- Jun 5, 2016
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Would you say that the passages in the OP fall under moral law and how do you see them pointing to Christ?
Scripture doesn’t divide laws into neat categories by names, but they do undoubtedly fall into different categories, as any studious reader can readily find. You can think of it in very simple terms as:
1. Things required of the Levitical priesthood and the Israeli community such as sacrifices, the remembrance of particular rites and holidays etc. These ceremonial works all foreshadowed Christ.
2. Things required of the Israeli community. These ensured that Israel was holy, or set apart for the Lord, for the ultimate purpose of bringing forth salvation to the whole world. God declared and made a promise to Abraham that through his offspring (Christ) all nations will be blessed. (Salvation through Christ, the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit, with the right to become children of God!)
3. Eternal moral laws, namely, that through all things we are to love, trust and fear God with all our hearts, and likewise to love our neighbours as ourselves.
The above distinctions are useful, but many laws are closely related and many overlap. Take murder, for example. Murder falls under all categories in different senses:
1. Only the prescribed sacrifices instituted by God was allowed. Every other sacrifice, or a sacrifice done in a wrong way or with a wrong motive was evil. Moreso the sacrifice of human life, which is strictly forbidden.
2. Murder was punishable by death in the ancient Israeli community on account of the offence of killing the members who carries God’s Law and would bring about the Saviour, Christ.
3. Morally, murder is strictly forbidden as it both shows contempt for God’s creation and moreover the image of God, of which man is created in. Besides this, it is (obviously) contempt and harm of our neighbour.
In this way, we can see that the breaking of a seemingly single law actually contains several different levels of evil. And these are just the negative aspects, not to mention the positive: Not only are we not to murder, harm nor hate our neighbour, but positively to love, care for, serve and help in all good things. To fail on these accounts is also sin.
Abortion is closely related to the above. Though the punishment of people as demanded by God has ceased (stoning etc) - again, this punishment was due to the promise of the coming Christ - the moral law still remains, for to terminate life that God knits together in His own image, is rebellion towards God and contempt and harm of our fellow man. On this point, age is of no relevance.
As Christians, it’s our duty to care for the weak and oppressed. In the abortion debate, many would consider this to be the mother. It’s become popular opinion. However, there is another, far weaker party, with everything to lose, and that is the child. This, in addition to the things mentioned above, namely that we are to love God and all of His creation, including people, is the reason why we can confidently speak up for the life of the child.
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