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We come now to the second half of the book of Exodus, and in particular to movement five, which movement has for its central theme the giving of the law upon Mount Sinai. We have already spoken on several occasions about this great event, and I shall not need to repeat what I have then said. We have noticed, for instance, that the very design of the book enforces on our consciousness that liberation from bondage does not mean that we are left free to do as we please.
In Movement one, very early on, Moses came to put right the misbehavior first of the Egyptian and then of his brethren. And his brethren rejected him from being judge and prince, and he fled to Jethro the Midianite. Now, at the beginning of movement five, chapter eighteen of the book of Exodus, things go into reverse process. There comes Jethro bringing Moses' wife and two sons. And Jethro acknowledges, first of all, God as the the greater than all the gods, and together Jethro and Moses and Aaron and the elders of Israel solemnly eat bread together, eh, before God.
And then, under Jethro's advice, Moses organizes the judiciary in Israel, giving to wise and experienced men the responsibility to sit in court and hear minor cases, using such wisdom and natural gifts and knowledge of God's word that God has given to them. On the other hand, Moses acts as the intermediary with God. Difficult cases. Moses takes to God himself, and indeed, as the following chapters, uh, show us, that Moses is to be the intermediary of the law.
God speaks to Moses face to face, inscribes the table of the law with the divine finger. That is to say, a distinction is made between what the elders of Israel did and what Moses did. The elders of Israel administered what law was made known to them. Moses received that law by inspiration, direct inspiration and self-revelation of God. That distinction, it seems to me, is an exceedingly important distinction, and extends also not merely to the giving of the law, but to the in- inspiration by which all Holy Scripture is given to us.
Holy Scripture, God's self-revelation, is not given to us simply by the device that learned and God-fearing men, after some prayer working and cogitating within them, come up with, uh, good advice and pass it on to us, and we are reverently expected to believe that somehow they were inspired in the process. There is a chasm of difference between what the elders did, expounding the law that was given to them and applying it to individual cases after prayer and due consideration. A chasm of a difference between that and the Moses and the great prophets, who were given God's revelation by direct inspiration from God.
A distinction, it seems to me, that is exceedingly and fundamentally important that we preserve in our day and generation. We no longer have Moseses to go up and see God face to face. We have been given a faith once and for all delivered to the saints. We must not confuse that original process of inspiration with what is the task of any one of us to take God's revealed word and inspired word, and according to the natural and spiritual wisdom given to us, to apply it to the people of God as need require.
Chapter eighteen then forms the prelude to this august and majestic event, the giving of the law on Mount Sinai. I suppose now, as we come to it as Christians, there is, it would be true to say that there is scarce a place in all the Old Testament where we shall feel more keenly some of the discontinuity, discontinuities between Christianity and the ancient regime. We have it clearly in our minds, drilled in by the Apostle Paul, that we are not justified by the law.
We were reading again this afternoon that we cannot be sanctified under the principle of law, that is, law taken as command plus prohibition plus penalty. Law, in that sense, can neither justify nor can it sanctify. On the other hand, having observed that discontinuity, we shall wish surely to emphasize the continuity. While we cannot be justified by the law, while law as a principle is not the motivating stimulus or the empowering by which we as believers live holy lives.
Yet it is the express purpose of God that we, being filled and led by his Holy Spirit, should so behave that the righteous requirement of the law is fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit. We have to learn, therefore, to keep the balance between the continuities and the discontinuities. In that respect, we may enlarge a little upon what we have already said about chapter nineteen. There God met Israel coming down upon Mount Sinai to meet them in the wilderness, to explain to them the goal of their redemption, which was God himself, and then to put before Israel his offer that they should be to him a peculiar treasure.
He should make them a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. That is, he proposed to them now, in addition to their freedom, this special role, this privileged role, to be a kingdom of priests to him. The rabbis felt that this was the time that our, uh, God came down, so to speak, to woo and to court his people. And in one of the prophets, God refers to it, doesn't it? I remember the day of thine espousals. What condescension on the part of the transcendent Lord that he should meet a company of ex-slaves so recently come from Egypt and feel they were worthwhile courting and attracting to himself with his divine charms.
I remember the day of thine espousals in the wilderness, and what a lovely scene as Moses, the middleman, led out the potential bride to meet her divine husband. It was an extraordinary courtship. For the proposed bridegroom came down in the flames of Mount Sinai amidst trumpetings and thunderings and lightnings, so much so that even Moses said, I do s- fear and quake. And the people besought that the voice should no longer speak with them, that they should be allowed to retire to a distance, and Moses should go and be their intermediary between them and God.
You'll say what a gracious difference there is between that and Christianity. What difference were you thinking about at that point? Well, what we have come to is infinitely more solemn. Let me just remind you of the comment made by the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews in chapter twelve. He says, but we have not come. This is Hebrews twelve eleven— For you have not come unto a mount that might be touched, was in danger of being touched, and that burned with fire and unto blackness and darkness and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, which voice they that heard entreated that no word more should be spoken unto them.
For they could not endure that which was enjoined. If even a beast touch the mountain, it shall be stoned. And so fearful was the appearance that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake. You have not come to a mountain like that. What have you come to? You say a positively Disneyland, a fairy land of bright lights and charm, endless charm. Have you really? You are come unto Mount Zion, unto the city of the living God, and the heavenly Jerusalem, to innumerable hosts of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the blood of a sprinkling that speaketh better than that of Abel.
See that you refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not when they refused him that warned them on earth, much more shall not we escape who turn away from him that warneth from heaven, whose voice then shook the earth, but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more will I make to tremble, not the earth only, Sinai and its little environs, but also the heavens. And this word, yet once more, signifying the remove- signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that have been made, that those things which are not shaken may remain.
Wherefore, receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us have grace whereby we may offer service well pleasing to God with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming Fire. I know not how to put across that point better than in the words of scripture itself. Or how could I possibly express the majesty and the awe of the God whose voice summons us to meet him? Whose voice at Sinai shook the earth, presently he shall speak, and the earth and all that is but temporary and can be shaken shall disappear, and we shall find ourselves introduced to the new heaven and the new earth, to the eternal city and tabernacle of Almighty God.
The implication of that is that we must seek grace to serve God with reverence and godly awe, for our God is a consuming fire. God help us in our days of over-familiarity and cheapening of the gospel, not to undercut the very glories of heaven and redemption by reducing God to some benevolent Father Christmas. God maintain in us the awe of what it means when the divine voice summons us to come and meet him and touch the very environs and outskirts of the eternal city.
