The Law of Moses

THE LAW OF MOSES

“Remember ye the Law of Moses, my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments.” Malachi 4:4. LOM, page 37.2

The commandment of this verse to remember the law of Moses, is the last one in the O.T., and given in connection with a prophetic description of “the great and dreadful day of the Lord.” as though the law contained something further descriptive of that day. Perhaps we have paid too little attention to the law, not seeing its import and the light it was designed to shed on “the good things to come.” Our Savior and the apostles taught from Moses as well as the prophets “the things concerning himself.” LOM, page 37.3

The Mosaic law is what Paul in Hebrews calls the First Covenant, which the Lord, made with the “Fathers when he took them by the hand, to lead them out of the land of Egypt,” Hebrews 8:8, 9; Jeremiah 31:32; Kg. 8:9. This was not the covenant of promises made with Abraham, nor does it at all affect that. The covenant of promise made to Abraham and his seed, Christ, was confirmed 430 years before the Law was given, and “no man disannulleth or addeth thereto.” “And this I say, That the covenant that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the Law, which was 430 years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of God of none effect;” Galatians 3:17. The inheritance is not of the Law, but of promise; vs. 18. Hence righteousness comes not by the Law, but by faith in the promises. “Wherefore then serveth the law It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made;” ver. 19. in the day that Abraham “believed the Lord, and he counted it to him for righteousness,” he made a covenant with him saying, “Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates;” Genesis 15. At the same time he assured him of the 400 years afflictions, at the end of which he delivered Israel from Egypt, and gave them the Law, which he called a covenant, in Horeb, near Sinai; see 2 Chronicles 5:10; Exodus 24:3-8; 34:27, 28; Deuteronomy 5:1-3. “The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. The Lord made not this covenant with our fathers, but with me, even us, who are all of us here alive this day.” This covenant was to continue only “till the seed (Christ) should come; then “a new covenant” was made; Isaiah 42:1, 6; 49:5-9. He confirmed the (margin a) covenant, the new one, (Daniel 9:27,) the Gospel; Mark 1:14, 15; Matthew 4:23. “These are the two covenants,” and neither of them the Abrahamic, but both involved in that in its comprehensive sense. Paul contrasts these two covenants, calling the latter the “better covenant,” the “perfect;” whereas the former, “the Law, made nothing perfect;” but only had “a figure,” “patterns,” “a shadow of the good things to come,” “but the body,” the substances of those legal shadows, is of Christ. LOM, page 37.4

The Law should be studied and “remembered” as a simplified model of the great system of redemption, containing symbolic representations of the work begun by our Savior at his first advent, when he “came to fulfil the Law,” and to be completed in “the redemption of the purchased possession unto the praise of His glory.” Redemption is deliverance purchased by the payment of a ransom, hence it cannot be complete till man and the earth shall be delivered from the subjection and consequences of sin; the last act of deliverance will be at the end of the 1000 years. To this the shadow of the Law extended. That the significance of the Law reaches beyond the first advent is evident from these considerations:” LOM, page 37.5

1.The cleansing of the Sanctuary formed a part of the legal service, (Leviticus 16:20, 33,) and its antitype was not to be cleansed till the end of the 2300 days; Daniel 8:14. LOM, page 37.6

2.The Sabbaths under the Law typify the great Sabbath, the seventh millennium; Hebrews 4:3. LOM, page 37.7

3.The Jubilee typifies the release and return to their possessions of all captive Israel, this cannot be fulfilled till the resurrection of the just. — LOM, page 37.8

4.The autumnal types were none of them fulfilled at the first advent. LOM, page 37.9

5.The legal tenth day atonement was not, neither could it be fulfilled at that time. LOM, page 37.10

Although he blotted out the hand writing of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross; yet, after his resurrection, both he and his apostles made use of the law in proof of his Messiahship. He was buried and arose, and shed down the Holy Ghost in direct fulfillment of the types, which would not have been the case if the significance of the law had terminated at the cross. In fact his anointing and crucifixion were only the beginning of its fulfillment, as being the beginning of that great system of redemption whose shadows were contained in the law. All will admit that some of the types have been fulfilled and that others have not. As they are yet to be fulfilled, it becomes us to remember and study the law to learn their nature and import. LOM, page 37.11