THE PURPOSE OF THE LAW

                                                THE PURPOSE OF THE LAW

Introduction

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The giving of the law does not cancel God’s covenant with Abraham and his Seed. Christ Himself was the promised Seed. And that since it was Him who won our salvation by crushing Satan’s head as promised, it would be conceited for us to think we can somehow contribute to our own salvation. We are simply the prize in the cosmic struggle between Christ and the devil. However, as we shall see, each of us is engaged in a struggle of sorts. This struggle has to do with God’s Law and its use.

The Law was given 430 years after the Lord promised Abraham, Isaac and Jacob that all the nations would be justified by faith. The promise was made to Abraham (Gen. 22:18). The same promise was made to Isaac (Gen. 26:4). The same promise again was made to Jacob (Gen. 28:14). The promise is, “In you shall all the nations of the earth be blessed” (Gal. 3:8b).

The heart and soul of this blessing was that all the nations would be justified through faith in Christ. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).

So then, the question necessarily arises: If the saints in the Old Testament were justified by faith the same as us today, then what purpose does the law serve? That’s what we’re trying to discover.

The general gist of the following is that the Law was given to drive us to faith in Christ.

Dungeon

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We’re told in Galatians 3:22 that “The Scripture has confined all under sin...” In other words, all of mankind is in a prison of sorts. This prison doesn’t have Woodford or Wacol written on its heavy iron gate! On the gate of this prison is written the word SIN. SIN is a maximum security prison, and, unlike Alcatraz, there have been no escapes. Not even Clint Eastwood can escape from this prison! Everyone in this prison has been condemned to death. All the prisoners here live by the sweat of their face. They have been given a life of hard labour until it is their turn to die. For death is the penalty the Lord promised Adam in the Garden if he broke God’s covenant with him.

Adam had the Ten Commandments written on his heart (Rom. 2:15). And he broke every last one of them by disobeying God (James 2:10). And since Adam was our representative in that covenant relationship with God, every last one of us has broken God’s Law as a covenant of works (Rom. 5:12). Therefore, every last human being is under the Law of God as a covenant of works. And since we have broken that covenant we are all confined or prisoners of SIN. SIN is the name on the wall of our jail house – not Sir David Longland, nor Barlinnie, nor The Don Jail, but SIN.

Now then, it was while father Abraham was in this prison (the same prison as us), that the Lord came to him and revealed His covenant promise to him. The promise was that all the nations would be saved in the exact same way as was Abraham. All the nations would be saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. Of course, Abraham believed in the LORD, he believed in the promise (Gen. 15:6; Gal. 3:6). Abraham believed in the promised righteousness to come.

Abraham had been condemned to death along with the rest of humanity. He was sitting in prison on death row when the LORD arrived. The LORD revealed to Abraham the righteousness he needed, if he was ever to receive a pardon and get out of prison and escape certain death. This revelation is good news. It is the gospel.

Abraham was told that the righteous One would come from his loins. And when Abraham was 100 years old and Sarah his wife was 90, they saw in the birth of their son, Isaac, the future coming of Messiah. The One promised was coming to set the prisoners free from the dungeon of SIN. He was coming to smash the gates of Hell and set the prisoners on death row free.

The Promised One was coming to possess the gate of His enemies (Gen. 22:17). Abraham could see all of this because it was all included in the Promise made to him. He knew that the way to escape from death row was to believe in the Promise. He knew then, that to believe in the Promise, was to be declared righteous. For the gospel is the revelation of Christ and His righteousness. The gospel reveals how Christ and His righteousness is received, i.e., through faith alone.

Abraham, then, was brought out of the dungeon by faith in the Promised Seed.

Discipline

In Galatians 3:24 we are told that “The law was our tutor to bring us to Christ.” The purpose of the law, then is to tutor us. The task of the law is to lead us to Christ. The LORD brought His people out of the dungeon and placed them under guardianship, viz. the law. The law then, is our guardian, our instructor, our tutor. And if we looked closely, we’d see that this tutor is a strict disciplinarian!

Now then, the LORD had promised to make Abraham a great nation. And He promised him land in which the nation would dwell (e.g., Gen. 12:1-2). We know that these promises have their ultimate fulfillment in Jesus Christ. Eg, “For all the promises of God in Him [Christ] are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us” (2 Cor. 1:20).

But meanwhile back at the ranch! God, as promised to Abraham in Genesis 15:14, released, i.e., redeemed, Abraham’s physical descendants from captivity in Egypt. Just as the LORD called Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldeans, so the LORD called Abraham’s descendants out of bondage in Egypt.

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So, the picture is of the LORD taking His people out of prison and putting them to work on a road gang. What would you do if you had a few million ex-convicts out on the road? You’d lay down the law in no uncertain terms, wouldn’t you? You’d spell out the law to the minutest detail so that there would be no misunderstanding! Thus, verse 19, “[The Law] was added because of transgressions.” But the law didn’t add anything to the Promise. We’ve already seen that the law doesn’t change God’s covenant with Abraham and his Seed (3:15). Or to put it another way, the law doesn’t change the way we are saved. For the promise is that all nations will be blessed by justification through faith in Christ. Then why was the law given? It was given to prepare God’s people for the arrival of the One who was Promised.