That said, of course, we notice that God not only, uh, proposed to Israel a law that they should follow, not even a law with certain penalties attached if they broke it and blessings attached if they kept it. But God offered them that law as the basis of a covenant. And so, when the law had been given, chapter twenty four relates how the covenant itself was made. All the stipulations were read in the ear, uh, reported to the people.
When the people said they would obey, the stipulations were written in a book and read out in front of them so that they might see what they were agreeing to had been written down in this book. And then it was proposed to them, not merely as a book of instruction, but the basis of a covenant that should be made between them and God. And their role and function as a kingdom of priests was explicitly made to depend on their keeping this covenant. It is there, I suspect, that again we shall notice the great discontinuity between God's treatment of Israel and our Lord's treatment of us.
For, of course, in the New Testament we read explicitly stated that if that fo- first covenant had been faultless, no place would have been found for a second. But the very fact that God has now instituted a new covenant shows that that first and old covenant is, in God's estimation, done away with. Now, nonetheless, in spite of that, many theologians have felt that there is some great continuity between the old covenant and the new, and that it would be false of us to magnify the difference between them.
In particular, they argue that the old covenant was as much a covenant a- of grace as the new covenant is a covenant of grace. For was it not gracious of God to give it to them in the first place? And when they broke the covenant, as they did in startling fashion before Moses had even got time to bring the tables of the covenant down from Mount Sinai, when they broke the covenant after some discipline and consequent upon Moses' intercession, God repeated the covenant and renewed it. Was not that a spectacular demonstration of his grace? And moreover, were not the sacrifices that went along with the covenant, the old covenant, another exhibition of the grace of God?
For where Israel sinned, granted not every sin was so covered, but many g- for many sins when they sinned, did not God's grace provide a priesthood and a sacrifice through which they could find forgiveness, and the covenant still remained workable. That being all of grace, why, say some theologians, try to make out that there is such a chasm of a difference between the old covenant and the new? I think, therefore, it would be helpful to review those well-known passages in the New Testament that specify what the difference is, that we might have the difference given us in the words of the New Testament itself.
And the locus classicus in the matter is, of course, Hebrews chapter eight. Let me read it to you again. Eh, in chapter eight and verse six, eh, it is remarked, but now hath he that is our Lord obtained a ministry the more excellent, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted upon better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, then would no place have been sought for the second, i.e. Paul. There was something unsatisfactory then about that first covenant, wasn't there, after all?
Or had it been totally satisfactory and adequate, God wouldn't have scrapped it and introduced a second. Wherein lay its unsatisfactoriness. For finding fault with them, that is not now the covenant, but with the Israelites, he said, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. Not. So here comes the discontinuity. Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them forth out of the land of Egypt.
And pray, why not? Why not make it after the same style and according to the same principles? For this reason, for they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not. Now, as you will know, there is a translational difficulty as between the Septuagint and the Matoretic text at this point, the late hour of the night, uh, and my poverty of time, uh, oblige me just to accept for the moment and for the point of the argument, uh, the actual statement of the matter as given us by the inspired writer to the Hebrews, with whom I think you are not disposed to dispute matters.
For they continued not in my covenant. That's why it was unsatisfactory. And when they continued not in my covenant, I disregarded them. They broke their side, and therefore God ultimately scraps the covenant. Now this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord. And now the writer spells out again the terms of the new covenant. Wherein lies its difference. I think in my simplicity, I want first of all to observe the difference, but this difference between the old covenant and the new, that the old covenant was a two-party covenant.
The new is a one-party covenant. And here I think it is very important that we notice that at Sinai it was not merely that God gave the people a law, but on the basis of that law, he entered into a covenant with Israel and Israel with him. Forgive my descending to lowly matters. But, uh, suppose now there were a charming young le- gentleman and an even more charming young lady. And the charming young gentleman proposed marriage to the charming young lady, and she accepted, and they got married.
I suppose it is conceivable in some world other than this that, uh, when the charming young husband gave to his wife her wedding present and she opened it, she would find it was the very last word of a cookery book. Not, of course, an ordinary cookery book, but a cookery book such as they produce that gives pictures of cakes and roast beef such as no mere mortal ever met on the face of the earth. He gives this expensive cookery book plus its pictures to his wife and all its ten thousand and one recipes, and she kisses him on the cheek and says, thank you very much, my darling. I've always wanted a cookery book like this.
Then she adds, is there a slight hint here? Are, are you sort of diplomatically saying you would like me to follow these recipes? Well, my dear, he said, if you could find it in your heart out of your consummate love for me, uh, to attempt some of these re- these recipes, I would be delighted. And dear wife goes off to slave in the kitchen out of her love for her newlywed. That's one situation. I can't imagine it really ever taking place. Still less can I imagine, still less can I imagine a second possibility, that, uh, when the charming young gentleman comes to propose marriage to the charming landlady, he brings the cookery book and says, now, my dear, first let me read you these recipes here.
Have you understood? They're written in a book, you see. Now my proposal is this, not merely that you'll keep these recipes, I'm proposing something a bit more. If you can guarantee to me now that from now on you will keep all these recipes, then on that basis I offer you my hand in marriage, and I'm prepared to accept you as my wife and enter into a covenant. And so long as you proceed to carry out the recipes, the covenant can remain.
I'm prepared to overlook an occasional burnt potato. Woe be tied you if you mess up the meringues. Then I should have to review this covenant that I am now proposing. Tell me if you've ever met a girl under the face of the sun who would accept a young gentleman, however charming, on those terms. And yet the covenant that God made with Israel, if I have read it or right, was a covenant like that, where God said, now my proposal is this, if you keep my covenant, you shall be my people and occupy this privileged role.
Have you understood the laws that constitute the basis of the covenant? Read them. On condition that you keep them, I shall offer you this covenant of marriage. And the people listening to the terms replied, yes, all that the Lord has commanded us, we will do and be obedient. And I, for one, quake in my shoes as I hear the distant echo of their voice coming down the centuries. And I say, but yes, there's excuse for them, for they didn't know the long story of the centuries that we have known.
When they so grievously offended that covenant by making the golden calf, God eventually, after discipline, forgave them and renewed that covenant. It was an act of his grace, but even a covenant like that, renewed by God's grace, would in the end prove inadequate. And here is not I, but the Holy Spirit making his comment. This is why God found fault with that old covenant, as well as finding fault with his people Israel. They could not keep their side of the bargain.
