Conclusion: The Old Testament God of Love
Reading the Torah as the Law of Faith
Jesus and his first followers modeled a way of reading Scripture that goes beyond our modern exegetical methods. The original sense of the text, insofar as we may recover it, remains foundational, as in exegesis, but the Spirit working in God’s people helps us to apply those principles in new ways in new situations. In that way, the message remains alive and fresh for each generation and new cultural setting, because its principles address many of the pressing issues that we face.
Reading by the Spirit and with the heart is the way Jesus and the first apostolic church read the Scriptures they had, what we call the Old Testament. Paul contrasts two ways of reading the law: the law of works and the law of faith (Rom 3:27). 1 That is, we may wrongly approach the law as a means of self-justification, or we may approach it as a witness to the way of reliance on (faith in) God’s covenant grace. Thus God’s own people, pursuing the law’s righteousness as if it were achieved by works, failed to achieve it because they did not pursue it by faith, by trust in the God of the covenant who would graciously transform them (Rom 9:31–32). 2 As a merely external standard, the law could pronounce death; but its principles could instead be written in the heart by the Spirit (8:2). The latter way is reading with faith.
Far from annulling the law by teaching that trust in God’s action in Christ makes us right with God, Paul insists that he supports the law (Rom 3:31). Then he goes on to argue his case for this principle directly from the law, which in his circles included the entire Pentateuch. In Romans 4, then, Paul argues from Abraham’s example in Gen 15:6. Paul uses the context in Genesis to point out that God accounted Abraham as righteous even years before he was circumcised (Rom 4:10), so that this experience is possible without the outward sign of circumcision (4:11).
Paul develops his case further by drawing an analogy between Moses’s era and his own: salvation and God’s word came in both eras. Just as God himself redeemed Israel, bringing his people through the sea and giving them the Torah (Deut 30:12–13), so now God himself brought Jesus down and raised him from the dead (Rom 10:6–7). Just as God enjoined Israel to follow the law by keeping it in their heart and mouth (Deut 30:14), so now his message, the good news inviting faith, resides in the heart and is expressed by the mouth (Rom 10:8–10).
Deuteronomy 30:12–14a
Paul’s application in Romans 10:6–10
Do not say, “Who will ascend to heaven?”b (to bring down Torah, God’s gift; 30:12)
Do not say, “Who will ascend to heaven?” (to bring down Christ, God’s gift; 10:6)
Do not say, “Who will descend into the deep?” (to experience redemption again, crossing the “sea”; 30:13)
Do not say, “Who will descend into the abyss?”c (to experience salvation again, raising Christ from the dead; 10:7)
The Word is near you (the Torah; 30:14)
The word is near you (the message of faith we now preach, 10:8)
It is in your mouth and in your heart (30:14; as Torah was to be recited continually [Deut 6:6–7])
It is in your mouth and in your heart: confess with the mouth Jesus is Lord, and believe with the heart that God raised him (10:9–10)
a. I borrow this chart from Keener, Romans, 126.
b. In later Jewish traditions, Moses ascended all the way to heaven to receive the Torah (Sipre Deut. 49.2.1).
c. The LXX uses this term at times for the depths of the sea (e.g., Job 28:14; 38:16, 30; Ps 33:7; Sir 24:29; Pr Man 3), sometimes, as here, in contrast to heaven (Ps 107:26).
Paul argues by analogy from God’s salvation and word in Moses’s era to God’s way of saving and God’s word in Paul’s own era of the new covenant. In this context, Paul speaks of “faith that comes from hearing” (or from what is heard; Rom 10:17), probably equivalent to “hearing with faith” (Gal 3:2). Since most people in antiquity could receive the message about Christ only orally, Paul speaks of “hearing with faith,” but in our era of wider literacy and the availability of apostolic Scripture, we might also speak, as we have spoken above, of “reading with faith” (indeed, for some people today, that will be on their tablet or iPhone so long as the power grid holds up). 3 As noted earlier, faith is the sound and appropriate response to God’s reliability.
The Spirit of the Law: Continuing Principles, Adjusted Content
The principles of the law endure, but because God gave the law in a specific cultural setting and for specific circumstances in salvation history, the specifics of obedience look different in different times.
