What is divine Law? In Scripture the word ‘Law’ has a number of meanings, the particular meaning intended often being determined by the context in which the word ‘law’ is found. ‘Law’ can refer to the first five books of the Old Testament – the Pentateuch. Or it may refer to the larger body of the Hebrew Scriptures that includes the writings of the Prophets. It may refer to the written codes given to the Israelites through Moses as part of the Sinai Covenant after YHVH had released the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. Or it may refer to a fundamental principle that leads to specific patterns or types of speech and behaviour. It is the last two meanings that we will be concerned with more often than not.
YHVH made a Covenant with Abraham and his male descendants, declaring that they were to be His chosen people and that He would be their God. Abraham and his male descendants were to be circumcised as a sign of this Covenant. Failure to be circumcised meant that such an individual would be cut off from his people, (Genesis 17 v 10 – 14). Prior to the exodus of Abraham’s descendants from Egypt under Moses, there were no sets of written codes away from God.
On delivering Abraham’s descendants, the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, YHVH set out how things were going to be for as His chosen ethnic group. They agreed to be placed under what is sometimes called the Sinai Covenant, as part of which various written divine Laws were established, including the Ten Commandments. The Israelites were expected to live their lives in obedience to these Laws, which were intended to act like a ‘schoolmaster’ to keep them in God’s favour until the appearance of their promised anointed deliverer, the Messiah. These written Laws were seen as fixed and immovable – some of them literally being written in stone. The earlier instruction to be circumcised was re-stated in the written codes in the book of Leviticus, (Leviticus 12 v 3).
Thus it was to Jews, not to Gentiles - other ethnic groups - that the written codes of divine Law were given. Other ethnic groups were left to their own ways of thinking, reasoning and behaving. And of course many such groups became worshippers of idols and so on. After the coming of the Messiah, Paul declared, ‘ …we are men of like affections to you, announcing the gospel to you, to turn away from these worthless vanities towards the living God who constructed the sky, the land, the sea and all within them, Who in ages gone permitted all the tribes and races to travel their own ways’, (Acts 14 v 15, 16). And again, ‘…we ought not to hold to the principle of God being like gold, silver or a skilful stone sculpture and the deliberation of a human being. Indeed therefore, God overlooking times of ignorance now commands all human beings everywhere to think and perceive afterwards’, (Acts 17 v 29, 30).