What then of the new covenant? It is different. It is not like that old covenant in this very particular. It is not a two-party covenant. I promising to do certain things and God promising to do others. One only has to read the terms of the New Covenant to observe that it is a one-party covenant in which God does it all. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, said the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts, in them- into their mind, and on their heart also will I write them.
Number one. That is what God will do. The result of that will be this, and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people. Israel were to be God's special people on condition that they kept the covenant. Says God, I'm going to write my laws on their hearts and minds, and I will be to them a God, and they will be to me a people. What, pray, does it mean that God writes these laws on our minds and on our hearts? It is not merely, is it, that God makes a vivid impression on our memories so that we remember the laws.
Paul describes it in two Corinthians chapter three, where he contrasts the writing of the old covenant with the writing of the new. There's nothing wrong with the directives of the law, but they were written simply on stone. The writing on that stone told you what to do, but couldn't give you the puff and the strength to do it with. It could tell you what not to do and forbid you to do it. It couldn't give you the strength not to do it.
It was an external thing. And says Paul in two Corinthians three, here is the difference and here is the glory of the new covenant, not just an external set of commands, but a writing on the heart, the fleshy tables of the heart, produced by the Holy Spirit himself, writing God's laws on our minds and on our hearts. This is the great work of redemption. Just as the laws of our physical being are written on the genes that control our physical growth and to some extent our behavior, so God's laws, by his infinite grace and wonder, have been inscribed in our hearts in that new nature that is the very divine nature that God has implanted in every believer.
And God has done it. The result is we are his people and he our God, and verse eleven informs us that we shall not therefore need intermediaries in this respect. They shall not teach every man his fellow citizen and every man his brother, saying, know the Lord, for all shall know me from the least to the greatest of them. Some people take that to be a description of heaven, and if that is a description of heaven, I welcome it in some sense. Wouldn't it be nice if we never had to preach another sermon or, or, well, I don't know. Perhaps we shall like preaching sermons when we get home to heaven.
But no, this is saying something different, isn't it? In the giving of the old covenant, the people pleaded with Moses to allow them to retire and Moses to be their intermediary, so that they didn't come direct to God. In the tabernacle that God erected, no Israelite got anywhere near the immediate divine presence. It was kept at two stages of remove, and they knew and saw what they knew and saw of God in the normal days of their weeks through an intermediary that went between them and God. Now that intermediary is done away with, and every believer may know God direct.
You'll say, isn't our blessed Lord the intermediary? Of course he is, but he is God. And we know God, the humblest and simplest believer knows the God, knows God by direct intuitive experience. Oh, what a marvelous thing it is. End to all your mysterious priestly class that tells the people they can't know God and must depend upon the intermediaries. The fulfillment of this gracious new covenant brings every believer, in virtue of his new birth and his new nature, into the direct and immediate knowledge of God.
The little baby in the arms of its mother knows its mother in its way, directly. And in that sense, doesn't need me to come between itself and its mother. This is not saying that we do not need Christian teachers. The New Testament everywhere asserts that we need teachers. But for this personal knowledge that spells salvation, under terms of the New Covenant, it is direct. And final and wonderful clause of God's grace, their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.
That is so wonderful that perhaps we ought to pause, though we know it so well, and just reflect upon what that does not mean and what it does mean. And then why that clause comes at the end of the, uh, the stipulations of the covenant instead of at the beginning. It is said, and quite commonly said, that God is so wonderful in his forgiveness that he doesn't remember our sins anymore. In fact, he positively forgets them. Cast them into the depths of the sea, so that if you went to God and said, what about my sins?
He said, I don't seem to have heard of them. What, what are you talking about? I can't remember. People say, isn't that marvelous? I suppose it might be if it were true. But if I put to you the proposition that when you get home to heaven, and you see the marks of Calvary in the hands and feet of our Lord, will you suppose that God has forgotten what caused them? Shall God say to himself, I can't now remember for the life of me what caused those wounds in the body of my son?
Well, if God has forgotten, the heavenly choirs won't leave him long at peace, will they? For according to Jo- uh, the Revelation chapter five, they sing in the divine presence, worthy is the Lamb, for he was slain and has redeemed us to God by his blood. Heaven shall never forget why Jesus Christ, God's son, died, and I may add, nor will you. When you see those marks of Calvary and the Blessed Lord, you'll not find yourself either saying, I can't think what they're there for. How did he come by those? And what does the phrase mean, their sins and iniquities I will remember no more?
It is a quasi-legal term, is it not? In the ancient world, monarchs and potentates had a court official where who was called the recorder in ancient English, uh, the remembrancer in ancient English, and sundry equivalents in Hebrew and Greek. The job of this aforesaid remembrancer was, as you may recall from your reading of the Book of Esther and such like literature, that if His Majesty on occasion had a sleepless night or something and couldn't think of better things to do, he could call his recorder and demand that the books be, uh, brought and opened.
And there, as His Majesty sat up, the recorder read out the things that people have done. And the king would say, what about Tom Noddy there? Had he done anything in particular? Yes, he did this and this and this from which Your majesty has, uh, benefited. Has he been rewarded yet? No. Well, then go hastily and reward the man. Say that he should, uh, ride on one of my horses, you'll see, and thus and thus and thus and thus. And what about these chaps here? What about them? And the remembrancer would read out the list of their heinous crimes. I say, have they been punished yet, says His Majesty? No. Well, you better look sharp and get about it then.
That is what the Bible means by calling people's sins to remembrance. When in the revelation you hear that God has called Babylon's sins to remembrance, you must not be surprised that there immediately follows a deluge of God's judgment on that aforesaid Babylon. To remember sins is a judicial term to bring them before the memory of the judge, for him to assess them, and for him to, uh, uh, pronounce the appropriate condemnation and penalty. If that be what it is, what marvelous joy and wonder lies here for us, guaranteed by the blood of the covenant that God will never call our sins before his courts, pronounce our guilt, and assign to us the penalty and condemnation that those sins deserve.
Never will he do it. It is written into the very terms of the covenant that he won't do it. How can he not do it? Because the blood by which this covenant is sealed is the token that the penalty of our sins has already been paid. And God will never call it up for judicial judgment, for the penalty to pronounced and be inflicted again. Oh, enough to make a man's heart leap for joy, isn't it?
