Dispensation of Law
Under the dispensation
of promise all that was required of the Israelites was that
they trust God to do as He had promised. They failed in this
and the law was introduced. Man’s conscience had failed him
already as wickedness abounded in the time before the flood.
Likewise, man was incapable of governing himself, so God
imparts His laws to His people.
God’s laws are not
given as a burden or punishment however. They serve three
purposes. First was that they were given to protect the
people just as a parent forbids a children from a dangerous
activity for their own good. Second, the sacrificial system
pointed to Jesus and every detail had a purpose in
portraying the coming Messiah. And third, the law was meant
to show the Israelites that they were totally incapable of
living up to God’s standards and were thus in need of a
permanent solution for sin – Jesus’ death on the cross.
The Mosaic covenant can
be broken into three parts. First is the commandments; this
obviously includes the Ten Commandments, but also the many
rules for day to day living that were handed down to Moses
by God. The second part is judgments. These were not just
what the lawbreaker should expect as punishment from God as
was the case in previous covenants. This also outlined what
human governments should do as punishment for various
offenses. The third part is ordinances that instruct the
people how to properly remember the Lord and worship Him.
The three parts of the
Mosaic covenant address the failures of the three previous
dispensations. Because man was unable to follow his
conscience, God gave specific rules to be obeyed. Because
man was not able to govern justly, God gave specific
punishments for failure to uphold the law. And because man
was unable to see God’s plan at work and to trust Him, God
gave specific religious instructions that were meant to
point to the coming Messiah.
The dispensation of law
failed worse than the previous dispensations. Not only did
the fixes to the previous dispensations not work, the
Israelites missed the point in the law itself. Rather than
pointing them to their need for a Messiah, the people became
self righteous. When Jesus came, He frequently butted heads
with the Pharisees who believed that they were righteous
because they followed the law and added more laws to what
God had given them. They missed the fact that no one was
capable of following the law and needed Jesus!
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