So then, the LORD brought so many million out of bondage in the land of Egypt. And He’s got the people of Israel wandering around in the wilderness, a motley crew indeed! These were a pack of once condemned sinners, ex-convicts, out on the road. So, the LORD places them under guard as we see in verse 23. They were kept under guard by the law.

You wouldn’t leave bunch of people like this unsupervised, would you? These people were at one time on their way to Hell and here they are out walking around free. The LORD had redeemed them from prison. However, now they needed to learn discipline.

Now then, we know that God deals with humanity covenantally. He doesn’t just sneak up on you and say, “BOO!” If a whole bunch of people starting walking through your lounge room, you’d introduce yourself as the owner of the house, wouldn’t you? You might say, “Take off your muddy boots for the place you walk has been set aside as my living room!” Just as the LORD, the Angel of the LORD said to Moses as he stood before the burning bush, “Take the sandals off your feet, for the place you stand is holy ground” (Ex. 3:5), just as the Angel of the LORD said to Joshua, “Take your sandal off your foot, for the place you stand is holy” (Josh. 5:15).

Faithful to His Covenant procedure: First the LORD identifies Himself. Then He reveals His will. Of course, nowadays He does this through the Scriptures. You wouldn’t have to go further than Genesis 1:1 to see what I mean, since, the whole Bible is the revelation of God’s Covenant of Grace to fallen man. Therefore, in the very first verse of the Bible God identifies Himself as the Creator. And the whole rest of the Bible is the revelation of why He created the heavens and the earth. And, as we all know, it has all to do with the everlasting covenant of the Triune God. This, of course has to do with the Son of God becoming a Man and dwelling on the renewed earth with His redeemed people forever...

Anyhow, did the LORD not identify Himself to Abraham in Genesis 15:7, “I am the LORD who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans...” But the thing we are most interested in tonight is the covenantal language God used when He gave Israel the law in the wilderness. “And God spoke all these words, saying, ‘I am the LORD who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage” (Exod. 20:1-2).

The people of Israel trembled at the bottom of the mountain when Moses went up to receive the law of God. The ground was holy ground for we are told, “And if so much as a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned or thrust through with an arrow” (Heb. 12:20). Apparently there were angels present and the mountain shook and trembled. There was fire and there was thick black smoke and the sound of a trumpet. The LORD gave the law to discipline sinners.

It was the law’s task to remind the inmates who they were. They were sinners whom the LORD had brought out of bondage. They were all sinners from a jailhouse community with a jailhouse mentality. But the law was sent to discipline them. And the law would let them away with nothing.

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The sinners were to live by ten rules written on clay tablets. These ten rules were applied to every facet of their lives. There were rules how to treat God, and there were rules how to treat their neighbour. There were rules for what they could eat, and rules what they could not eat. There were rules for what they could and couldn’t wear. There were rules for who could wear what. There were rules stating who got to do what. There were rules for what to do with those who broke the rules.

The law was Israel’s hard taskmaster. The law was like a loud sergeant-major at bootcamp yelling at the rookies. If something was to be made of these sinners, they needed to learn discipline. They needed to learn who and what they were. They were sinners. The Law teaches us what sin is. The Law is like a magnifying glass. It shows you what sin is.

Could you imagine what it would have been like to have lived in the period from the giving of the Law until the incarnation of Christ? You would have been screaming out for a Savior to come and set you free! You would have been so conscious of your sin that you would be saying along with Paul, “O wretched sinner that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Rom. 7:24). And if you couldn’t say, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”, then you wouldn’t have a leg to stand on come Judgment Day!

The law was given to them to break the people of God. It was given to discipline them for the coming of the object of our faith. The people of God were brought out of the dungeon in Egypt. They were given the law to discipline them.

Stephen in his address as recorded in Acts 7:38 refers to the people of God at this time as “The congregation, the church in the wilderness.” This was the juvenile church – the church under age. This was the church looking forward to the Christ who was yet to come. Therefore, the law was also given to provide direction.

Direction

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The Law was given to direct sinners to Christ. In among all the rules and regulations of the law was the sacrificial system. This showed that the sins of the sinners needed to be paid for. The law as a strict disciplinarian showed them how much they were sinners. And the law as a director showed them how their sins were to be paid for. There was to be no remission of sins without the shedding of blood. Cattle, sheep, goats, blood poured out here, and blood sprinkled on there.

The shed blood was also a reminder of the broken covenant with Adam. The broken Covenant of Works needed to be paid for. For Adam was promised death as the wages of sin. However, the shed blood also pointed to the blood of the new covenant. It directed sinners to the blood of the Lamb of God that would take away the sins of the world. It was a constant reminder of the promise of God.