In the security that God gives to all who accepted this covenant. So then here is its many blessing, many-sided blessing. New power, realistic new power because of new life and new nature, to begin to learn to keep God's law, and thus to fulfill the role he assigns to us. And where, because in God's realism, he knows we are still imperfect, and in many things we still come short, written into the covenant.
Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. We'll say, if that were true, would that not lead people to abuse God's grace? If the covenant terms assure me that I shall never come into condemnation, will it not work that in the end I become careless and say, well, after all, it doesn't really matter, does it, if I carry on sinning? No, it doesn't, of course. Listen to Paul's argumentation in one Corinthians chapter eleven.
He is there instructing the Christians about the celebration of the Lord's Supper, and solemnly reminds them that that cup of wine is the cup of the new covenant in Christ's blood. The covenant says that God thus guarantees not merely to give people forgiveness, but to write his laws on their heart. What happens if I take that cup, and as the gracious Lord hands it to me and says, this, my child, is the cup of my new cup, by which I pledge to write my laws on your heart.
And I say, well, Lord, I'm interested in the forgiveness bit, but I'm not my, I'm not particularly interested in the other thing, you know, about keeping your laws. What did you say, writing your laws on my heart? Well, I- I- I'm not particularly interested in that. I don't think it really matters. What do you suppose will happen? You say Christ will break his covenant. That he never will. No, he'll keep his covenant. For his covenant is that he's ri- he will write his laws on my heart. He'll do it with my cooperation if he can, but if he can't, he'll do it. Says Paul, look here, before you come to that sacred memorial supper.
In the light of what it is, that Christ died to endure the penalty of your sin, and now pledges himself to write his laws on your heart. If you come, then first judge yourself. Indeed, do more than that. Do not merely judge yourself when you sin, but discern yourself. You'll say, I must know surely if I've any sense in my little head left. I must know as I stand here before you, gentlemen, that there are about me wrong attitudes and wrong behavior patterns. And if I can't see them, my friends certainly can.
And not to take it for granted that I'm completely okay. Let me discern myself in the light of God's holy word, not morbidly, morbidly introspective, but engaging in serious spiritual discernment, and see where I still come short and what needs to be confessed before God and what still needs to be put right. Well, you say, my dear fellow, if I do that, I do become morbid, and I feel so unworthy to come before the Lord then and partake of his supper.
I feel I've behaved so wretchedly during the past week that I'm not worthy to come to his supper, and therefore I keep away. Strange logic. How much better to come and take the cup, and in the very moments when your heart is moved with contrition and you say, how worthy, unworthy I have been, Lord. I sometimes despair of making any progress to become like you, to take the cup from his hand and hear again his divine covenant and promise, but I will write my laws on your heart. Ah, but suppose I become careless, and I do not bother either to judge myself when I do wrong or to discern myself and see where I need to be put right.
I come carelessly and take those sacred emblem and continue to live sinfully. What will he do then? Why, he'll keep his covenant. He'll write his laws on your heart, says Paul, but if it means that he has to judge and chastise you and chasten you, he will proceed to chasten you. And if need be, he'll stop at nothing. For this cause indeed, says Paul, many are weak among you and physically weak and sickly, and some indeed have fallen asleep and passed away because this covenant is real.
And he who made it, Jesus Christ our Lord, mediator of the new covenant, will keep his covenant with his people. He is determined to make them holy. What happens if the Lord has to chastise somebody? Is he lost? Let us settle that point by the explicit words of scripture. When we are chastened, we judge, we're chastened of the Lord, says Paul, so that we shall not be condemned with the world.
Marvelous new covenant. Basis of our relationship with the Lord. Here is God's scheme to do effectively what the old covenant, by definition, could not do. So let us in our hearts give thanks to the Lord. But now, shall I say, as some say, well, now, uh, these laws were a mixture. Some were moral laws. You will please keep them. Others were ceremonial laws.
They have since been scrapped, so don't keep them. Would that be a sufficient guide for me in interpreting the implications and the relevance of these chapters to myself. You say, take it as a yardstick, old chap, that the ten words, they are all moral laws and permanent. Uh, are you sure they're all moral laws? Leave aside for the moment whether they are permanent. Are they all moral? Because they're all inscribed on the tables. What about the Sabbath one?
I confess to having a few difficulties thereabouts. I recall that when our Lord was justifying his disciples for, uh, working on the Sabbath in the form of, uh, plucking and rubbing the ears of corn. When the Pharisees objected, our Lord said, amongst other things, gentlemen, have you never read that the priests in the temple on the Sabbath day profane the Sabbath and are guiltless? Actually, they break the Sabbath, therefore, working on the Sabbath and are nevertheless guiltless. The Sabbath can't be a moral law then, can it? How would it sound if we substituted any of the other genuinely moral laws in that equation?
Have you never read how that the priests in the temple on, uh, uh, uh, uh, the priests in the temple commit adultery and are guiltless? Well, that might be a vivid description of certain periods of Christendom, but there's something gone amiss somewhere, isn't it? Have you never read how the priests, uh, in the temple covet and steal and murder and are guiltless. No, I got lost somewhere, haven't I? You wouldn't say I got lost. But never mind, I fling up my arms, I'm in danger of drowning, and I take comfort in the fact that there are many lawyers here. What a special gift it is as Christians who are also lawyers to understand these things about law.
When I read the commentaries, they indulge in very learned terms. They say, well, now be helped, my boy. Some of these are ap- apodictic laws, and others are casuistic laws. And I say, thank you, I'm sure that is so, but what does that mean? And how does that affect my understanding and application of these things? So, in your charity, gentlemen, don't be shy. Pray, what help can you offer me in my understanding of this important part of scripture? Don't be afraid to say the various of simplicities, because that's the level at which I needed to start off with.
You can then proceed to more profound things, but... Yes, Fred. The other nine of the ten commandments are repeated in the New Testament. Say that again, please. The other nine of the ten commandments are repeated in the New Testament, and, uh, for example, in James chapter two, to measure the context, uh, conduct of a Christian, would certainly mean that the other nine of the ten commandments are binding on us, so to speak. Good. We are expected to fulfill them. Yes, that is important. We haven't time, of course, to expound each of those nine, but that point, yes, we take. Yes, uh, David Burke.
Say that the, the Sabbath commandment is a, is, is a commandment which goes back beyond the giving of the law in Sinai since the creation, Genesis 1 and 2, and that built into man's creative nature is the need for a seventh day rest. Yes. That's ha- that sounds very sensible to me. I'm impressed as I've read Exodus again for the purpose of this conference, to notice how frequently the Sabbath is mentioned. Yes, yes, Jusa. I take exception that as long as we're talking about the law, I'm not under any of it.
