God’s Laws Are For The Good of Mankind
We, of course, do not understand all things done by deity, but one must study God’s word with this premise: God is always right! We should ask ourselves, “Why did God say that and how can we gain deeper insight, to avoid deceiving ourselves?” One misinterpreted verse can be the blind alley leading us to profound errors and misunderstandings. Really understanding God’s word requires correct foundational knowledge and stable thinking.
2 Peter 3:15-17, “…Our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures. You therefore, beloved, since you know this beforehand, beware lest you also fall from your own steadfastness, being led away with the error of the wicked;”
Understanding the New Testament Through the Old Testament
The foundation necessary to understand the Bible in its entirety is the Old Testament. The great Apostle Peter is telling believers that to understand New Testament scriptures one must be knowledgeable and stable. One of the primary pieces of knowledge one must have is that God is infallible. His word cannot be broken or false. This includes the Old Testament, the largest portion of His written testimony. Jesus Christ said this very thing himself when referring to the Old Testament.
John 10:34-35, “Jesus answered them, ‘Is it not written in your law, “I said, ‘Ye are gods?’”
“‘If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken;
“‘Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, ‘Thou blasphemest’; because I said, ‘I am the Son of God?’”
It is a false assumption that the Old Testament is done away. People use this idea to get around the fourth commandment and stay in step with the world. Keeping the sign of God –– THE SABBATH –– is very difficult in our society. Therefore many desire to ignore this part of the Bible. They can cherry pick the Old Testament. But a true believer cannot even fully understand the New Testament without understanding the Old Testament. The New Testament is built upon the Old Testament! Jesus Himself often validated the Old Testament. Note His reference to Daniel the prophet:
Matthew 24:14-15, “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.
“Therefore when you see the ‘abomination of desolation,’ spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place (whoever reads, let him understand).”
The World’s False Narrative About God and Jesus
The world’s premise, or narrative, is that the old, harsh God depicted in the Old Testament was inflexible and without compassion. This “Old God” was too Law oriented, they say. The problem with that argument is that JESUS is the GOD of the Old Testament!
John 1:1-3, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
“The same was in the beginning with God.
“All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.”
V.14, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”
The God of creation, the God of the Old Testament, is the spokesperson, logos, or “Word,” Jesus Christ. No one has seen God the Father and humans in the Old Testament only dealt with God the Son before he came in the flesh as Jesus. He said, “If you have seen me you have seen the Father.” Paul further elaborates on Jesus as the God of the Old Testament that cared for Israel.
1 Corinthians 10:1-4, “Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea,
“All were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea,
“All ate the same spiritual food,
“And all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ.”
Paul, the writer of most of the New Testament, told these mostly gentile believers that Jesus was the God who led Israel through the Red Sea! Jesus is clearly the deity of the OLD TESTAMENT.
Even though we no longer live in a Theocracy governed by God, the principles behind His Laws are still valid. Everything God gave Israel was good for them. In 1 Cor. 9:9-11 the Apostle Paul is applying a minor law from Deut. (25:4) to a gentile New Testament church. Paul clearly did not believe the Old Testament laws were all done away for gentiles.
1 Corinthians 9:9-11, “For it is written in the law of Moses, ‘You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain.’ Is it oxen God is concerned about?
“Or does He say it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written, that he who plows should plow in hope, and he who threshes in hope should be partaker of his hope.
“If we have sown spiritual things for you, is it a great thing if we reap your material things?”
He used this Old Testament law as proof that he could have asked for a salary from the Corinthians, but deferred because he did not want it to be a barrier to growth in their situation. He thought that some would be suspicious of this Jewish cleric wanting their money! He did this out of love, yet they did not appreciate his sacrifice. Note also that the Old Testament is quoted liberally throughout the New Testament as doctrinal support and guidance.
Acts 24:14, “But this I confess to you, that according to the Way which they call a sect, so I worship the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the Law and in the Prophets.”
Paul totally believed in all of the Old Testament and he plainly stated such in his legal hearings.
God is Unchanging Because He Is Never Wrong
Be wary of biases from past religious teaching which could have been due to our uninformed teachers with no real understanding. Many of those biases are based on the idea of a harsh God of the Old Testament who has been replaced by a young reformer, Jesus, who changed much of the Old Testament laws. The God of the Old Testament was actually slow to anger! Furthermore, God put curses on those that would alter or do away with any part of His written word. See Rev. 22:18-19 and Num. 23:19, as well as Deut. 4:2 and Heb. 13:8.
Hebrews 13:8, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.”
Numbers 23:19-20, “God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?
“Behold, I have received a command to bless; He has blessed, and I cannot reverse it.”
God does NOT need to change. People need to change –– by repenting! Christ said in Matt. 5:17-18 that He did not come to do away with the law but to show its deep spiritual fulfillment and applications.
Matthew 5:17-18, “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.
“For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.”
This verse directly contradicts the worldly story-line that Jesus came to undo the laws of God. The earth is still here. How to apply the law in our modern world requires thought and understanding, but Jesus did not come to invalidate them. Christ did come to bring many to salvation through the proper use of grace. Grace and the law work together when correctly understood.
Romans 3:30-31, “…There is one God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. Do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not! On the contrary, we establish the law.”
Faith and grace together establish the law. For example, if there were no law which said stealing was wrong, then no grace, also read “unmerited pardon,” would be necessary when one is caught stealing. One cannot be forgiven if there is no law saying what you did was wrong.
Romans 6:1-3, “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?
“Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?
“Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?”
Paul is explaining that new covenant believers should now strive to be free of sin, which is law breaking. Why? Because now we are dead to sin. Our old, sinful self died in the waters of baptism!
Romans 6:14-15, “For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.
“What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly not!”
God gave the Apostles the power to make legal decisions regarding new situations that required a ruling to bind or to loose. This Apostolic authority does not indicate that God was wrong in any manner. This authority is meant to be used with Godly insight which would never be used to contradict God’s unchanging wishes or laws.