The God of the Old Testament remains the same God in the New Testament and today, despite addressing different sorts of circumstances. Salvation has always been by grace through faith, expressed by obedience (Gen 15:6; cf. 6:8). God chose Israel not because of their righteousness (Deut 9:4–6) or their greatness, but because of his love (Deut 7:7–9; cf. Eph 2:8–10). The God of Deuteronomy longs for our obedience for our good (Deut 5:29; 30:19–20); likewise, Paul expects faith to be expressed by obedience (Rom 1:5; 16:25). 4 God writes his law in the hearts of his people by the Spirit (Rom 8:2; cf. 2 Cor 3:3); as participants in a new creation, we should live new life by God’s gift of righteousness (Rom 6:4, 11). 5
This does not mean that nothing has changed. In Scripture, covenant faithfulness is always expressed through obedience; it grows from a relationship with God initiated by God himself. Yet the specific content of obedience may change from one era to another, not only in response to changes in culture but in response to developments in God’s revelation or his plan of salvation in history. In Moses’s day, no one could protest, “Since Abraham did not keep the law against planting trees in worship, neither will I” (cf. Gen 21:33; Deut 16:21), or, “Since Jacob could marry sisters, so can I” (cf. Gen 29:30; Lev 18:18), or, “Since Jacob could set up a pillar for worship, so can I” (cf. Gen 28:22; 31:13; 35:14; Lev 26:1; Deut 16:22).
Likewise, the coming of Jesus the promised deliverer changed the relevance of specific content, shifting the emphasis from some outward signs of the covenant to fuller inner transformation (cf. Rom 2:29; Col 2:16–17; Heb 8:5; 10:1) by the promised eschatological Spirit (Ezek 36:27). For that matter (as some other Jewish interpreters also recognized), some stipulations of the Torah could not be observed literally once the temple was destroyed, or outside the holy land, or in non-agrarian settings. No one by Paul’s day, or for that matter by Ezekiel’s day, could honestly expect otherwise.
Spirit of the Law in Ancient Israel
Long before Jesus came, Scripture already illustrated the difference between following God legalistically and following him from the heart. Jewish sages widely recognized this principle, even if they did not always apply it the way that Jesus did. 6 Eli the respected high priest undoubtedly knew God’s commandments better than did Hannah, but God responds to her humble heart, whereas Eli resists God’s demands (1 Sam 1:9–28; 2:27–36; 3:12–18). After God gives Israel a great victory through Jonathan’s courage and faith (1 Sam 14:6–12), Saul wants to kill him to honor a fast that Saul has declared (14:24, 43–45)—a fast that proves to be a bad idea anyway (14:29–34).
Whereas Saul refuses to carry out a full slaughter of the Amalekites and their animals, which God had commanded (1 Sam 15:3, 14–29), he slaughters all the priests and their animals, the antithesis of God’s will (22:18–19). This is because the high priest gave bread (21:4–6) to David, a man after God’s heart (13:14) whom Saul feared. The priest giving David sacred bread, incidentally, is used by Jesus to illustrate his principle of meeting hunger over always observing ritual demands, as already noted (Mark 2:26; Matt 12:3–4; cf. John 2:3–10); Jesus and his hearers naturally favor the high priest over Saul. Saul’s zeal for Israel leads him to kill Gibeonites (2 Sam 21:2) despite the ancestral covenant (Josh 9:19–20), and thereby brings judgment against Israel and ultimately his own household (2 Sam 21:1, 6).
When Hezekiah and his princes realize that not enough priests will be ready to sacrifice the Passover for all the people, they reschedule the Passover (2 Chr 30:2–5). The participation of more of the people is more valuable in God’s sight than the specific date; moreover, in response to Hezekiah’s prayer, God overlooks that many of the people, though seeking God, have not consecrated themselves ritually beforehand (30:17–20). The narrative is clear that God favors Hezekiah and this Passover celebration (30:12, 20, 27). The people come closer to fulfilling the spirit of the law here than they have done for generations, and God is pleased, despite several breaches of ritual practice. 7
Compare also the priest and the Levite in Jesus’s story of the good Samaritan. Priests and Levites could render themselves ritually impure by touching a dead body, and the victim beside the road appears to be quite possibly dead (Luke 10:30). 8 These ministers are not heading to Jerusalem to serve but back to Jericho, where many wealthy priests lived; nevertheless, they do not risk helping someone who might be dead anyway. Instead, a despised Samaritan rescues the Jewish stranger (10:33–35). 9
In other words, in today’s language, the spirit of the law often took precedence over its details (or in some of these cases, over other attempted expressions of zeal). In Romans 7, Paul depicts a wrong approach to the law, based on the mind knowing what is right without experiencing and recognizing a new, pure identity in Christ. In contrast to the expectations of some ancient thinkers, merely knowing what was right did not produce right volition as long as the mind found itself subject to the passions rather than empowered by God’s Spirit. 10
By contrast, one could keep the spirit of the law by the Holy Spirit in one’s heart (Rom 8:2). 11 The prophet Ezekiel had already promised that God would wash the hearts of his people and give them new hearts and spirits. By his Spirit in them they would fulfill his laws (Ezek 36:25–27). Paul was not the only early Christian writer to recognize this. When Jesus refers to being born of water and one’s spirit being born of the Spirit, he plainly evokes Ezekiel’s promise (John 3:5–6); he goes on to compare God’s Spirit with wind in 3:8, an image from Ezekiel’s following chapter (Ezek 37:9–14). Fulfilling God’s covenant stipulations by the Spirit looks different than the old way of keeping commandments.