But if we're talking about righteousness, I'm under all of it, but I'm not under any law, and there is got to be some difference here, at least Paul seems to think so. You mean to say that, uh, uh, what you're under as, uh, what shall I say, I don't know what word to choose, guidance or, or direction or something, is not law as such. No, as you expounded earlier, the bite of the law is taken away so that it's, it's got to be more the guidance of the spirit leading us to a righteousness of reality than any observance or requirement even of observance.
Uh, these are fine shades of difference, but, but the things that are being said previous to my comments, people are using the word law, and as long as they're using the word law, I'm going to disassociate myself from that identification. I'm going to not use that word for Christians. Hold that hard and put your toes in. Let me, let, let now, now. Yeah, I mean, seriously, because, I mean, you have, uh, verses you would want to quote, uh, if we're led of the Spirit, we're not under law. That kind of thing Correct. is what you're meaning, yes. For righteousness, yes. For righteousness. But, but right, no, but we are under the demand to be righteous. Yes. But not necessarily any particular law as a law.
Oh, I see. The general, the general, the general requirement that we shall live righteous lives, you'll say, is that. That must be a spirit-led decision, what that means. Yes. Oh, I see. But when it comes to the details, let the Spirit of God guide us as to the details, rather than a set of guidelines or rules. Guidelines I can accept, rules I can't. Right, guidelines. Because rules, rule is not a rule unless there's a consequence. Unless Uh-huh. Our guideline is, well, this is a guideline, if you don't, then Yes. It's not quite law anymore. I think Fred is about to come back on you there, and then this goes in from here. Fred, Fred here. If it's, if the Holy Spirit in the New Covenant is going to write his laws on our minds and our hearts, and we're talking about a standard, when we talk about righteousness, we need to talk about a standard of righteousness.
How do you measure righteousness? Do you measure righteousness in ohms or in foot feet or in yards? Here's a measurement of righteousness, and it's written, and it's God's, it's God's wish to write the, the, uh, the law in my heart and my mind. Certainly, the law would be fulfilled under the guidance of the Spirit, the righteous requirement of the law, where both of these terms, this term righteousness and our term law are put together, is certainly something done in the power of the Holy Spirit. Yeah. Let this good man here his turn, and then there are others queuing up, yes? No, I should say myself, when we speak of law, legality as the way to righteousness, Christ is the end of the law, so that in him the righteousness of God may be fully met in us.
When we come to the Ten Commandments, any of the Ten Commandments, and one is to send by saying, honor the Sabbath. Then he is already at that time going back to the old yoke of legality. When Paul says to the Colossians, why then do you give yourselves to these yokes of slavery, of slavery again, from which you have been freed? And so, in honoring God in the new covenant of walking by the Spirit, and completely the will of God is written in our hearts. When you are, when you are in South, in, in, when you, when you are in a situation that would not at all render you a Sabbath, if you are a person who's going to say, I need to have a Sabbath, and you are a soldier, you're in the army, in, you are not having that kind of a Sabbath.
You are going to be convicted on circumstances that are beyond your control, or in circumstances that, if you are in hospital and you cannot go to the to, to the temple, if one of your laws says I can honor God in the temple only, then you, you, you will be laboring in convictions of legality, which Christ has set us free from. For me, I believe that Christ is the end of the law. So that you need. Thank you. Uh, now Tadius was wanting to comment at the back there. Letter to Hebrews, uh, in seventh chapter and twelfth verse says, for when there is a change of the priesthood, there must be also a change of the law.
Mm-hmm. And the new covenant is connected with the promulgation of the new law, as it was in the Old Testament, because normally covenant is connected with the promulgation of law. So Christ as the, as the mediator of the, of the new covenant was also a lawgiver, and because he is the superior, he's over the Moses, he could take from the Old Testament some commandments which he sharpened in the, the Gospel of, of Matthew. So in fact, the Christians have a new law, law of Christ, that consists of some Old Testament precepts that were acquired by the new lawgiver.
So we have a new covenant, a new law. Thank you, Tatius. Am I just, beg pardon, there's some queue, somebody in the queue here, but, um, could I test that out on you? If, uh, our good friend and friend and company were to use the term commandment instead of law, would you be happy about that? I'm thinking of John's phrase, a new, and our Lord's phrase, a new commandment I give you. Uh, this is the, well, it is a new commandment in some respects, yet it is the old commandment. I command you to love one another. Would you would accept that as, that term as a commandment? I accept certainly from the term commandment, uh, is New Testament. But, but the whole of the law is on this, that you love the Lord your God and you love your neighbor as yourself, and in this all the law is fulfilled.
Yes. So, so there is a sweeping away of, of a law book as a law book and saying it's these basic principles of righteousness. We can sweep away with all the di- the details. We don't need the Christian lawyers because the Holy Spirit is teaching us righteousness. Yes, I think if I, I, I think some of your friends would come back at you at this point and say, Oh, they'd love to. No, no, yeah, yeah, I'm sure they would, and I'm sure as a Christian gentleman you would, uh, face all their, uh, tidal waves. But, uh, we lived through a period in Britain years ago when we had a so-called bishop, uh, uh, a Robinson, and he, he, he taught the world, of course, that, uh, love is the answer.
So if you really loved a woman, in certain circumstances, it might be quite okay to commit adultery, so long as you were motivated by love, so long as you were motivated by the spirit, so to speak. That caused an outrage and led many people to say, but wait a minute, you're misreading Romans if you say love is the fulfilling of the law and you mean that so long as you love, it doesn't matter what else you do, you have, um, fulfilled the law. No, love is a fulfilling of the law because if there you see the law here and somebody genuinely loves with the love of God, it will lead to the fulfillment of that law. As distinct from the bishop saying, I'm led by the spirit, and I'm led by the spirit of the love of Christ, and therefore it's okay so long as I love, even if I commit immorality, if I do it out of a loving sort of purpose.
Would you, uh, say, no, that's a slander on me. I don't believe, I don't, I'm not saying what the old Bishop of Woolwich said. Absolutely, absolutely disagree with the bishop. You do, surely you do. Yes, of course you do. And, and, uh, what I mean that is seriously, in other words, for, for true love to express itself, it needs some, now I come back to my term, guidelines or something, or commandments, if that's okay. But now can I, I, I broached a, a, a, an enormous big subject, and it won't be settled tonight. I ought to s- not to have said anything at all tonight and said we're going right at once. Yes, you have, sir. Is it actually important that the purpose or motivation of keeping those things, uh, has changed from the Old Testament to the New?
