Is God an Obsessive Control Freak?

THIS WEEK

I had the honor of leading a class session at church again recently.  Previously, I had covered a session in a series of which my topic was of God and His Attributes with a focus on the doctrine of the Trinity

This series was in rebuttal of a comment from Richard Dawkins' 2006 book, The God Delusion, and my topic was in response to his claim of God being an obsessive control freak.   Keying in on methods that control freaks utilize, and another teach had already addressed Dawkins' accusation of God being a bully, I settled on the rules and demands that control freaks wield in order to try controlling things and people around them.

So this article will cover the Laws of Moses and covenants.

As I had prepared enough (and more) to speak for just over an hour, this will be a lengthy post covering what I presented during the class.

INTRODUCTION

Bullies and control freaks often share a lot in common by using force and coercion to get what they want.  Bullies torment people for a sense of power or to forcibly make their victims comply to their whims and demands, but being a control freak is someone who has an overwhelming need to control or manage every aspect of their environment, situations, or the people around them, and demands absolute adherence to demands under micro-management and administration of rules.  Bullying tactics is just one method a control freak may employ.

Richard Dawkins, in his book River out of Eden published in 1995, had this to say:

“The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease.  It must be so.  If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored.  In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice.  The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.” 

Let’s now look at Richard Dawkins' character attack of God again from his book, The God Delusion, published in 2006:

 “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” 

Right in the middle of his little tirade is his summation of God: “control-freak”.  Despite the verbosity of Dawkins’ insult, he really only makes 4 claims against God:  He’s jealous, He’s a control freak, He’s an ethnic-cleanser, and He’s a bully.  To me, his accusations that God is jealous, an ethnic-cleanser, and a bully are presented to show the extent of, and the applications of, a control-freak he believes about God.

All the other words in his tirade are simply adjectives grouped in phrases to enhance the intensity of his disdain for God.  They are intended to expose God’s obsessive control or demonstrate His angry responses when that obsessive control is not satisfied.

Now contrast Dawkins’ angry rant against God in his 2006 book with this statement he made during an interview on London Broadcasting Company in 2024:

“Well I must say I was slightly horrified to hear that Ramadan is being promoted instead [at Easter].  I do think that we [in the UK] are culturally a Christian country.  I call myself a cultural Christian.  I'm not a Believer, but there's a distinction between being a believing Christian and being a cultural Christian.  And so you know, I love hymns and Christmas carols, and I sort of feel at home in the Christian ethos.  I feel that we are a Christian country in that sense.  It's truth that statistically the number of people who actually believe in Christianity is going down, and I'm happy with that, but I would not be happy if, for example, we lost all our Cathedrals and our beautiful Parish churches.  So I count myself a cultural Christian.  I think it would matter certainly if we substituted any alternative religion.  That would be truly dreadful.

“If I had to choose between Christianity and Islam, I’d choose Christianity every single time. It seems to me to be a fundamentally decent religion in a way that I think Islam is not.” 

Dawkins' three quotes over time show either an evolution or an inconsistency in his thinking.  According to his first statement, he believes in a universe in which there can be no good, no evil, and no justice, but only pitiless indifference.  According to his second statement’s view of the Old Testament God, he imposes a diametric standard of good and evil by which he condemns God.  With his third statement, he employs the standards of good and evil in his acceptance of the goodness of Christianity and the badness of Islam without accepting God.

But you can't separate Christ from God or from Christianity.  See my earlier article on Christian Essentials: Jesus is God. 

LAWS      

People are generally guided by rules and laws.  While rules and laws are similar, they aren’t precisely interchangeable.  A law is a formally legislated rule created and enforced by a government to regulate behavior within a society.  

From an early age, we grow up with rules in our homes, rules at school, rules for games, rules for sports, rules at work, etc.  We live in communities, townships, cities, counties, states, and countries under legislated laws. 

Definition:  law, n

1.   the system of rules which a particular country or community recognized as regulating the actions of its members and which it may enforce by the imposition of penalties

2.   a rule defining correct procedure or behavior

Definition:  justice, n

1.   the maintenance of administration of what is just especially by the impartial adjustment of conflicting claims or the assignment of merited rewards or punishments

 

 Let’s consider rules we’ve have had in your homes.  For instance:

The parents of my best friend when growing up had a rule that his friends could not make phone calls to their home after 9pm.  It wasn’t even my home but I had to abide by it.

