdom,” they are to be the example of God in the world. For their end of the deal? They just have to obey his voice and keep the covenant. So the men must be circumcised, and all of them must listen to God.
For Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, God basically had a one-on-one relationship with them. God could tell them what they should do or what they were doing wrong, and Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob needed to listen to that voice. But now we’re talking about thousands of Israelites. God could talk to each of them individually, he certainly has that power, but instead he is choosing to make himself known through a single prophet—in this case Moses. That’s a set up we’re going to see go on for a while in the history of Israel. There is one single prophet who talks to God and relays God’s thoughts to the people. This prophet is then the leader of the people—in both a religious and government sense. Israel is the definition of a theocracy at this time—it is both a nation and a religion. The idea of separation of church and state is completely foreign to them.
To underscore this, we have the Law. God gives Moses Laws which are both religious and civil laws. These are the laws of the nation of Israel. And it covers everything from their relationship with God, to what do you do if an animal you own accidentally hurts another person, to what sort of crimes merit the death penalty. So for the Israelites to keep the covenant, in addition to circumcision they must obey the law.
The initial revelation of the law is also the most famous: The ten commandments. Let’s turn to Exodus 20:1-17.
20 Then God spoke all these words:
2 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; 3 you shall have no other gods before me.
4 You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, 6 but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.
7 You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.
8 Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work. 10 But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. 11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.
12 Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
13 You shall not murder.
14 You shall not commit adultery.
15 You shall not steal.
16 You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
17 You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.
You can look at the Ten Commandments and break them into two parts. The first four are all commandments that are related to our relationship with God. Number one is don’t have any other gods before God, meaning don’t place anything on a level above God in your heart. The second one is “don’t make any idols.” This is very similar to the first and is basically don’t worship anything that is not God. The third is don’t take the Lord’s name in vain. Mostly this is viewed as being applied to the sacred name of Yahweh, which is why even in the Bible when the Hebrew is actually Yahweh, we usually translate it instead to “God” or “Lord.” But it also means don’t use the name of God in inappropriate contexts. This can be using the name “God” as an exclamation/curse—which people basically do all the time—and probably most importantly saying things like “I swear to God.” Christians shouldn’t make such vows or oaths lightly, and usually when people say that they don’t mean it at all. They’re just using it as a turn phrase. Now personally this is something I struggle with. I say “oh my God” all the time. This is a really easy one to overlook or break in our modern world.
The fourth one is about keeping the sabbath, basically having one day off a week to rest and refocus on God. All four of these laws are very God focused. They are about our relationship with the creator of the universe.
But the rest of the ten commandments aren’t like that. They don’t really mention God at all. Instead they’re: Honor your parents. Don’t murder. Don’t have an affair. Don’t steal. Don’t lie or gossip about your neighbor. Don’t covet other people’s stuff.
These laws are not about us and God at all, but rather our relationship with each other. Everyone has parents, and it’s important to honor and respect them. We’ve talked about before how that doesn’t always mean to obey them—there are definitely scenarios where parents can be wrong, hurtful, and abusive. But that doesn’t mean we should not treat them with the respect they deserve as humans and the people who brought us into this world. The other laws seem even more obvious. Yes it’s bad to kill people! It’s bad to cheat on people! Stealing is bad. Telling lies or gossip about your friends and neighbors is bad. Don’t be jealous of your friend’s stuff. All of these will cause you bad relationship with other people.
These all seem pretty basic how to lead a good life while following God rules. And most Christians, to be honest, read the Ten Commandments and stop there, as if that is the entire law. But there is way more Law in the Bible. The entire book of Leviticus is basically laws, as is most of Deuteronomy, a good portion of Exodus, and some of Numbers. That’s why we call the first five books of the Bible the Torah or Law. Because they contain the Law God gave down to Moses and it way more than just the 10 commandments. And to our modern eyes, it can be some really random stuff.
Someone read Leviticus 2:11.
11 No grain offering that you bring to the Lord shall be made with leaven, for you must not turn any leaven or honey into smoke as an offering by fire to the Lord.
This is one verse from a whole section on offering grain to God. And it basically says that any bread offering made to God can’t have yeast in it. It needs to be flatbread. That’s super specific right? And definitely a religious law—a law dictating an appropriate sacrifice to God.
