Realizing that some basic knowledge of the Jewish Law (with the ten commandments and all) would be very helpful for us in our understanding of Romans, I decided to interrupt the flow of Romans and took you to Genesis 15. Where we sort of watched the unfolding of God’s Covenant with Abram.
It was the nation of Israel that the law was given to, therefore understanding the birth of Israel is our first step in understanding that law and how it came about.
In making His covenant with Abram (shown to us in Genesis:15), God spoke of a distant future and the great nation that would be birthed out of Abram’s own seed. This nation was to be in bondage to a foreign land for 400 years. After that God would send a deliverer.
As we know, God’s promise to Abram was fulfilled hundreds of years after Abram had witnessed God fulfilling the covenant requirements with Himself, not involving Abram at all. It was God with God instead of Abram. This meaning that what God had said to Abram must occur. Abram realized God’s promise to him had to occur. And, indeed God’s promise did occur. God raised up Moses and Israel was delivered from her bondage to Egypt.
Now here, I want you to think. Why was Israel delivered from her bondage? Because they were really good people? Of course not. They were delivered because God had made a covenant promise to their father Abram. It had nothing to do with anything regarding the people who made up the nation Israel… It was God keeping a promise he made to someone else (long before there was an Israel) hundreds and hundreds of years before. It is obvious then, that Israel was in a covenant of Grace with God.
So here we see Israel’s origin. All started with a man named Abram (later his name is changed to Abraham).
Delivered by Moses, eventually Israel’s exodus led them as a nation unto the world scene only because of God’s promise to this man Abram. A covenant of Grace.
Switching now to the exodus itself, we remember the many miracles preformed by God through Moses against Pharaoh and the land of Egypt. Not one of these miracles forced Pharaoh to let Israel go until the last miracle which took the first-born of every Egyptian and included the first-born even of their animals.
But the fight to be free of Egypt didn’t end until the parting of the Red Sea and the destruction of Pharaoh’s army. Then, led at last into the wilderness, Israel began to live onto the Lord alone.
There is much that could be said here regarding Israel’s journey, but I want to jump to their arrival at Mt Sinai There, after speaking so long only to Moses, God choses to speak out loud to all the individuals of Israel. Here is Israel’s reply to Moses in Exodus 20:
Now all the people perceived the thunderings and the lightnings and the noise of the trumpet and the smoking mountain, and as [they] looked they trembled with fear and fell back and stood afar off.
And they said to Moses, You speak to us and we will listen, but let not God speak to us, lest we die.
So, Israel rejects God’s voice because of the terrible fire and circumstances in general, and instead desires that Moses alone speaks to them. They will listen to him.
Now, let’s take a look at the same event as told by Moses in Deuteronomy 5. Here, only the children born in the wilderness have survived (except for Joshua, Caleb and Moses) to finally reach the Jordan after Israel’s journey of forty years.
All of the original men and women of Israel who were living in Egypt under bondage and who were delivered out by the hand of Moses died in the wilderness journey. All, as I said, except for Joshua, Caleb and Moses. It is only the children born during the journey who, here in Deuteronomy, are gathered at the banks of the Jordan waiting to cross over into the promised land. They wait while Moses rehearses to them some of the events that occurred during Israel’s forty years of travel.
Deut. 5 vs 1 through 5 (amp). Moses says:
And Moses called all Israel, and said to them, Hear, O Israel, the statutes and ordinances which I speak in your hearing this day, that you may learn them and take heed and do them.
The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb.
The Lord made this covenant not with our fathers, but with us, who are all of us here alive this day.
The Lord spoke with you face to face at the mount out of the midst of the fire.
I stood between the Lord and you at that time to show you the word of the Lord, for you were afraid because of the fire and went not up into the mount.
Skipping verses 6 through 22, Moses continues:
And when you heard the voice out of the midst of the darkness, while the mountain was burning with fire, you came near me, all the heads of your tribes and your elders;
And you said, Behold, the Lord our God has shown us His glory and His greatness, and we have heard His voice out of the midst of the fire; we have this day seen that God speaks with man and man still lives.
Now therefore, why should we die? For this great fire will consume us; if we hear the voice of the Lord our God any longer, we shall die.
For who is there of all flesh who has heard the voice of the living God speaking out of the midst of fire, as we have, and lived?
Go near [Moses] and hear all that the Lord our God will say. And speak to us all that the Lord our God will speak to you; and we will hear and do it.
This is the Covenant God made with them at Mt Horab (Sinai, the same mountain). Not the one made with their fathers Abraham, Issac and Jacob which was Grace. The covenant made with Israel was Law. Not based on what someone else did hundreds of years before- But based on what they should do now. Could there be many Christians who have rejected grace and chose instead to please God according to what they do or not do… Law.
It was said in the first Chapter of John that the Law came by Moses, but Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ. Two fountains. Which water do you prefer? The water from below or the water from above?
To finish this blog up let me quote on this further:
This last verse above is the one I want us to pay attention to.
You can see that they surely rejected God. Instead, they requested that God speak to a man (Moses) and that a man would then tell them what God wanted them to do.
Continuing in Deut. 5-
And the Lord heard your words when you spoke to me and the Lord said to me, I have heard the words of this people which they have spoken to you. They have said well all that they have spoken.
Oh, that they had such a [mind and] heart in them always [reverently] to fear Me and keep all My commandments, that it might go well with them and with their children forever!
God has agreed to Israel’s desire, but He knows their heart and we see that God laments over the condition of Israel’s heart, knowing they don’t posses the right kind of heart to do and keep what He will tell Moses to tell them. The result will be failure.
Israel has now made a new deal of their own! They have rejected the personal voice of God while they were under a Covenant of Grace by God. Instead, their fear has provoked them into establishing a covenant were Moses is told what God wants and Israel swears that when Moses tells them what God wants… They will do it. They have cast off God’s covenant with Abram of Grace and chose to have their righteousness with God based on how well they do what God says. Now instead of a walk based on what God has and will do… now it’s based on what you do. The law. Which they chose and which they ratify as you shall see as we go on.
30 Go and say to them, Return to your tents. 31 But you [Moses], stand here by Me, and I will tell you all the commandments and the statutes and the precepts which you shall teach them, that they may do them in the land which I give them to possess.
32 Therefore you people shall be watchful to do as the Lord your God has commanded you; you shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left. 33 You shall walk in all the ways which the Lord your God has commanded you, that you may live and that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land which you shall possess.
Israel is getting her way. Now in Deut. 6, we will see the result of their folly:
When your son asks you in time to come, What is the meaning of the testimonies and statutes and precepts which the Lord our God has commanded you?
Then you shall say to your son, We were Pharaoh’s bondmen in Egypt, and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand.
And the Lord showed signs and wonders, great and evil, against Egypt, against Pharaoh, and all his household, before our eyes;
And He brought us out from there, that He might bring us in to give us the land which He swore to give our fathers.
And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, to [reverently] fear the Lord our God for our good always, that He might preserve us alive, as it is this day.
And it will be accounted as righteousness (conformity to God’s will in word, thought, and action) for us if we are watchful to do all this commandment before the Lord our God, as He has commanded us.
Put the two scriptures in the italics and bold font together They are to teach their children for generations that God approves them according to how they act. Now it explains the punishment they receive when they don’t live up to this Covenant of works..
Hope you got this in you understanding- Next blog I’ll try to show you how it fit with Hebrews 12- Then back to Romans. If you follow this Romans will be easier. And don’t forget, Paul says that they received the Gospel as we did- No excuse.
mcfalger 