A rule placed on me as a child was a pretty common one: I had to take the trash to the street every week on the evening before pick-up day.

One of my nieces told me that when she grew up living with her mother and sister, they had a rule that whoever cooked did not have to clean the dishes.  (Personally, I could see using way more pots and pans than I needed to at times just to tweak my sibling)

Rules and laws are in place to provide boundaries for training and for acceptable behavior and often come with a punitive result when they are broken.  But they may not immediately make sense to those they are imposed on.

Here are a variety of examples I found of odd and humorous laws online:

• In Arkansas, it is illegal to mispronounce the name of the state.
• In Alaska, it is illegal to push a moose out of an airplane.
• In Arizona, there's a law that makes it illegal for donkey's to sleep in bathtubs.
• In Connecticut, pickles must bounce to be considered safe for human consumption.
• In Louisiana, you may not tire an alligator to a fire hydrant.
• In Florida, people who own bars, restaurants, or other places that sell liquor can be fined up to $1,000 if they participate in or permit any contest of dwarf tossing.
• In Indiana, it's illegal to ride a horse above 10mph.
• In Kentucky, a woman cannot marry the same man four times.
• According to Indiana Fishing Regulation Guide, it's illegal to catch a fish with dynamite, firearms, or a crossbow.
• In Ohio, if someone loses their pet tiger, they must notify authorities within one hour.
• In Arizona, it is illegal to feed pigs garbage without a permit allowing you to feed them garbage.  But if their pigs you plan on eating yourself, you don't need that permit.
• In Montana, it's illegal to operate a vehicle with ice picks attached to the wheels for traction.

So, how did these seemingly silly laws get passed?   Well, because something or someone necessitated them. 

• The question of Arkansas arose after confused pronunciations and spellings. It’s not pronounced Ar-Kansas or Arkan-Sass, and it isn't spelled Arkan-saw.  Clarification was needed to clear confusion and for standardization in official written and oral proceedings.
• As for sleepy donkeys, in the early 1920s, an Arizona rancher's donkey would sleep in a discarded bathtub on he man's property.  One night a dam burst and whisked the tub and donkey away resulting in a massive and very costly rescue by members of the community.  The event resulted in a petition for a law to prevent such incidents from happening again and to hold owners accountable if they did.
• How many firefighters do you think would want to wrestle an alligator while wrestling for a fire hose connection?
• I didn’t find an explanation about the Three-Strikes-You’re-Out marriage law, but I can’t help wondering if it was to protect the woman or the man.
• Apparently it’s ok if you risk poisoning yourself with the pork you eat just as long as you don’t poison your neighbors with it.
• Who knew that using ice picks as cleats on your tires damages the asphalt roads beneath the snow and ice resulting in unnecessary, costly, and irritating road repairs?

MORALITY PREDATES THE LAW

It's important to understand that morality predates the laws.  Adam and Eve knew right from wrong, whether before or after eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil is irrelevant.  Later individuals like Cain and Abel, Enoch, Noah, Job, Abram, Melchizedek, and Joseph are all examples of knowing right from wrong and they didn’t have the laws.

Not all laws are inherently moral in themselves.  Take for instance a highway speed limit of 55 miles per hour.  Is that law moral?  It could be just as easily to set it at 54 or 56 and achieve the same end result.  

Reasons behind laws could be morally based.  In this case, a speed limit of 55 is aimed to produce a common flow of traffic and reduce the risk of damage and injury to others.  If you are driving 55 miles per hour with 40 other drivers, and someone comes whipping past, weaving in and out of traffic driving 70 miles per hour, the law is in place to penalize the one breaking the law for endangering or harming the other drivers (at minimum).  

Some stretches of the same highway may find zoned speed limits that range from 35 miles per hour to 80 miles per hour.  Portions of the Autobahn have restricted speed limits while some stretches have no speed limit at all. 