Although Paul affirms that believers are not under the law in the sense of needing it for justification, he does expect believers to fulfill the moral principles of the law. Unfortunately, Christians disagree among ourselves widely on how to distinguish transcultural principles from their concrete applications, and on the degree of continuity between the law enshrined in the Pentateuch and what rules we should follow as Christians.
Despite disputes regarding details, certainly we can look for areas of continuity, for example, eternal principles (albeit expressed in concrete cultural forms), as Jesus did. We can look for God’s heart in the Torah (e.g., in Exod 33:19–34:7). The Spirit was often dramatically active in ancient Israel (e.g., 1 Sam 10:5–6, 10; 19:20–24), including in prophetically inspired worship (1 Chr 25:1–3); surely in the new covenant era (Acts 2:17–18) we should expect not less but more experience of the eschatologically outpoured Spirit.
Romans 14 suggests that Paul does not require Gentile Christians to practice the kashrut, or food purity customs, that were meant to separate Israel from the nations (Deut 14:2–3). (The principles of being set apart for God and that even our eating and drinking should glorify God remain, but they are expressed differently.)
His remarks about special holy days (Rom 14:5–6; cf. Gal 4:10; Col 2:16) are more complicated. Assuming that Paul includes the sabbath, 12 how do we reconcile his theology here with other parts of Scripture? God himself models the sabbath principle for Israel in creation (Gen 2:2–3); it does not begin with Moses. Sabbath violation incurs a death penalty under the law (Exod 31:14–15; 35:2; Num 15:32–36), so it appears to be something that God takes quite seriously. God promises to welcome Gentiles into his covenant, provided they observe his sabbaths (Isa 56:6–7). Jesus used his authority to clarify the ideal character of the sabbath in some respects (e.g., Mark 2:25–28), but he did not abolish it. 13
If Paul supports the spirit of the law, would he change one of the Ten Commandments with no explanation? Some argue that verses such as the present ones offer sufficient explanations. Others struggle with this argument. Perhaps Paul recognized that most slaves and Gentiles could not get off work; they belonged to communities that did not observe the sabbath. Perhaps Paul is being flexible about how the sabbath should be observed (for example, on which day, although Acts continues to apply the term consistently to the day of its regular observance—Acts 13:14, 27, 42, 44; 15:21; 16:13; 17:2; 18:4). 14
Perhaps, and I think this somewhat more likely, Paul was saying that it was all right to revere special days such as the sabbath, but all right also if one revered every day. In the case of the sabbath, this would mean that we would devote not only one special day a week to God, but seek to devote all our time to him. Just as Paul’s interest was in spiritual circumcision more than in the physical circumcision that had long symbolized it (Rom 2:29), physically a day of rest is likely good for us, but spiritually we can walk in God’s peace every day, resting in him. One caveat should be noted here: using the continual sabbath idea as an excuse not to rest at all, as I suspect some busy Christians do, defeats the still-valid point for which God originally instituted the sabbath.
In any case, the biblical sabbath principle applied to livestock and agricultural land as well as to people (Exod 20:10; 23:11–12; Lev 25:4; Deut 5:14), probably on the principle that living things need time to rest and rejuvenate. We are created beings who must acknowledge our good limitations. It is therefore at least wise, whatever one’s theology on the particulars, that humans observe a day of rest. I doubt that we should say that, because we are not under the law, our mortal bodies no longer need a day of rest. Nor should we say, because we are zealous for the sabbath, that we are so religious that we will abstain from work seven days a week. 15
Most matters are less difficult to resolve than the sabbath question. To further understand Paul’s approach to the law, it is valuable to digress to examine the law itself. Its principles invite interpreters to sensitively apply it in new ways when it moves beyond the settings for which its concrete forms were first designed.