Someone read Leviticus 13:3-4
3 The priest shall examine the disease on the skin of his body, and if the hair in the diseased area has turned white and the disease appears to be deeper than the skin of his body, it is a leprous disease; after the priest has examined him he shall pronounce him ceremonially unclean. 4 But if the spot is white in the skin of his body, and appears no deeper than the skin, and the hair in it has not turned white, the priest shall confine the diseased person for seven days.
This section? This is a leprosy test. Leprosy is a skin disease that could be very contagious and detrimental. So this section basically tells people that if they think they have leprosy to go before a priest. It then tells the priest what to do to determine if it is or is not leprosy and then what to do with the person in either case.
Someone read Leviticus 19:23.
23 When you come into the land and plant all kinds of trees for food, then you shall regard their fruit as forbidden; three years it shall be forbidden to you, it must not be eaten.
This is a law about when it’s cool to eat the fruit from a tree after you plant it. Literally a law about agriculture and farming.
What I’m getting at here is these are a lot of laws that cover a lot of topics. Laws on how exactly to celebrate specific holidays. Not just like “Christmas is cool, you should celebrate it.” But like “here are the very exact things you must do to celebrate Passover.” There are laws on who you are and are not allowed to marry. There are laws about how to treat a poor man and laws about how to treat strangers. There are laws about what they’re allowed to eat and what they’re allowed to wear. The Israelites couldn’t eat—still don’t eat—pig, and they couldn’t wear mixed material clothes. And there are very specific laws on how to treat and worship God. These are a lot of laws.
There were even laws on who is allowed to be a priest. And I don’t just mean like now how we have church bi-laws about how to select a pastor and what sort of education one does or does not need to be a pastor and whether or not women are allowed to be pastors. I mean only people of the house of Levi where allowed to be priests at all, and of those, there were a few very critical things that only people directly descended from Aaron were allowed to do as like High Priest.
And if you went against these laws, there were punishments, and some of those punishments were you would die. If the wrong person touched the wrong holy object? They would be struck down dead instantly.
Let’s look at a law with that sort of repercussion.
Someone read Exodus 21: 28-29.
28 When an ox gores a man or a woman to death, the ox shall be stoned, and its flesh shall not be eaten; but the owner of the ox shall not be liable. 29 If the ox has been accustomed to gore in the past, and its owner has been warned but has not restrained it, and it kills a man or a woman, the ox shall be stoned, and its owner also shall be put to death.
This is the law about what to do if your ox kills someone. Male oxen—bulls—can especially be dangerous, and so things like this did happen. Laws like this can seem like they don’t apply at all today. Most of us don’t own oxen—and the people who do own cattle generally own just modern cows which are pretty docile and don’t hurt people.
For people who still follow the law today, they often look at these sorts of laws and extrapolate them to more modern day things. People don’t own oxen as much, but they do own dogs. So what if your dog bites someone? Perhaps this law can be extrapolated to that scenario. If your dog bites someone and it’s the first offense then it’s not your fault as the owner. However, if it’s bitten people in the past and you didn’t do anything about it, perhaps you owe some sort of reparation to the person bitten—though most modern Jewish people wouldn’t go as far as saying the owner should be put to death.
However, there are many states where the local law is that if your dog bites someone it does have to be put down, so that might be in line with this sort of law.
For modern Jewish people—whether Orthodox, Conservative, or Reformed—understanding the law and how to extrapolate it to modern lives is very important. To Jewish people following the law is of the utmost importance—because this is God’s law, which in accordance to the Old Testament they are supposed to follow.
However times change, and so the applications of the law can change—as we discussed in the bull vs. dog scenario. The big differences in the branches of modern Judaism is how they interpret the law and how they chose to follow it.
When we studied Jesus we saw that Jesus had some radical ideas about the law. The people in Jesus’s time lived in a very different world from the world in which the law was first introduced. They no longer had their own country, they were subject to Roman rule. Since some of the laws in the Bible are civil laws about how a country should be run, it was harder for them to follow those laws, since now Rome ruled their country.