Areas around schools further limit speeds in those school zones to 25 miles per hour.  Those laws may have a moral intent and goal of protecting children in that area, but those laws are effective during specified hours, of specified days, of specified months, or during times that warning lights are flashing.  The regulation of the speed it not more moral between 7am and 4pm on weekdays than it during evenings and weekends, or more moral than speed limits outside of those school zones.

Similarly, forbidden parking on one-way streets in front of businesses downtown between the hours of 8AM and 5PM doesn’t require morality.  

Such regulatory laws are time dependent and location dependent.  Morality is universally present and universally applicable because it is based on the character and nature of God. 

 

GOD’S FIRST LAWS

So, what about the biblical laws?  The first commands given to man by God were not because someone previously made them a necessity.  They were given for man’s good and for man’s purpose.

God first gave His first two humans only three commands:

1)  Be fruitful and multiple.  

2)  Subdue the earth and have dominion over every living creature. 

3)  Don’t eat from the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil

 

Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.

    - Genesis 1:28

You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.

    - Genesis 2:16-17

At that time, man was in direct communion with God, worshipping Him, and walking with Him in the garden.  There was no command on how to keep God holy or how He should be revered because such laws weren’t needed.

Only one of those commands given to Adam and Eve was a negative “Do not”.   Does that sound like a control freak?  A control freak would have also commanded them exactly how to tend the garden, what fruit they could eat, how and when to prune the shrubs, exactly how to care for each animal, etc. 

So why was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil even placed in the garden in the first place?  Wouldn’t it have been better if God had not even put it there?

Because of one of God's gift to mankind: free will - whether to obey or not.  A certain sign of a control freak would be leaving out that option of choice!

Well, that didn’t go so well for us, and Adam and Eve disobeyed God's command.  After mankind’s fall, humanity nose-dived into depravity until only Noah was found blameless.  God hit the reset button, and Noah and his 7 family members were saved from the flood, but the descendants of Noah continued the trajectory of rebellion until God scattered them from Babel.  Then arose the various nations who worshipped other gods, and God called Abraham to father a nation that God would take as His own people.  Abraham had Isaac and Isaac had Jacob who God renamed Israel.  The family of Israel, about 70 in number, went into Egypt and prospered until they were more numerous than the Egyptians and were subjected into slavery.  Then God raised up Moses to lead them out.

BIRTH OF A NATION

When new nations are established, a set of laws must be established to define itself and govern its people.  Just as when the young America threw off Britain’s laws and created our own national laws, national laws were required for the new nation of Israel at its founding.  By giving these laws to the Israelites, God established them as a new and independent nation with Himself as their King and their God making Israel a theocracy.

A theocracy is a government led by immediate divine guidance or by officials who are regarded as divinely guided.  Living in a theocracy was not a new concept to Israel.  Pharaoh was seen as a god who mediated between the other gods and the people.

Many laws given to Israel by God were given only to their specific nation, for a specific period of time, and for a specific purpose.  The gentile nations were not judged by the law of Moses, and Israel wasn’t called to subdue other nations to their law (like Islam is).  Only when “strangers in their midst” lived among them they were to adhere to the laws just as we expect visitors to the US to obey our laws, but strangers were by default disallowed from certain things such as the Passover feast.   

But if a stranger sojourns with you, and celebrates the Passover to the LORD, let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near to celebrate it; and he shall be like a native of the land. But no uncircumcised person may eat of it.  The same law shall apply to the native as to the stranger who sojourns among you.

    - Exodus 12:48-19

 

Six days you are to do your work, but on the seventh day you shall cease from labor so that your ox and your donkey may rest, and the son of your female slave, as well as your stranger, may refresh themselves.

    - Exodus 23:12 

 

When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong.  You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.

    - Leviticus 19:33-34

 

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

By Exodus chapters 19 and 20, we find Israel in a world full of wickedness, a people group that God was making into a nation, and He is giving them the 10 commandments on stone tablets to Moses.  The first of many commandments yet to come.

 1)  You shall have no other gods.

 2)  You shall not make for yourself a carved image, and you shall not bow down to  them or serve them.

 3)  You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.

 4)  Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.

 5)  Honor your father and mother.

 6)  You shall not murder.

 7)  You shall not commit adultery.

 8)  You shall not steal.

 9)  You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

10)  You shall not covet.