Oh, I love your law so much!
All day long I am considering it! (Ps 119:97)
Because Jesus’s and Paul’s hermeneutics address especially, and today most controversially, the law, it is valuable to see how culturally sensitive exegesis invites us to interpret the law. Jesus and Paul understood the law appropriately, and their approach thus invites considerations for how we should interpret Scripture more generally. In sum, we must value its principles over culture-specific applications—although it must be admitted that in practice there is a wide range of difference among interpreters today over which are the universal principles and which are the culture-specific applications! 16
Comparing Israel’s Laws with Those of Her Neighbors
If we compare Israel’s law with those of Israel’s neighbors, we quickly find shared legal categories as well as some differences in ethics. The shared categories show us what kinds of issues ancient Near Eastern legal collections normally addressed. Consider (or at least skim) the following chart of comparisons.
Israelite laws
Other ancient Near Eastern laws (samples from Hammurabi, Eshnunna)
Comment
Rank distinction only between slave and free
Social rank in laws, e.g., Hamm. 196–204
Israel’s laws highly distinctive
Exod 21:6: boring of slave’s ear
Cutting off slave’s ear, cf. Hamm. 282; brand in Eshnunna 51–52; Hamm. 226
Ear or other mark to demonstrate ownership (Hamm.) or loyalty (Exodus)
Exod 21:7: debt slavery
Hamm. 117–19: debt slavery
Debt slavery
Exod 21:8; cf. Lev 25:23–28
Eshnunna 39
Redeeming “property”
Exod 21:9; cf. Gen 21:10
Hamm. 170–74: slaves’ children inherit if father accepts them
Slaves’ children may get the inheritance of the slaveholder
Exod 21:10; 22:16
Returning the dowry, Hamm. 137–38
Monetary arrangements for marriage
Exod 21:12–14
Intention at issue, Hamm. 206–7
Intention matters
Exod 21:15, 17
Hamm. 195
Israel’s treatment harsher
Exod 21:16; cf. Deut 24:7
Hamm. 14
Death penalty for kidnaping (i.e., slave-trading apart from war captives)
Exod 21:18–19
Hamm. 206
Compensation for injuries caused
Exod 21:20–21: punishment for killing a slave, provided the cause of death is proven (through analogy with free—21:18–19)
cf. monetary payment for killing another’s slave, but death for their wife or child, Eshnunna 22–24
Laws economically valued free persons more than slaves
Exod 21:22
Hamm. 209–14 (rank-based) (cf. Eccl 6:5)
Penalties for accidentally killing a fetus, though more rank-based in Hamm.
Exod 21:23
Contrast Hamm. 210: another woman executed (qualified by class, 212, 214)
Higher penalty if wife also dies; but whereas the killer dies in the Exodus law, the killer’s daughter dies in Hammurabi; the latter is also class-based
Exod 21:23–25
Hamm. 196–97 (but determined by rank—198–99, 201–4)
Lex Talionis, but determined by rank in Hamm.
Exod 21:26–27
Contrast Hamm. 199 (for another’s slave)
Laws concerning slaves’ injuries—but whereas Hammurabi compensates the slaveholder, Exodus compensates the slave
Exod 21:28
Hamm. 250
Limits to liability (for unanticipated goring by one’s ox)
Exod 21:29
Eshnunna 54—only ½ mina of silver (OT harsher); Eshnunna 58, however: death for wall negligence; Hamm. 251: ½ mina of silver; but Hamm. 229: capital negligence on house
Severe penalties for negligence (regarding one’s bull; Eshnunna and Hammurabi inconsistent in penalties)
Exod 21:30–32
monetary payment for killing slave, death for wife or child in Eshnunna 22–24
Legal liability greater for free person (i.e., closer relation)
Exod 21:32: Owner and bull punished
Eshnunna 55: 15 shekels, no penalty for ox; Hamm. 252: ⅓ mina of silver
Penalties for negligence when slaves killed
Exod 21:33–34
Eshnunna 58; Hamm. 229, 251; cf. wall negligence above at Exod 21:29
More about negligence
Exod 21:35–36
Eshnunna 53
Ox gores another ox: same in both
Exod 22 (assumed)
Eshnunna 40; capital offense not to have sales documentation—Hamm. 7, 9–12
Property ownership
Exod 22:1–4: may kill a thief only if he breaks in at night (i.e., in potential self-defense)
Eshnunna 12–13 (thief dies if breakin is at night); harsher for state property in Hamm. 6, 8; death for all thieves in Hamm. 21–23, 25
Permissible to kill thieves—sometimes
Exod 22:5
Cf. Eshnunna 5 (negligence)
Restitution
Exod 22:7, double
Hamm. 126
Restitution twofold
Exod 22:8
Hamm. 120–26
Laws regarding deposits
Exod 22:10–11: oaths if deposit is lost
The depository must swear an oath before the god his house is burglarized: Eshnunna 37; cf. Hamm. 20, 120, 249
Oaths
Exod 22:12 (cf. 22:14–15)
Eshnunna 36–37; Hamm. 249
Losing hired or borrowed animals
Exod 22:14–15
Cf. Hamm. 249
Losing hired or borrowed animals
Exod 22:16–17
Practice of brideprice in many cultures
Exod 22:18: death for sorcery