The Pharisees loved to debate the law, because Pharisees were super concerned about following the law. They believed following the law was the way to live a Godly life—which to be fair to them that was correct as far as they knew in their time period. But Jesus came along with different ideas.
Next week we’re going to look at how Jesus interpreted laws, and why sometimes that got him in trouble with the Pharisees.
Someone read Matthew 12:9-14.
9 He left that place and entered their synagogue; 10 a man was there with a withered hand, and they asked him, “Is it lawful to cure on the sabbath?” so that they might accuse him. 11 He said to them, “Suppose one of you has only one sheep and it falls into a pit on the sabbath; will you not lay hold of it and lift it out? 12 How much more valuable is a human being than a sheep! So it is lawful to do good on the sabbath.” 13 Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and it was restored, as sound as the other. 14 But the Pharisees went out and conspired against him, how to destroy him.
After the incident in the field Jesus goes to the synagogue—not the temple but whatever local place of worship where he lives. It seems the Pharisees follow him here because once they are in the synagogue, they see a man with a withered hand—that could be a hand broken by something in life, a hand that has been burned by a fire, or a hand that naturally from birth seemed broken. They all see this man—Jesus and the Pharisees and the Pharisees ask him a question “Is it lawful to cure on the sabbath?”
They know Jesus’s reputation for being a great healer, and they view this as a test—will he heal this guy on the Sabbath and break the law? Clearly healing is work! Or so they say. Jesus responds with a hypothetical situation. Imagine you own only one sheep and on the sabbath it falls in a pit. Would you leave it in the pit—where it might struggle and get sick and die?—or do you rescue it? Of course you rescue it! And he says how much more valuable is a human than a sheep!
So yes you are not supposed to work on the Sabbath, but it is not unlawful to *do good* on the Sabbath. And then Jesus heals the man.
The Pharisees don’t like this. They don’t like that Jesus is making himself the authority on the law and who is and who is not following. Jesus is setting himself up as an authority greater than them—greater than the religious leaders and they don’t like that.
But back to the Law and Jesus’s thoughts on it—I want to be clear that following the Law was supposed to be the Godly thing to do. To be close to God, to be a good follower of God, you were supposed to follow the Law. Which is why to others, it seemed like Jesus was going against God here. And it can be confusing to us. If God laid down the law, if God gave the law to Moses, how can Jesus come along and change the rules? How can Jesus just say “it’s all good, you can heal people on the Sabbath.”
Well there are a couple of things to unpack here, but I think there is one really important one that comes up in Matthew 22:34-40.
34 When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, 35 and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” 37 He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the greatest and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
We’ve studied this text before. A lawyer tries to test Jesus. He asks Jesus which law out of all the law is the greatest and Jesus responds with “love the Lord your God wil all your heart and with all your soul and with you all your mind.” And then he says the second is “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” And he says something critical, all of the law, every law about the Sabbath and whether you can pick apples and how much to pay when your animal hurts someone can be boiled down to these two laws: love God and love each other.
This view of the law is important when you look at Jesus’s answers to the Pharisees about whether he could heal on the synagogue. Jesus views the two most important things as God and people.
Sometimes we as people can get wrapped up in institutions or traditions or ways of doing things as important. But Jesus is saying none of those things is more important than an actual person. The rules around work on the Sabbath is important because it’s important for people to take a break—to rest—it’s also important for people to have a day to focus on God, to love God. But you should not be so committed to the rule of “no work whatsoever” that you are willing to let people suffer.
Serving God and serving people is always more important than the rules. Always.
So Jesus kind of had these radical idea of how to follow the law, and since he was God he was great at looking at the Scriptures and explaining his intent and making everything make sense.
But where we are in Acts, Jesus is gone. The apostles and disciples have the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit isn’t the same as having a teacher you can go to.
This new Christian movement had a lot of questions to answer about how they were going to operate with respect to the Law! After all, most Christians were Jews first—like Peter, like John, like Saul/Paul—so it makes sense that they would follow the Law. But soon enough a lot of people who weren’t Jewish were going to start becoming Christians, and they were going to have to ask themselves if non-Jewish Christians were required to follow the Law.
This is a debate that rages in Acts—over multiple chapters and sections. This debate is one of the crucial parts of Acts, and we’re going to start looking at that debate in the next few lessons.