How did that go?  Well, Moses hadn’t even brought the tablets down from the mountain yet and the people were already breaking at least commandments 1, 2, 3, and most likely 7.

 

 

MORE LAWS:  THE LAWS OF MOSES

Exodus concludes with the very detailed building of the tabernacle and all its implements.  Leviticus begins a long list of laws which continues into Deuteronomy.  Ultimately, Israel was given 613 laws.

 

So, was this when God’s control-freak nature was exposed?  613 Laws??

 

Well, no.  Consider how many laws are in your local city, and then in your local county, and then in your state, and then other laws specific to other cities and states, and then finally in the United States itself.  We are under tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of laws. 

 

The number of laws doesn’t make God a control freak either.    

Parents will at times give their children rules or requests that didn't make sense to the children.  This is especially common with younger children,  But why were those rules given?   Generally speaking, to fulfill a purpose or to instruct.  The truth is that those children are not owed an explanation to every rule or request they are given by their parents, but parents will often explain them so the children are instructed.  If the parent decides to not explain their motive at that time, the common responses are "Because I said so" or "Because I'm your mother/father/parent".  It is the reminder that they are in authority over the child.

Parents, you're in good company.  More than 40 times in Leviticus, God gives a law or set of laws to Israel and concludes the commands with "I am the Lord".  

LAW CATEGORIES

The Laws of Moses can be loosely grouped into three categories.  Those are Civil Laws, Ceremonial Laws, and Moral Laws.  However, there are some laws that are difficult or impossible to pigeon hole into a single category and may lean slightly toward a second.

● Civil Laws

The first category is Civil Law.  They were given to govern social, economic, and judicial aspects of Israel and its theocratic government.  They dealt with things such as personal disputes, property issues, etc.  Just as civil laws can differ between city, county, state, and countries, the civil laws of the Laws of Moses were given specifically to Israel alone, for a specific period of time, and for very specific reasons.  The principles behind these laws may not be directly applicable today across our various cultures and governments, but they can still be relevant and provide underpinnings for modern civil laws.

A few laws seen as unusual to our modern understanding are:

You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together.  You shall not wear cloth of wool and linen mixed together. 

    - Deuteronomy 22:10-11

It seems a little silly to us in our modern world, but why would this possibly make sense in the ancient world?  

Oxen and donkeys are built differently.  They have different strengths, different gaits, different endurances, and different dispositions.  It is possible that the ox could injury the slighter donkey.  It is possible that it could be more difficult to keep the rows straight when having to restrain one to match the other.  There was no law against plowing with an individual donkey or ox.  There was no law against plowing with a team of donkeys or a team of oxen.  The law was that they were not to be teamed together.

Neither wool or linen are inherently immoral, and neither were forbidden from being worn even at the same time.  The command was not to blend the animals and materials together.  

Remember the difference between the Eastern way of thinking (such as the Israelites) and the Greek or Western way of thinking such as we have in Europe and the Americas.  Our Greek thinking is very abstract leaning toward definitions and bullet lists.  The Eastern way of thinking is picturesque and lends itself to mental imagery.

The Israelites were forbidden from entering relationships with the pagan cultures around them, and Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 6 that we are not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers.

Both the plow team and the clothing material would visually exemplify the idea and passages of not being unequally yoked relationally for both Old Testament and New Testament passages.   

Other civil laws would include not moving your neighbor's landmark (Deuteronomy 19:14), judicial fairness in that charges against a person must have two or three witnesses rather than a single claimant (Deuteronomy 19:15-19), and there were instructions even on how to conduct warfare (Deuteronomy 20).

● Ceremonial Laws

The second category is Ceremonial Law.  Like civil laws, the ceremonial laws were also regulatory.  Ceremonial laws dealt with things such as how to worship of God, the tabernacle (and later the temple), the priestly work, the sacrifices, the feasts, and regulations of purity and cleanliness.  These practices served as conscientious and intentional separation from the nations living around Israel to make them holy – “set apart” – from those peoples.  They were given to Israel for a specific period and purpose as well.

 

Leviticus 1-7 outline in detail the various offerings

Leviticus 11 lists in detail what animals that can and cannot be eaten or even touched because they are unclean.

