Why The Law?

(Galatians 3:19)

We know as Christians that God promised to Abraham that he and His offspring would inherit the world. This covenant, based on the righteousness by faith that Abraham had, was the covenant that we hope to attain today. In fact, that covenant to Abraham forms and underpins what we know as the New Covenant today.

Now if we talk about a “New” covenant, that presumes there was an older covenant that the new one replaced. That Old Covenant was the covenant of the law that God gave to the children of Israel after they came up out of Egypt. God spoke to Moses and through him God gave His people the law and the commandments.

But since the original covenant given to Abraham was based upon faith, and the New Covenant also is based upon faith, then why did God have another covenant in between that was NOT based upon faith, but was based upon law? The simple answer is given in this scripture in Galatians 3:19.

Transgressions of Sin

The scripture tells us this:

”Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, till the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made; and it was ordained by angels through an intermediary.” (Galatians 3:19)

It was because of the transgressions of man that God gave the law.

The sinfulness of mankind was well documented in the years prior to the giving of the law to Moses. We saw that God destroyed the world by flood in the time of Noah, and prior to the destruction God stated that He was sorry that He had made man because man was so corrupt and sinful.

Likewise we saw the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah because of the sin that existed in those two cities and surrounds. Their sins were stated to have been so bad that the cries of the people had reached to heaven.

If we consider the nature of the world at the time of Moses, before he was commissioned by God, there was no law. The people of Israel had been living in Egypt for generations and doubtless had picked up the sinfulness of idolatry as practised in Egypt. It is evident that they were familiar with the pagan forms of worship, since they made the golden effigy of a bull and worshipped it, rather than God, while Moses was on the mountain. And the nature of their worship of this idol was as pagan as any of the evil nations of the time, for they got drunk and rose to dance before the false-god idol.

Do not think for one minute that when Israel set out on their journey from Egypt they were somehow a holy and righteous nation. They were not. Sin was rampant in the world, and rampant in the children of Israel when they first left Egypt. They had yet to learn how to worship God, and virtually all of those who left Egypt died in the wilderness and did not make it to the Promised Land. And this happened because they continued to walk in sin and fall victim to sin even after they had the law.

Why the Law?

This brings us logically then to the reason the law was given. The law was given to rein in the sinfulness of the Israelites. It was given so that they would turn and seek God.

In the law there is great wisdom. It sets a standard for living that is acceptable to God and showed the people of Israel the way that they were meant to live and worship the God of their fathers. Any person who lives by the tenets of the law, whether an Israelite or not, will have an excellent standard of life. The law is filled with the morality of God and the protections of God for a person in relation to minimising opportunity for disease and sickness.

Sin had to be reined in because it was rampant throughout the world and in Israel too. The law was given for the purpose of reining in sin, but it was also given to teach the people right from wrong. If a person does not know right from wrong, they have no moral compass to live by, and will do as they please. Too often though, what they may be pleased to do is not pleasing to God.

In the law the people then had no ground to stand on because once the law was given ,they learned the difference between right and wrong. If a person then chose to reject the right way and follow the wrong, there was a mechanism to condemn them and bring them to judgement. The law made all of the Israelites accountable to do what is right.

Did they do what is right? Some did and some did not. We only need to look at the prophets who condemned many of the people, or the way Jesus spoke about many of the teachers of the law, the Pharisees, scribes, lawyers and Sadducee, to see that they did not keep the law. He called them “broods of vipers,” and “hypocrites” because they spoke of the law, but did not keep it.

And the primary way they failed to keep the law was because they thought it was all about works. They thought that if the “did” what the law required, it was enough. They did not understand that the true purpose of the law was to teach justice, compassion, mercy and faith. They approached the law on the basis of works rather than faith, and in so doing they missed the point of the law.

The New Covenant

But the law did not supplant or replace the original covenant given to Abraham that he and his offspring would inherit the earth. The law was simply a mechanism to put a “brake” on the growing sinfulness of the people and to turn them back to the ways of God.

The New Covenant was still coming, and it arrived some four hundred and thirty years after the giving of the law when Jesus came.

The law put in place many things that were necessary for the fulfilling of the New Covenant. Things like, the process and purpose of sacrifices, showing us how Jesus would become the perfect sacrifice for sins. Jesus sacrifice took away our sins and also released us from the bondage of the law, and the law showed these processes as forerunners for how we could understand the workings of the New Covenant. You need only read Romans chapters 5, 6 and 7 to see how Paul shows us through the examples of the law, how we are now set free from it.

For those who have faith and know what to believe, the law has been removed. It no longer has any force or power over the believers in Christ who understand how God’s righteousness works. And it is important that we do know how His righteousness works, because without it, no one will stand before God. (NOTE: I have written a book about this titled “When God Says You’re Righteous.” It is available as a free download on my site here, or it can be purchased cheaply on Amazon. Details can be found at this link).

The New Covenant supersedes the Old Covenant of law and replaces it completely. You cannot live under the two covenants at the same time, as I have explained many times on this website. Even from a logical perspective it does no work. You are either under the law and a sinner, or under the New Covenant of grace and are set free from sin. It is impossible to be both a sinner and NOT a sinner at the same time. It is illogical to believe such a thing, and yet this is one of the fundamental teachings of much of the Christian church today. They tell you that you are set free from sin and set free from the law in one breath, and in the next they say you are a sinner! Which is it? You can’t be both!

Why do they say such things? Because the wider church does not understand o=how the NEw Covenant works in detail. They see the high level view, but not a granular view that provides the detail of how God set up this new covenant, to do away with sin and to do away with the law.

The law was always intended to be a placeholder for people. Once they came under the ministry of Grace, the law was meant to be removed. Look at the words of Paul elsewhere in the letter to the Galatians.

23 Now before faith came, we were confined under the law, kept under restraint until faith should be revealed. 24 So that the law was our custodian until Christ came, that we might be justified by faith. 25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a custodian; 26 for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. (Galatians 3:23-26)

The law was intended to be a custodian, that is, someone who is put in place temporarily. In some translations this word is rendered as “schoolmaster.” They are both similar in meaning being they indicate someone or something (the law in this case) who is put in place to teach and watch over people until something changes. Again in this case the change occurred with the coming of Jesus who heralded and brought into effect the New Covenant.

So while the Law is just and good, the New Covenant is much better because it came by the promise of God to Abraham. The law was implemented to try and drag man back from the brink of sin. But it was never meant to replace to covenant given to Abraham. It was only ever meant to be a stop gap to train us in right and wrong so we could know the ways of God and receive His promise when we come to Christ.

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