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![Text Box: To ensure the protection of its law-abiding citizens, every country’s code of conduct has to dictate the appropriate punishment for a specific crime. Nobody can stand accused in court, simply apologise and go free, as that would lead to anarchy.
The offender will only be free once the punishment is fully rendered.
For this reason the Jews had to keep the entire Old Testament Law, as mercy did not exist under the old dispensation. The Law was their salvation and their livelihood.
God did not prescribe the Law to bring Old Israel into bondage or to make them His passive slaves, but to present to them an escape from their sinful, cursed position on this divided earth – although this escape only foreshadowed that which was to come, (Deut. 28; Rom. 2:13; 3:21-26.) The Law showed the Israelites, [and today all other believers from the Gentile nations as well], what the nature of sin really consists of, so that they can recognise sin in all its various forms and avoid it: Rom. 7:7.
God actually gave Old Israel a Dual Law: The Ceremonial- and the Moral Law.
The Ceremonial Law pertained to all their religious, outward structures, forms, norms and rituals. It commanded them to adhere to a physical altar, physical sacrifices, ceremonial clothes, a physical temple, a physical priesthood and so on.
God incorporated the Moral Law from Exodus 20 onwards. This is the inward part of the Law. It pertains to the inner man and has to do with the human heart or spirit, which consists of our love for God and for our fellow man: 1 Jn. 4:7-12; 3:15-18.
It is very important to distinguish between these two separate parts of the Law.
As Jesus fulfilled the entire Old Testament Law on Golgotha, and through His suffering, death, and resurrection, inaugurated an entirely new dispensation of Grace, New Testament believers are free of the Ceremonial Law and all its physical or ritual statutes, while all believers are still bound by the Moral Law of the heart.
LOVE is the only New Testament Law that Jesus ever commanded, as the Moral Law of love summarises all the different statutes of the Old Testament Law, (Mt. 22:37-40; Ex. 20; Jam. 2:8.) Unlike our human perception of love, God’s love has nothing to do with feelings. God’s love is a decision to obey His contextual commandments and the Biblical leading of His Holy Spirit: 2 Sam. 15:22-23.
The Greek word agapaö, (pronounced ag-ap-ah’-o), explains God’s holy, moral love of deed and truth. Agapë, (pronounced ag-ah’-pay), means ‘to love someone morally through a feast of charity’. This means we should distribute God’s moral love among our fellow man in a practical way. We should love other human beings in deed and truth. Philèö means, ‘to love as a friend’: 1 Jn. 3:17-18.
Thus, the Moral Law - the Royal Law of Love, the only New Testament Law - commands us to love God morally, meaning from a pure heart. We should obey and serve Him wholly and in totality, and with pure intentions. In conjunction with our ag-ap-ah’-o for God, we must always ag-ah’-pay our fellow man in deed and truth.
We should therefore never lie to one another, steal from each other, defraud one another or deceive one another, but give freely and do good to one another: Eph. 4:29-32.
The lives of true believers should be wholly consumed by agapaö and agapë.
Believers can never declare that they belong to God if they do not allow the Moral Law of love to direct their actions practically as part of their daily lives. It is good to remember that in both the Testaments, God views [contextual] obedience as love, and love as obedience: 1 Jn. 3:10-14; 4:7; Jn. 14:21-24.
In Leviticus God instituted the Ceremonial rituals of the burnt offering, meal offering, peace offering and sin offering. All these rituals pertain to the outward, Ceremonial or Ritual Law, which could change nothing of humankind’s inward fallen state, their spiritually dead position without God. Yet the aim of these complex, physical rituals was to make Old Israel acceptable again - though only for the moment - so that they could draw near to God’s throne in worship and in prayer.
As Old Israel was originally a Theocracy, God’s physical, priestly government, (the Old Testament priesthood,) implemented the Ceremonial Law by bringing the prescribed sacrifices, which had to atone for the sins of Old Israel. Their legalistic atonement made thanksgiving, prayer and worship possible for the Jews.
This was still a poor consolation.
Yet in this way God could have a type of relationship with His people.
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