Contrast widespread use of magic in pagan antiquity; but sorcery and murder are cap. offenses in Hamm. 1–2
Exod 22:19
Contrast possible Canaanite ritual practice and certain Canaanite mythical example
Exod 22:20
Contrast virtually universal ancient polytheism; sacrifice also a virtually universal practice
Exod 22:21–24: general moral principle, not casuistic law
Exod 23:8
Universal ancient principle condemning unjust judges (Hamm. 5)
All cultures officially opposed unjust judges and bribery
Lev 18: incest laws
Hamm. 154–58
Nearly all cultures have incest prohibitions, but details vary from one culture to another
Lev 25:24
Cf. Eshnunna 39; cf. Exod 21:8
But no other ANE parallels to protection of families’ land and rights by Jubilee, which honors families, stability of agrarian society based on land, and prevents monopolistic accumulation of capital; cf. transcultural ethic in Lev 25:35
Num 6:3–4: Nazirite’s abstention from wine
Cf. Hamm. 110: sacred women must abstain from wine, on penalty of death
Analogy
Deut 18: no divination
Contrast divination throughout ANE (e.g., Mesopotamian baru diviners)
Contrast
Deut. 19:15–21, false witnesses suffer the penalty they would have brought on the accused (death in capital cases)
Hamm. 1–3 (death for false witnesses in capital cases); Hamm. 4 (whatever the accuser would have suffered for other charges)
Same
Deut. 21:1–9 (cf. bloodguilt in Gen 4:10; Num 35:33): if the perpetrator is not found, the locality takes responsibility
Cf. cursing a place with bloodguilt, Aqhat, 2 Sam. 1; Locality takes responsibility: Hamm. 23; for life, they pay 1 mina (Hamm. 24)
Corporate responsibility for blood shed
Deut 21:18–21: death for habitually rebellious sons
Hamm. 168–69: Disinheriting sons only after 2nd warning and only if the offense is extreme
Rebellious sons: Israel harsher
Deut 22:5: women wearing man’s clothes or the reverse
Ancient Near Eastern transvestitism; sometimes possibly magical transvestitism (Aqhat, Hittites; cf. also 2 Sam 3:29)
Deut 22:22: death for all adulterers
Hamm. 129: death by drowning, unless the aggrieved husband wishes to spare his wife (in which case her paramour is also spared)
Israel’s law harsher
Deut 22:25
Eshnunna 26; Hamm. 130
Death sentence for raping betrothed virgins, the same
Deut 22:29; cf. Exod 22:16–17
For genuine marriage, contract with parents is essential (Eshnunna 27); cohabitation also essential to it (Eshnunna 28); but insufficient without contract (Eshnunna 27); contract also Hamm. 128
Economic character of marriage arrangements
Deut 23:15–16: do not return a slave to the slaveholder
Contrast Eshnunna 49–50: not returning a slave is theft; Hamm. 15–16, 19: the penalty for harboring an escaped slave is death
Israel’s law supports the escaped slave; Hammurabi supports the slaveholder
Deut 23:17; cf. Lev 21:9 Prohibits cult prostitutes
Hamm. 181 (cf. Gen. 38:15): regulates cult prostitutes (a father may dedicate his daughter as a prostitute, but, because she cannot marry, he must nevertheless provide for her)
Israel prohibits cult prostitution
Deut 24:1–4: husband must provide his wife ability to remarry if he divorces her
Divorce more opposed in Eshnunna 59; the wife may leave if the court accepts her complaint, Hamm. 142; husband has to return her dowry (Hamm. 138–40), unless she’s at fault (Hamm. 141) (thus dowry protects her economically and gives both incentive to preserve marriage). Remarriage: cf. 2Sam. 3:14–16; Eshnunna 29; Hamm. 134–37
Israel more lenient on divorce
Deut 24:16: children and parents are not to be executed for each other (cf. Num 26:11; 2 Kgs 14:6; Ezek 18:20)
Contrast Hamm. 210: If a man killed another’s daughter, they execute his daughter -Hamm. 230: If a house collapses and kills the owner’s son, the builder’s son is executed
Familial responsibility is different: Hammurabi punishes the guilty person’s family members, whereas Deuteronomy prohibits this action
Differences from the Approaches of Israel’s Contemporaries
And what other nation is so great as to have such righteous decrees and laws as this body of laws I am setting before you today? (Deut 4:8, NIV)
Despite a shared legal milieu and thus many parallels, there are some noteworthy contrasts. The Ten Commandments lack any exact parallel; usually the closest cited parallels are a much longer Egyptian list of Negative Confessions, which also include such praiseworthy denials as, “I have never eaten human dung.” 17 Another major contrast was the matter of social rank. All other ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean laws were class-based in penalties with respect to victims and perpetrators. Israel has the only known ancient Near Eastern legal collection that refuses to take class into account (with the exception of the division between slave and free, noted below).