Like the commandments, maybe it's something wrong, but I- isn't it like that the commandments were kept in order not to go to hell? And the, I mean the laws. Mm-hmm. They were kept in order, out of fear to go to hell, and the commandments are kept out of obedience to Christ. Mm-hmm. Because we like, because we love Christ, if we are his disciples, then we keep his commandments. Isn't that a different approach, actually? Well, I'm going to say yes, but two men in front of you are, uh, rising in their seats and wanting to answer you, so I'll get them to answer you in a Christian fashion. Yes? With the logical end of that argument, a dichotomy or even a trichotomy, is the fact that the commandment of the Holy Spirit can't be much different than the commandment of God the Father, if God himself is going to be consistent, which we believe he is.
And, and thus, uh, how can we continue? Well, I, I think that Dennis, uh, I think I would come back in now, uh, and say, uh, Paul, as you use the argument that God in ancient time treated Israel like children and put them under a pedagogue. Uh, and parents do that. It's not inconsistency in their character, but they find methods of dealing with children different from what they would use later on in adult life, and that, uh, Israel under the law were under a pedagogue to lead them to Christ. I think some people would argue that with you. But now, uh, yeah, please.
I, I would ask for the different functions. Are you pointing at me or? Yeah, yeah, yeah, you. Yes, yes, please, you, yes. I would ask, uh, for the different functions of different laws in Exodus. Oh, marvelous man. I think there are some, uh, laws that, uh, their function is to, uh, reveal the character of God. Mm-hmm. There's other laws meant to, um, identi- identify Israel as over against the other nations. Mm-hmm. Um, and there's some laws, uh, regulating, uh, the ceremonial life. Mm-hmm. So I think that we, uh, should, we should make a differentiation between ceremonial law and moral law, not in order to make it easy for us and and be able to transgress laws, but to understand the function.
And I think there are certain functions of the law that are no longer valid because Christ has fulfilled them. Um, and also, uh, in as far as the role of Israel has been changed, whatever has been, uh, I mean, this is a different subject, but whatever happened to Israel and the church, um, those laws also don't apply to us, at least in the church, so that I would say that those laws are abrogated, whereas laws that reveal the character of, uh, the the the ethical side of God and what God's people should be like in reflecting him, that these law laws, uh, must be, uh, still guiding us in our behavior.
Yes, uh, yes. I think that is is still and remains very important, eh, and uh, you could quote, could you not, and I would want to quote with you, our Lord's remarks in Mark chapter seven uh, regarding the food laws. This he said, making all foods clean. I understand to me mean declaring all foods to be clean. In other words, he is cancelling the food laws of the Old Testament to start with, you'll see. And the covenant being changed, there's a change also of the law, the law related to priesthood's gone by. The law relating to those sacrifices is finished. There are lots of ritual laws and, eh, what you might call food laws and things like that, uh, that have gone.
Isn't that so? Isn't that the explicit statement of Holy Scripture? And, uh, our God to Cornelius and the vision, letting down the sheet full of creepy crawly things and, uh, telling Peter to rise and eat. And Peter objects because he was brought up to believe that God had instituted those laws. And when Peter demurred and hesitated, God didn't say, now come on, Peter, don't be so old fashioned. Don't, old boy, those old funny laws in the Old Testament, you don't have to take any notice of them. Of course not. God himself had instituted them. But God who instituted them is now abrogating. So yes, I would want to say they're abrogated.
I would like, I, I, you see, I'm being very selfish, and the, the, the seconds are ticking away. Gentlemen, how do you normally expound, you, you know, when you're expounding Exodus and you, you've gone patiently through all the chapters and you come to chapter twenty one, m twenty two, and twenty three, what do you say? What about these groupings of laws? For one little thing, you know, they seem to be muddled up. I, I forgive my saying such a thing, uh, inspired and holy writ. They seem to be a little muddled up. One minute there comes a, a, a, a, a very, what seems to be a serious thing, you'll say, and suddenly I, I, I'm told I mustn't, uh, plow my field with an ox and an ass and, and, uh, wear nylon, uh, mixed with linen, you'll see.
And then off we go to something else, uh, some moment, and then I'm told I mustn't see the kid in its mother's milk. How do I... I mean, you know, I- I'm all at sea, and I couldn't preach a series of sermons on that to save my life. What about these learned terms, apodictic laws and casuistic laws? I mean, all right to take notice of that? I appeal to the lawyers. Do tell me, please. Huh? We, we learn from our teacher. We, we leave this matter until almost the end of the evening and then skim over quickly, and then we close it. You are learning the technique quickly.
Yeah, Yusa. I think there's one more problem in splitting up in a ceremonial law and a law and a moral law, because, um, there are some laws which are quite difficult to, uh, put in the diagram. Are there more moral laws or are there more ceremonial laws? Mm-hmm. So, um, it almost needs a lawyer then to decide whether this law is a ceremonial law or whether this law is a moral law to be kept. I'm glad you're agreeing with me. I've got somebody to agree with me at last. We need these lawyers, don't we? Pardon? The, the, uh, the casuistic laws would be those laws that started if, if those are conditional laws which happen, if this happens, if a man builds a house and by mistake he falls on his neighbor, his neighbor dies, this is a cause that is culpable homicide.
And in that kind of a situation, it's our, it's causalistic laws. And apodictic laws would be the laws that are direct. The first ten commandments are, are not, uh, causalistic. They are the laws that are direct, you shall honor the Lord your God. Yes. And all those are kinds of the laws which are not conditional in, in, in some, in some. Yes. And I would say again, in the book of Exodus, we need to come with that openness, human element that says there will be things I cannot come, which are too mysterious for me to can expound. That sim- that simplicity or that sincerity is, is necessary sometimes, particularly when you believe, when the, when you say, explain what does it mean to not boil the calf in its mother's milk.
It's beyond my understanding, but Moses understood it when God gave it to him. I live far many years after the event, and God probably hasn't revealed it to me to know what that means, and I need to admit that certain things I cannot understand, which are in the will of God and in the word of God. They are not less the word of God because I don't understand them, nor are they, nor are they things that need to be chopped off because we do not understand them. There are things that God has revealed to us. Yes, thank you. Yes, thank you for that comment. Uh, uh, uh, eh, that seems to me important. I mean, some people take this view, don't they, of that particular thing, that this was aimed at suppressing an heathen practice that Israel were in danger of engaging in.
