Loving the Law

Exodus 25:10-16

The testimony is to be placed into the ark.

What is the testimony?

This is what we would refer to as the law.

The Law

Defining Terms

What law are we speaking of when we say that this pertains to the law?

I’ve heard people try to disprove Christianity, or try to justify their sin by pointing to many things that are contained in the law. For there are some weird laws in the Old Testament.

Don’t boil a young goat in it’s mothers milk, Ex 34:26

No eating shell fish

No sowing two types of seed in the same field

Don’t eat bacon

Don’t get tattoo’s

We must understand that their were three different types of laws.

Civil law

These were given to the nation of Israel.

The purpose of these laws was

1) to guide the people to do what was right.

2) So Israel would be vastly different than the nations surrounding them.

Israel was a special nation. Not one who served false or pagan gods, but Yahweh. The one true God.

God wanted His people to stand out in contrast to the other nations that were around them.

He didn’t want His people to look like them at all.

Laws like, “don’t use two types of cloth,” and “not planting two types of seed in the same field” was an example given to the people to remind them that they were not to intermarry with pagan nations lest they be carried away in false worship.

To warn them against synchronization.

These laws came to an end when the nation of Israel came to an end.

These laws were part of the Mosaic covenant (the agreement made with the people and God with Moses as the representative of the people) and do not apply to us.

But they do teach us how God desires us to be separated from the world.

1 Peter 1:15

1 Peter 1:15 ESV

15 but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct,

Ceremonial Law

These laws are the ones that tell people how to worship.

They tell people what to sacrifice for what sins.

They also told the people what made them unclean for worship in which they would have to re-consecrate themselves before they could come before the Lord.

These laws were fulfilled in Christ, and as such we are not bound to them anymore.

Colossians 2:16-17

Colossians 2:16–17 ESV

16 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.

Christ fulfilled it. We are not bound to it.

The entire point was to point us to what Jesus did!!

Moral Law

The substance of the moral law is wrapped up in the 10 commandments.

There were many other laws given in the Old Testament that are part of the moral law. But they are explanations of what was already contained in the 10 commandments.

This law shows us the character of God. Tells us of the holiness of God. And even testifies to the will of God.

The moral law informs us of our overwhelming need for Jesus.

It causes us to grow in Christ in humility and love.

To the unregenerate, the purpose of the law is to awaken them to the wrath of God and their absolute need for a savior.

Because the moral law informs us of the character of God, this law will never pass away.

This is what Jesus speaks of when He says “heaven and earth will pass away, but not one jot or tittle will pass away from the law.”

People believe that the earth is eternal, therefore we must save the planet. Yet they don’t care about breaking the law of God.

Jesus says that the law of God, this is what is eternal. This is what attention should be given to.

It is becasue of the Character of God that Jesus says, “ If you love me, keep my commandments.”

John 14:15

If we love God, if we desire God. It is his character that we love.

If we love His character, why would we live in a way that is opposed to His character.

The Testimony

The testimony spoken about in v.16. This is the record of the moral law.

On those tablets, was a reminder of our shortcomings.

God made a covenant with the people, that if they kept the laws of God, they would be blessed. If they didn’t, they would be cursed.

What did Jesus Do?

Concerning the law

Jesus Fulfilled the Law

Romans 8:3-4

Romans 8:3–4 ESV

3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

The law was unable to make us righteous becasue of our flesh.

So the justice of God met the love of God in Jesus on the cross.

So now the perfect requirement of the law is fulfilled when we love God.

The Law Is On Our Hearts

Proverbs 3:3

God tells us that we need to write His word on our hearts.

The problem:

Jeremiah 17:1

God says that it isn’t His law engraved on their hearts. It’s sin that is engraved on their hearts.

Jeremiah 31:33

Speaks of a new day that is coming.

A new covenant that is coming.

A day when the requirement of the covenant (or the agreement) and the desire to live by the covenant, will be written on their hearts.

2 Corinthians 3:3

Salvation is evident in the lives of the Corinthians.

Because they have the law of God on their hearts.

It is clear that the law is on their hearts for they desire God!

The law just shows us the who God is!

We Are Called to Love the Law

We should love the things that God loves, and hate the things that God hates.

Many people would say they desire to be saved.

They want to ask Jesus into their hearts if that means that they escape hell.

There is a problem!

They are still haters of God.

This is evident becasue they hate His law and do not want to follow it.

When we come to know Jesus, it should be a transforming work in our lives.

The bible doesn’t say you must be a more moral person. But that you must be born again.

It doesn’t say that you need to be a better version of your old self. But that you are a NEW CREATION.

Being born again, being a new creation, this means that we have been transformed from hating God and hating His law. To being a lover of God and desiring Him more than anything in this world.

If we haven’t been transformed, we aren’t converted.

If your Christian conversion did not reverse the direction of your life, if it did not transform it, then you are not converted at all. You are simply a victim of the “accept Jesus” heresy! -A.W. Tozer

If I hate sin because of the punishment, I have not repented of sin, I merely regret that God is just. -C.H. Spurgeon