Some laws may openly oppose contemporary customs or ideas; thus Exod 22:19 condemns human intercourse with animals, even though pagan myths depict deities sometimes turning into animals before intercourse. Sacrificing to other gods is a capital offense in Exod 22:20, but was obviously promoted by nearly all surrounding cultures. Surrounding cultures exploited various forms of divination, but in Israel it was a capital offense, and is expressly contrasted with the behavior of surrounding nations (Deut 18:9–14).
Some contrasts appear among significant formal commonalities. Canaanites, like Israelites, had thank offerings, atonement offerings, sin offerings, and so forth, but Canaanites also had sacrifices to produce rain and fertility, whereas Israel fertility came through observing God’s covenant. 18 Israel had ritual purity laws about what was clean and unclean, but Hittites used such rules as magical prophylaxis against demons. 19 Most cultures had food prohibitions; Israel’s are distinctive to keep them separate from the nations (cf. Lev 11:44–45; Deut 14:2–3), a separation no longer needed for believers under the new covenant, since they are consecrated and empowered for mission.
Concessions to Human Sinfulness
Recall again Mark 10:5: “Moses gave you this commandment because your hearts were hard.” As noted in chapter 14, Jesus taught that God’s ideal was actually higher than the requirements of the law, which often made accommodations for human sinfulness. Thus the law regulated and limited sin rather than changed hearts and all mores.
In no society do civil laws represent the ideal of virtue; they are simply a minimum standard to enable society to work together. Israel’s laws at least limited sin, and they often, though not on every matter, did so more than surrounding cultures (e.g., by Israelites being expected to offer refuge to escaped slaves and to avoid judging by class divisions). Yet both Israel’s history and ways that many Muslims in areas of sharia law circumvent it show that laws do not transform hearts, even if in certain periods they may improve the social conditions that affect hearts. Only Christ in the heart delivers us from sin, and even most genuinely committed Christians do not walk in the light of that reality continually.
We thus need to be careful about extrapolating ethics from law. Jesus was clear that God’s morality is higher than the Law. That’s why, as noted earlier, Israel’s civil law said: You shall not kill or commit adultery, but Jesus said, You shall not want to kill or commit adultery. If we ignore the laws’ genre, we will misunderstand God’s character and intention.
When I teach hermeneutics, I usually treat laws before I treat most other genres, so that students can see how contextualized for ancient Israel’s cultural context the instructions were. This divine contextualization 20 provides students a model for approaching all of Scripture, since all of it originally addressed particular cultures (obvious enough from noticing the particular languages in which it was written). To illustrate the degree to which this is the case, I ask students how many of them are against slavery. Nearly everyone raises their hands. I then ask students how many of them believe that the Bible is God’s Word in at least some sense; because of the settings in which I teach, the vast majority of students raise their hands. (Some of the rest just never raise their hands regardless of what I ask.)
Then I turn to some concrete issues: laws that are less than God’s ideal. Take, for example, indentured servants. If a slaveholder beats the slave there is punishment, analogous to that of a free person (Exod 21:18–21). But the slave is still called the slaveholder’s property or (literally) “money” (Exod 21:21); that is, the slaveholder paid money for the slave. Thus the case still differs from the case of free persons. Likewise, sexual abuse of slave women was punished but not as severely as if the slave were free (cf. Lev 19:20 with Deut 22:25–26). 21 The law did not institute or ratify slavery; it in fact regulated and thus reduced abuses in a contemporary custom. But it did not abolish it. Was this God’s ideal?