The keeping of the feast, circumcision, the ceremonial laws, the sacrificial system were all good news to the juvenile church. Every time they saw a lamb sacrificed, they saw the gospel. They had it drummed into them that there is no remission for sins without the shedding of blood. Even the priesthood spoke of the great High Priest to come.

Everything to do with the law was a pointer to the Messiah to come. If you remove the gospel from the law, then you’re as good as saying there was no grace of God during this period. And I don’t have to tell you that many people see law and gospel as complete opposites. And certainly any attempt to keep the Law as a means of attaining salvation is opposite to the gospel. For we are told in verse 21, “For if there had been a law given which could have given life, truly righteousness would have been by the law.” And who more than the Apostle Paul was qualified to make that statement? He said of himself, “Concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless” (Phil. 3:6).

But the Law didn’t function as a means of obtaining righteousness through its keeping. Rather it was designed to reveal your own lack of righteousness. It prepared you for the Gospel in which sinners are justified by faith and not works. If you wrench the gospel away from the law, all you’re left with is the religion of the Pharisees. And this sadly is the way many Christians today view the Lord’s church in the wilderness. They claim that it was the LORD’s intention to give Moses the Law as a Covenant of Works. Look again at verse 21, “For if there had been a law given which could have given life, truly righteousness would have been given by the law.” Therefore, the Law was never given as a means to earning salvation. But rather, the Law was given to shatter any foolish idea that a man could be saved by his own keeping of the Law as a covenant of works. For isn’t this the very reason why sinners flee to Christ for salvation?

They also forget that the giving of the Law to Moses didn’t change a thing. They forget that God’s covenant with Abraham remained with the church even in the wilderness years. They forget that the gospel was constantly before their eyes. They forget that they too were justified by faith just as we today are. The Apostle Peter even says so in Acts 15:11, “We believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved in the same manner as they.”

Many Christians today forget that the law was given to direct us to Christ. For doesn’t verse 24 say, “Therefore the law was or tutor to bring us to Christ”? And why would the LORD give us His law to lead us to Christ? “That we might be justified by faith.” Therefore, I ask all those who hate God’s law: Do you know what sin is? If you answer Yes! then I need to ask you, who taught you what sin is? Would you agree with me that it’s God’s law that teaches us what sin is? If we are in agreement, then, you and I both have the same tutor.

We have the same tutor as the church in the wilderness. The main difference being that the law back then led them to the Christ who was to come. Whereas today the Law leads us to the Christ who has come. But either way, it is the Law which directs us to Christ.

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            However, now that the Promised one has come all the minutiae of the Law has passed. No longer is it do this, don’t do that! Why? Well, the church has come of age. We are no longer treated as juveniles because Christ has come. The church is now a light on the hill and not a shadow in the wilderness. As Paul speaking of the church coming of age says in verse 21, “But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.” When a child becomes a man, the rod that was used to discipline him is put away. So, it was when the church came of age and so it is for each of us.

And just so no one misses the point, let me ask the question: When did the church come of age? It came of age when the Seed came to whom the promise was made verse 19. The Tutor had done his job. He had brought the juvenile church to the Teacher, Jesus Christ.

Now we ask what was the promise made to the Seed? It was that God would justify the nations by faith just as it was for Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Just as it was for the church in the wilderness. The nations had to wait for Christ to come before they could receive the blessing. Because the Promise was made to Christ. The Promise was that Christ would receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. But first He had to go to the cross.

After He completed His work and ascended into heaven, He poured out His Spirit on all the nations. All flesh, all the nations, since Pentecost are being engrafted into the same church. The guy ropes of the tent of Israel have been lengthened to accommodate all the nations. “Go make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them...teaching them to observe all things I have commanded you...”

The church then, is no longer national, but international. And, as you know, the application of the law therefore changes accordingly. Now that Christ has come the Temple worship has gone. The sacrificial system has gone along with the priestly system.

And what was Christ coming to do? He was coming to save sinners from their sins. And what is the task of the law? It was given to reveal God’s righteousness and thereby show us our sins. Much, much more could be said...

So, as we tie things together, let me ask. what is the purpose of the Law for today? We’re talking about the Ten Commandments here, the moral law. Well, the use is threefold:

1.     The law serves the purpose of restraining sin and promoting righteousness.

2.     The law serves the purpose of bringing man under conviction of sin. It makes man conscious of his inability to meet the demands of the law. In other words, the law becomes a tutor to lead man to Christ.

3.     The law is a rule of life for believers. It reminds us of our duties to God and our neighbour and leads us in the way of life and salvation.

            I’m indebted to Louis Berkhof here.

Conclusion

Keep in mind that the LORD has brought you out of the Dungeon. No longer are you on death row. His law has disciplined you to the point of knowing you are a sinner, and knowing that you cannot keep his commandments. His law has led you like a tutor to Christ. No longer are you condemned sinner. Now you are a sinner justified by faith in Christ. And it’s all enough to make you want to obey Jesus where He says, “If you love Me, keep My commandments.”