We don't need to know about it because we're not in danger of falling into that practice or something. Maybe that there are some things here that were given to Israel, full stop, and we don't need to understand them because they're relevant to our situation. It also raises the big matter, doesn't it, as to whether these laws were a complete compendium of law given at that time, were they? Are there enough of them there to cover the life of Israel? Were these meant to be a complete compendium of law, or were they a representative selection of law? Do they, in principle, cover every department of life?
Or is it that they're not even that? Is it that Israel already had a lot of laws that they got from their normal Middle Eastern milieu in that time, uh, some from the Code of Hammurabi and other such legal codes by which they had been hitherto normally conducting their business, and that God was content to let them carry on with principles of natural justice that they had learned elsewhere, but in these particular, uh, particularly casuistic laws, uh, was, um, uh, now either correcting or supplementing what they already had, and therefore that's the reason why these appear not to be a complete compendium. Is this question of a selection?
Why select these? Why mention these? That troubles me sometimes. I don't know, in the sense I agree with you, we don't have to understand it, sir, but. I would say, like in the law of your cow going through your neighbor and killing your neighbor. At the first instance, you are, you, you, you'd not have known that your cow, your cow would go your neighbor. In learning this, they would say now, if your cow goes your neighbor, your neighbor again the second time and it killed him, now it was no longer culpable homicide, it was murder because you knew that it killed another person at that time. You should have taken care of your cow, which means that cosmetic laws were followed up with incidents. This incident at first, it's not considered murder.
The incident, the same incident at the second time, it's now murder because you were negligent with your cow, which you know was goring people. You should have taken care of it, that it doesn't do those things again. It's matter now. It's interesting, yes, it's interesting what you seem to me to be saying is law built up upon experience of things that happen and adapting to those happenings. Eh, that's a very interesting thing. I, I would love to ask you, do you think that we learn anything from the penalties? Are the penalties still in force or not? I mustn't do that because one or two hands are up, and I must draw this to a close. Uh, uh, uh, Ben Morkos here, yes. I think we must not neglect the fact of, uh, maturity of the person.
When we think back of the argument in Galatians and, uh, see that the law was given for a certain time until the son reached a certain maturity. Um, using a simple illustration, I mean, if my, if I tell my son you should not come into the room without wiping your feet on the doormat, and if you do, I smack you, then it's a law, and he, it's fine for a four-year-old. If he's twenty-one, he has enough sense of not doing it by himself. It's written. That doesn't mean if someone is just, uh, if his mother is falling unconscious and he's twenty one, and he comes out of the garden, he c- he can run with his muddy shoes through the room.
He's transgressing the law, in fact, even the law that's written on his heart that he normally would take his shoes off, but the case of urgency would allow him to do so. And so I think the, the, the principle of law is gone anyway. It's not, we don't live by law in a, in a sense that we are punished by transgressing laws, but this law is written in our hearts, which, um, in some ways, as with the grown-up person who has a certain maturity, allows us sometimes even transgressing it in certain cases without suffering any cert- uh, terrible consequence. You understand what I mean?
Yes, thank you, Ben. Now, just one or two things here. Uh, come to you last over up in here in the corner, Tadius and uh, David wants to say, and then our good friend here, yes. We, we just had a subcommittee, uh, meeting. On this matter of the law? Oh, yeah. We, we felt this idea of the, the three-way split in the law is quite helpful to understand the function, but the the problem is in the New Testament you just get that term the law, which is a slab term, seems to apply to the Torah, the law. And the other thing we were thinking of was how Christ is said to have fulfilled the law, in the sense that he was a perfect man, he he lived a perfect moral life, he's a perfect Jew too, and we find him living a, an upright ceremonial and national life too.
He fulfills the, not just bits of it. Mm. So myself, I have just a problem with the idea of pushing that three-way split idea all the way. I see. Also, they're all Yes, I know. Um, so Yes. Seems a good way to analyze, but maybe not a great way to expand. And that's a very important distinction you're making. Tadius, your comment. I wanted to say that there is no basis in the New Testament to say that, uh, only a ritual law was abrogated. Because if you, if we take this, uh, verse seven twelve from Hebrews, where some people, which some people interpret as a, uh, law concerning rituals or priesthood only, then we have to understand that the verb change means to supersede something by something another.
So i- if the, the law concerning priesthood, uh, abrogated or was changed, was changed, then it means that there must be something, uh, any, any new law concerning priesthood, but there is no such a regulations about priesthood in the, uh, New Testament. There are no, no regulations concerning in New, uh, New Testament. There are sections about the universal priesthood of believers, but there are no legal regulations. There are teachings, but not regulations. Mm-hmm. So, uh, because we have to understand, remember that the, the law in the Old Testament, it was integral unity, and this division into the ritual, civil, and, and the moral law, it was only a theoretical division.
Then we have to understand that Hebrews are speaking about the law in general. So if there is written that, uh, with the change of the priesthood, there must be a change of the law, it means that the whole law was changed by the lawgiver. And by the same time, we have to remember that the lawgiver, uh, lawgiver has the freedom to take some principles from the Old Testament and to apply them to the, to the New Testament situation. Thank you very much. Well, now just one more, one more, two more. Time is running away, and Nigel wants to get around the fire. Uh, William Saar. I was thinking of, uh, another mountain.
Isaiah chapter 2, from which the law is in fact given, when the mountain of the Lord's house shall be exalted above the hills, for from Zion shall go forth the law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And then my mind is traveling to Zechariah chapter five, where we have this curious flying role, and we're told that this is a curse which is going to go through the whole earth. I've been wondering what is the future role of the Torah. Yeah. And the picture, the picture of Isaiah there in chapter two, is obviously borrowed from, from Exodus with perhaps modification, and that there's got to be a future role of the Torah, but that's in the same manner as Hebrews chapter 8, or are we referring to something different?
I'm really grateful for help on that. Yeah, William, I think you might know better than I. That perhaps when you talk of Torah in Old Testament, it is not always, in our modern term, law plus penalty, but is instruction, as its name means, you'll see. So that might be a help out. Now, here, so you were going to say? No, you guess yourself. I had this thought that it wasn't all the testament law, uh, a constitution de facto for this nation, and I'm not a specialist in constitutions, but I could imagine that there are different, um, uh, concept of constitutions, that certain things are, um, foundational, certain things are explanational, certain things are explational, explanational.