Most of us today regard polygyny (a husband holding multiple wives) as wrong because it is unfair to the wives. Yet the law regulated it by prohibiting sororal polygyny (such as Jacob’s involuntary and uncomfortable situation) and royal polygyny (such as Solomon’s); it did not abolish it. 22 Likewise the law tolerated divorce, but, as we have noted, Jesus explicitly says that this was not God’s ideal. He appeals instead to the creation story for God’s ideal: one husband and one wife become one flesh, i.e., constituting one new family unit.
Many also place holy war in this category. 23 If entire societies could be depraved beyond hope, God might execute corporate capital punishment through judgments. (Whether we like it or not—most of us likely don’t—we cannot believe in a sovereign God and deny judgment: even all human life stands under the sentence of death.) God could execute judgment through Israel as well as through any other means. Scripture suggests that Canaan had eventually become corrupt enough for such an invasion (Gen 15:16). Yet holy war was to be limited to the land, carried out only under YHWH’s orders (although Gen 14 also depicts a “just war” to liberate slaves), and devoting people and objects to deities for destruction was a culturally understood practice.
Moreover, Canaanites would (and eventually did) entice Israel to apostasy (Deut 7:4), leading to the shedding of even more innocent blood (Ps 106:34–39, esp. 37–38). Thousands of urns from Carthage containing cremated babies suggests what a Canaanite-related culture could do. 24 Canaanite towns’ earlier seasonal revolts against Egypt illustrate that merely temporary subjugation would not last. Reading the Pentateuch as a whole even suggests that God had saved these Canaanites’ ancestors, and thus given these Canaanites life to begin with, through Joseph’s wisdom regarding famine centuries earlier (Gen 50:20). Canaanites could join Israel in allegiance to Israel’s God (e.g., Josh 6:25; cf. the lesser commitment in 9:1–10:11), and their refusal to do so was so conspicuously foolish that it, like Pharaoh’s hardness of heart, is explained as God’s judgment (Josh 11:20). Finally, even the conquest lists in Joshua must be taken according to their genre, like other known lists of this kind from antiquity, as summary statements of victories, not genuine total annihilation. People often fled their towns in advance of approaching armies and resettled them after the armies left.
But was this ever God’s ideal? Scripture explicitly declares that God does not desire the death of even the wicked (Ezek 18:23, 32). Jesus reveals an ideal higher than that in Joshua. He calls us to love our enemies (Matt 5:43–44), and he proved it by how he loved us when we were his enemies (Rom 5:8–10; cf. Luke 23:34).
Understanding and Applying God’s Law Today
God originally gave these laws to an ancient Near Eastern people addressing a different legal milieu than ours today, although subsequent legal systems have retained many legal categories and approaches, such as Lex Talionis, issues of negligence and liability, demands for evidence, and consideration of intention.
Culture determined the legal issues to be addressed, but not necessarily the content. Capital sentences reveal some issues that the law took quite seriously. It prescribed death sentences for murder, sorcery, idolatry and blasphemy, sabbath violation, persistent drunken rebellion against parents, kidnapping (slave trading), and sex outside of marriage (adultery; premarital sex with a man other than one’s future husband; homosexual intercourse; and intercourse with animals). No one would suggest that Israel’s laws invite us to execute capital punishment for these offenses in the church today; this was a civil law with penalties intended as deterrents in society (Deut 13:10–11; 17:12–13; 19:18–20; 21:21). Nevertheless, they do suggest that Israel’s God deemed all of these offenses serious; otherwise he presumably would have deemed execution too excessive.
But does this mean that God did not take other offenses seriously? Would it not be far better to abolish slavery than to merely regulate it? (I have suggested elsewhere that, although Paul later wrote in a culture where abolition was not a practical option, his ethics would support abolition.) 25 Remember also points where Jesus demands an ethic higher than the law, such as avoiding desiring another’s spouse, breaking one’s marriage, and the like.