Leviticus 23 outlines the Feasts (with a more details Day of Atonement in chapter 16)

Leviticus 19:26-28

You shall not eat any flesh with the blood in it.

You shall not interpret omens or tell fortunes.

You shall not round off the hair on your temples or mar the edges of your beard.

You shall not make any cuts on your body for the dead or tattoo yourselves: I am the Lord.

● Moral Laws

The third category is Moral Law.  Moral laws differ from the civil and ceremonial laws.  Civil and ceremonial laws can be changed, updated, reversed and revoked over time.  They can even be at opposition with civil and ceremonial laws like the Jim Crow laws or laws or other cultures.

Moral laws are intended to guide the ethical and moral behavior of people.  Moral laws are unchanging, timeless, and irrevocable because they are based on the character and nature of God.  Because they are based in His standard, they are applicable for all people, for all times, in every locale.  Command such as:

• You shall not murder
• You shall not covet
• You shall not steal
• You shall not commit adultery
• You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor

THE OLD COVENANT

The collection of Mosaic Laws were to establish a covenantal contract between God and Israel that He began with Abraham. 

God had told Abraham beforehand that there would be a long interval in the full establishment of the covenant.

Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years.  But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions.

    - Genesis 15:13-14

After their time in Egypt, God then told then began preparing them for the covenant.

For I am the Lord who brought you up out of the land of Egypt to be your God. You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy.

     - Leviticus 11:45

Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these things, for by all these the  nations I am driving out before you have become unclean, and the land became unclean, so that I punished its iniquity, and the land vomited out its inhabitants.  But you shall keep my statutes and my rules and do none of these abominations, either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you (for the people of the land, who were before you, did all of these abominations, so that the land became unclean), lest the land vomit you out when you make it unclean, as it vomited out the nation that was before you.

    - Leviticus 18:24-28

Here God states that the laws He is giving Israel is to make them different from all the other nations.

 

God then brought Israel before Him at Mt Sinai and the covenant contract was completed.

On the third new moon after the people of Israel had gone out of the land of Egypt, on that day they came into the wilderness of Sinai.  They set out from Rephidim and came into the wilderness of Sinai, and they encamped in the wilderness. There Israel encamped before the mountain, while Moses went up to God. The Lord called to him out of the mountain, saying, “Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the people of Israel:  ‘You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself.  Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.”  So Moses came and called the elders of the people and set before them all these words that the Lord had commanded him. All the people answered together and said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do.” And Moses reported the words of the people to the Lord.

    - Exodus 19:1-8

Merriam-Webster

    holy, n

        1. exalted or worthy of complete devotion as one perfect in goodness and righteousness

        2. divine

        3. devoted entirely to the deity or the work of the deity

        4. having a divine quality

    covenant, n

        1.   a usually formal, solemn, and binding agreement

        2.   a written agreement or promise under seal between two or more parties especially for the performance of some action

God had just put 10 of them on tablets of stone.

 

At the time that these laws were given to Israel, by the biblical narrative, they had in just recent months seen God:

     1)    turn the Nile into blood

     2)    bring a plague of frogs

     3)    bring a plague of gnats

     4)    bring a plague of flies

     5)    slay the Egyptian cattle overnight leaving Israel’s cattle safe

     6)    Egyptians covered in boils

     7)    bring a hail storm

     8)    a plague of locusts

     9)    bring three days of darkness to Egypt except where Israel was

    10)    slay the first born of every household that was not marked by the blood of the lamb

    11)    part the Red Sea for millions of Jews to pass on dryland then bring the waters down on the pursuing Egyptians

    12)    lead them as a pillar of cloud by day and as a pillar of fire by night

    13)    turn bitter waters into drinkable water

    14)    provide food in the form of mana from heaven daily (except for the Sabbath, double portions provided on Friday)

    15)    provide quail for meat to eat

    16)    bring water gushing from a rock for them to drink

 

THE NEW COVENANT

“All that the Lord has spoken we will do.” they proclaimed.  God’s laws were intended to make them a holy nation, set apart, to make Israel different and distinguished from the lifestyles of the pagan nations He was placing them among in order to fulfill another part of His promise to Abraham.

