What Is Law (1)

Law is the sense of right and wrong which includes ruling, decree, command and instruction. In the Bible law includes law of God, sense of right and wrong and instructions and regulations.

(1) What is the relationship between the law and the commandment?

The answer is the law not only includes the commandments but also stands side by side with the commandments. Because the law is a general concept. The commandment is a concrete outline without specific implementation plan. While the regulations are rules that can be used for specific operations.

For example, the commandment states that: Honor your parents. Honoring your parents is an outline without specific implementation plan. What is honoring your parents? How to honor your parents? No specific details of the operation. While regulations can be carried out by specific implementation plan. For example, how many times do you look after your parents in a month or a week? How much do you support for your parents, how to honor your parents and so on.

They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.

(a) Commandments belong to the law.

(Matthew 22:36) "Master, the commandment of the law, which one is the greatest?”

(b) The commandment is not only ten.

Ten Commandments are commandments.Loving people is also a commandment. Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:37-40 NIV)

(c) Ten Commandments written by God himself are conveyed by Moses. The two Commandments commanded by Jesus are proclaimed by his disciples. The other law is conveyed by different people, such as Moses or others. The two commandments are a summary of the Ten Commandments. The first four are a summary of loving God, the last six are a summary of loving people.

(d) Both regulations and rules are abolished. But the law is fulfilled and not abolished.

The former regulation is set aside because it was weak and useless (Hebrews 7:18 NIV)

Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence. (Colossians 2:23 NIV)

(e) The meaning of the law, the commandments, regulations and decrees are different. The scope of the law is the most extensive. Right and wrong is the law including the law of God, conscience and the law of word. For example, the Bible says that when the husband is dead, his wife is divorced from her husband's law so that it is no guilty for her to remarry. This is also the law of the world.

(2) What is the relationship between the Word of God and the law?

God's Word is Jesus. The truth comes from Jesus. The law is the shadow of the Word of God. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. What was from Jesus if the truth came through Moses? Both the law and the commandment are not the truth while only Jesus is the truth. And the ten commandments come from Moses while the truth comes from Jesus. Jesus did not destroy the law, but fulfilled the law.

For example the conscience of the law let us know that smoking is not good. But many people who still smoke are not deeply compliant with the law. How can we really follow the law? Only by the Word of God. Jesus helped us out of the law so that made us not under the law, but under the grace. It is not to say that do not obey the law, but complete the law so that we can deeply be compliant with the law.

(3) The law is the shadow, the truth is the reality.

The law is the shadow, as the Israelites killed the cattle and sheep to sacrifice. The blood of atonement was the grace of God, which replaced the sins of man and forgave the sins of man. In fact, the blood of cattle and sheep prefigured Jesus' blood. The law was the shadow and prepared the way before the truth.

God is truth. God's Word is truth too. Jesus was the Word of God who became flesh. Jesus is the reality while the law is the shadow. When we talk about a person, what we descript about the person, although is right, but is not the person himself.

What we are looking to is the truth itself which is holy. When we look to the truth, the truth instructs us the live out holiness, which is consistent with the law. The law itself is holy, is the shadow of truth.

The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. (希伯来书 10:1 NIV)

(4) Jesus is truth and the law is brought in

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Jesus said: The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit and life. And Word was God.

In the beginning God created all things of the universe with his words. For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm.

The commandment is in the Ark of the Covenant while God is above the Ark of the Covenant. Jesus is God. Jesus is truth which always exists before Moses and the world. God is truth while the law itself is not truth. Jesus is above the throne of grace which is above Ark of the Covenant while the Ten Commandments are in the Ark of the Covenant which is beneath the throne of grace. The truth is the reality which is not brought but the law is brought.

The law was brought in so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, (罗马书 5:20 NIV)

(5) Why cannot kill is the law but not the truth.In the Old Testament, Phinehas killed two people which was pleased by God.

In modern society, the government killed some prisoners. If there was a man who had killed many people and made a great sin. Then the government ordered the army's police to shoot the criminal. A police killed this man. Then did the police crime? No crime but contribution. He did not sin but follow the truth.

Let's read the Bible at Numbers 25:6-13.Then an Israelite man brought into the camp a Midianite woman right before the eyes of Moses and the whole assembly of Israel while they were weeping at the entrance to the tent of meeting. When Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, saw this, he left the assembly, took a spear in his hand and followed the Israelite into the tent. He drove the spear into both of them, right through the Israelite man and into the woman’s stomach. Then the plague against the Israelites was stopped; but those who died in the plague numbered 24,000. The Lord said to Moses, “Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, has turned my anger away from the Israelites. Since he was as zealous for my honor among them as I am, I did not put an end to them in my zeal. Therefore tell him I am making my covenant of peace with him. He and his descendants will have a covenant of a lasting priesthood, because he was zealous for the honor of his God and made atonement for the Israelites.” (Numbers 25:6-13)

In modern society, the government killed some prisoners. If there was a man who had killed many people and made a great sin. Then the government ordered the army's police to shoot the criminal. A police killed this man. Then did the police crime? No crime but contribution. He did not sin but follow the truth.

Did Phinehas follow the truth or broke the truth? The police also killed, did he crime? Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God. God gave Caesar the power to kill. While in the church, we cannot kill for it is both the law of God and the country.

And the power of the earth is given by God. So why cannot kill is the law but not the truth. Of course we must not murder. Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer. On the contrary we should love our enemies, pray for those who persecute us.