Some principles in the law are stated quite overtly in ways that fairly easily translate beyond local culture—the Ten Commandments, for example (apodictic rather than casuistic law). The law also includes other explicit principles based on God’s values, such as the following:
• Principles that uphold the value of others: Be kind to foreigners in the land for you were foreigners in Egypt (Lev 19:34; Deut 10:19); Love your neighbor as yourself (Lev 19:18)
• Ethical principles behind the mere limitations of sin
• Principles in which God seeks to inculcate character in his people by how they habitually treat other creatures: Don’t muzzle the threshing ox (Deut 25:4), don’t take a mother bird with her young (Deut 22:6), give sabbath rest to your animals (Exod 23:12; Deut 5:14)
In other cases we must work harder to understand the principles behind the rules, or to “recontextualize” the message for our own setting. For example, homeowners must have a parapet around their roof to avoid incurring bloodguilt (Deut 22:8). Why? People could entertain neighbors on their flat roofs, and someone could fall from the roof and die or be injured. This is a safety regulation, and it invites us to care for our neighbors’ safety today. For many of us, this includes matters such as driving carefully, making passengers wear seatbelts, and keeping our personal and church property safe where visitors might otherwise be injured (courts today continue to regulate the contours of property liability).
Tithing was already an ancient Near Eastern custom 26 and is only one facet of a much larger network of teaching about stewardship in the Torah. Israelites offered the firstborn of their flocks to the Lord, the firstfruits of their harvest, and various other sacrifices, some mandatory and some voluntary. Agrarian produce and the firstborn of the flock (e.g., Deut 14:22–23) were merely part of the system of offerings to the Lord. The tithes went to support the landless priests and Levites, and for a festival, or giant party, every third year (Deut 26:12). Although ancient Israel was an agrarian society, those traveling long distances to the sanctuary could first convert the tithe to a monetary equivalent (Deut 14:24–25).
Sometimes popular preachers warn their listeners that if they do not bring their tithes to the storehouse, they are robbing God (Mal 3:8–10). 27 They do not always mention that the storehouse was the granary where food was kept for feeding the priests and Levites who ministered in the temple. It was for supporting the work of ministry; priests and Levites also ate portions of animal sacrifices once they were sacrificed—and thus cooked—on the altar. If people must pay tithes because the law requires it, and churches or ministries do not use those tithes for the purposes designated in Scripture (supporting ministers and throwing a triennial party), are the churches or ministries robbing God?
Jesus articulates demands for stewardship more exacting than the Torah, yet without appealing to tithing. Jesus highlights the heart of biblical stewardship: we and therefore everything we have belongs to God (Luke 12:33; 14:33). He addresses tithing only in connection with the religious people of his day who tithed so scrupulously, affirming that they were right to do so, but warning that they had missed greater biblical demands such as justice and love (Matt 23:23//Luke 11:42; cf. Luke 18:12).
Is the emphasis some churches lay on the “tithe” (as opposed to more holistic biblical teaching on stewardship) more a matter of tradition than of inductive study of the Bible? (It does not appear in the New Testament except as a practice associated with Pharisees or, in Hebrews, associated with the levitical system.) Would our understanding of stewardship be more well rounded if we read the entirety of the much larger biblical witness about the subject?
Conclusion: The Old Testament God of Love
The supposed contrast between the NT God of love and the OT God of wrath owes more to Marcion than to the principles of the Torah. The civil and ritual laws in the Torah expressed divine righteousness in a limited but culturally relevant way. Ultimately, however, the Torah already revealed God’s heart in many respects. The theology of Deuteronomy emphasizes God loving and choosing his people (Deut 7:6–9; 4:37; 9:5–6; 10:15; 14:2). Love for God likewise demands obedience (6:4–6; 11:1; 19:9; 30:16) and fidelity to God (avoiding false gods, 6:4–5; 13:6–10). God summons his people to circumcise their hearts (10:16; cf. Lev 26:41; Jer 4:4; 9:26), and promises to circumcise their hearts so they may love him fully (Deut 30:6).
The God of the Old Testament period did not undergo evangelical conversion just prior to the New. He had often called his people to himself for their own good (Jer 2:13; Hos 13:9). He lamented with the pain of spurned love or a forsaken parent when his people turned after other gods (Deut 32:18; Jer 3:1–2; Hos 1:2; 11:1–4), but yearned to restore them to himself (Jer 31:20; Hos 2:14–23). His heart broke when he had to punish his people (e.g., Judg 10:16; Hos 11:8–9). Indeed, recalling two cities that God overturned and burned (Deut 29:23), the Lord pleads, “How can I treat you like Admah? How can I make you like Zeboiim? [Instead] my heart is overturned and my compassions burn together” (Hos 11:8). 28
Israel’s loving God, her betrayed and wounded lover, is ultimately fully revealed in Jesus as the God of the cross, the God who would rather bear our pain than let us be estranged from him forever.