And, um, I also would like to ask here, what is the difference between the basic laws and those laws that are regulating the national aspect of the people group? Because it wasn't just not only a spiritual, uh, people, but it was also a nation with many other functions. Yeah, surely. And it was a theocracy at that, which Britain isn't. Why, I mean, in spite of appearances. I- I- I. Yes. Uh, you have, I may start you. Just to the question of how should we preach the law? Uh, I think we should preach in the way Paul did.
Um, I think of a passage like First Corinthians nine, where Paul says, what should we preach about muzzling the ox? We should preach that you should pay the pastor. And that was... I'll be parliamentary for a moment. I must stop you and ask, have you a vested interest? But Paul was saying, Paul says in that passage, God wasn't just concerned for the ox, he was concerned for us. And I think what Paul is saying, that there's a principle behind that law, that even if we don't, the application to our society would not be, you know, put petrol in the tractor, but the whole issue of those who labor are worthy of their hire, and so he argues both in First Corinthians nine as well as in Timothy that the full-time worker should be fed through his work, and the principle he sees behind the law that is in God's will and God's nature, it's a reflection of God's will and God's nature for all of his people at all
times, and you can apply that just as when the question of church discipline comes up, one quotes the law saying two or three witnesses. It's a different context, but the principle applies. And so I think we see how Paul and various New Testament books have applied the law, saying behind cultural bound expressions are principles about God's will and God's nature that are go beyond, and even where there is a New Testament equivalent. For example, putting a balcony around your roof. Well, we don't have flat roofs in all of our countries, uh, like they did, but it still means that you have responsibility as a reflection of the command, thou shalt not kill, to use those safety devices that you can as a responsible person, because God is concerned of for all lives, and so there are applications there of the principles which are part of God's eternal, unchanging nature and will, even though the constitutional nature of the law for a theocracy, uh, have no lo- no longer apply to us.
I just wanted to make one comment here to what was said here, uh, because if I understood you right, it bothered me a lot, um, because I don't think one can make any case from the Old Testament or from the New that the purpose of the Old Testament law was salvation of the Old Testament believer. No, surely it wasn't. I don't think there's No, surely it wasn't. That was a So I just didn't want to, I, you didn't say anything, but I didn't want to let that sit because I, I, I, it was a misunderstanding of law on Israel's part to think that, uh, keeping it was for salvation. Nobody has ever been justified by the deeds of the law, not in any particular period of history at all. So I'm grateful for that comment, you'll see.
Now, so you're getting near my own heart and interests. Paul quotes that thing about muzzling an ox. Uh, the term I would put on it is a legal paradigm. Now, that might not be, uh, right, but David Dauba, the great rabbinic, uh, lawyer, has argued that this was, uh, the nature of, um, the jurists, both among the Greeks and the Romans, and probably, as the rabbis claimed, among the, um, uh, the Jews as well. For instance, the Roman jurists, when they came to consider the twelve tables, which are their basic laws that governed Roman society. Of course, those basic laws did not deal with every particular situation that could ever conceivably arise.
But the Roman jurists took the view that the ancient lawgivers didn't intend they should, but, uh, wrote certain laws that were expressive of principles that could be applied in all sorts of other particular situations, and they would have called that a kind of legal paradigm, and so did the Greeks, and the, uh, rabbis seem to have, uh, of New Testament times, uh, seem to have followed that principle of jurisprudence, uh, regarding the laws of Moses as expressing certain basic principles. The principles could be applied to all sorts of situations. And if that is indeed what Paul is doing in quoting, thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn, that is a very interesting thing, uh, showing God's attitude.
The, uh, the commandment is written, not written direct to the ox. The oxen find it difficult to understand these things. Written for the consideration of the ox's owner and the people that use the ox, laying down that if they get profit from what the ox does, they must see to it that the ox likewise benefits in due proportion from his own labours. That is a principle that can be applied far beyond farming, and Paul is applying it to Christian workers, isn't he, as you have pointed. My question, and I was hoping the lawyers were going to do it, but, uh, there hasn't been enough time for the real lawyers to get going. Well, some of them, you'll say, have, forgive me, some of them have, but I am hoping that, uh, you could sort of do that kind of thing with a lot more of those particular rules.
If you ever get around to writing a book on it, sir, I would very much like to know. You'll say, yes, granted, suppose the whole thing has been ditched. My view of inspiration is that God gave those laws once. What did he do it for? Was there rhyme and reason behind God's giving it, or were there a lot of arbitrary civil servant regulations, making life difficult for people? Did God have principles in mind when he put these laws on his people? That is, uh, not subject to the question of whether they're all scrapped now, but what were the basic principles? And if you say, yes, there's evidence that these laws, uh, express God's character.
I can think in my simplicity of some, the great section of so-called casuistic laws begin with a whole lot of them, uh, devoted to the treatment of slaves. Hebrews apparently were allowed slaves. That's interesting in a book like Exodus, isn't it? But now the casuistic laws are concerned about the treatment of slaves, aren't they? And the first one of them sounds a bit, little bit like various people have been saying tonight. If slaves wanted to get out after seven years or so, they were to be let out. But if a slave should say, but I love my master, that changes the whole situation. Now he serves out of love and of free will.
That's a different story. Uh, but obviously in a book that has been concerned with delivering Israel from slavery in Egypt, if they're going to be priests to God among the nations of their time. Their way of behavior has got to be consistent with the role that God has given them, surely. Therefore, their attitude to slavery ought to reflect something of the divine w- wisdom in that particular situation, in that particular bit of history. Their attitude to business, their concern for that damage is not done to their fellow citizens and all that kind of thing.
Surely, as our friend says, this was an expression of God's mind and important for Israel to, uh, observe in their business life, in their farming life, in their social life and whatnot. And that general principle is going to apply, isn't it? If we are called upon to be priests to God, a kingdom of priests, is not that going to affect our basic attitudes, if not governed by particular laws, but is that not going to affect our basic attitudes to the way we conduct business, that we show ourselves concerned for people's feelings, for people's security, careful not to do damage to them, and thus and thus and thus.
Well, gentlemen, thank you very, very much for the discussion. I only wish I had said less myself and got the discussion going earlier, but thank you very much for participating, and if you have further insights, uh, before you go, or once more, let me say, if in your reading you subsequently come across books that, uh, you, you, you find would be helpful to me, pray be so kind as to drop me a post.