“And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.  I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

    -  Genesis 12:3-4  (my emphasis)

Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord.  For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

    - Jeremiah 31:31-33

 

After quoting the Jeremiah passage, the author of Hebrews writes:

In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.

    - Hebrews 8:13

And the gospel authors also record Jesus' own words:

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.

    - Matthew 5:17

And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, "This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”  And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, "This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood."

    - Luke 22:19-20

CULTURAL AND TEMPORAL LAWS

It doesn’t happen as often as historically, but a culture’s laws to vanish when that culture vanishes.  The famous Code of Hammurabi laws were once applicable to ancient Babylonia.  The Code of Ur-Nammu was once applicable to ancient Sumer as were the later Laws of Lipit-Ishtar.  The Laws of Manu were once applicable to ancient Hindus in India dating back to around 100 AD.  The Laws of Eshnunna were once applicable to ancient Akkad.

The Temple was destroyed in 70 AD so that the ceremonial temple practices could not be properly observed.  When Israel was scattered in 138 AD by the Roman Empire, their civil laws were largely moot as the Jews became subject to the laws of the lands in which they then lived.  The Mosaic Laws are not directly applicable to the modern nation of Israel, although Orthodox Jews follow them in religious observance.

It is also common even today for laws to change or be revoked due to changes such as cultural shifts and technological advancements. Consider the Blue Laws which prohibited sales of various items on Sundays, or the Prohibition of the 1920s which outlawed alcohol.

We’ve seen that God intended the laws that have been singled out by opponents as obsessive and controlling, the Civil and the Ceremonial, were given only to Israel for a determined period of time before a new covenant would replace it. 

 

God repeatedly told the Israelites why ALL the law was given:  for them to be holy (set apart) because HE is holy.  It was a directive to Israel from God that, through them, they would point a direction of the other nations to God.

 

 

CONCLUSION

The Mosaic Laws were the contractual covenant agreement between God and Israel.  He didn’t give the laws to micromanage people, but to show them (and us) that we fall short of the standard of “blamelessness”.  The civil laws were to direct daily life much like our civil laws are.  The ceremonial laws were to teach reverent worship of a holy God.  Both, to an extent, were to differentiate Israel and make them stand out from other nations

The moral laws, being rooted in the nature of God, are timeless and were to expose sinfulness and teach righteousness, but were not a means to obtain righteousness.

For by the works of the law no human being will be justified in His sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

    - Romans 3:20

So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.  But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.

    - Galatians 3:24-26

In Genesis 17, God tells Abraham that he is to walk before Him and be blameless.

When Abram was ninety-nine years old the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty;[a] walk before me, and be blameless, that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly.”

    - Genesis 17:1-2

But who can be blameless?  

Genesis 15 describes the act of establishing the covenant.

And he said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.”  But he said, “O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?”  He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.”  And he brought him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other. But he did not cut the birds in half.

    - Genesis 15:7-10

God did not tell Abram what to do with the animals, only to bring them.  Why?  Abram knew what they were for and what was to be done.  He knew this was the establishment of a covenant through what is called 'covenant of pieces' or 'blood covenant'.

In this eastern practice, a section of of ground would be found that had a slight depression.  Once the animals were cut, the halves of the slaughters animal(s) would be positioned on the opposite inclines so that the blood would run down into the depression effectively making a trough for the blood.  

 

As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him.  Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years.  But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”

    - Genesis 15:12-16

God caused a deep sleep fell over Abraham during which God was still speaking to him.

 

When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces.  On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram

    - Genesis 15:17-18a

A covenant of pieces was completed when representatives from the different parties, generally a patriarchal figure in the eastern culture, would each walk through the trough of blood.  The blood would splash up onto their feet, their sandals, and their garments as they walked through it.  

The essence of this practice was that each representative was agreeing that if they broke the covenant their life was forfeit for the other to exact the penalty.

But Abram was in a deep sleep.  Who passed between the pieces are representatives of the covenant?   God - alone - as "a smoking fire pot" and "a flaming torch".

Fire and smoke represented at times the presence of God:  the burning bush, the pillar of smoke, the pillar of cloud, fire & smoke on Mt Sinai, Pentecost, just to name several.

The law was given to Israel 430 years later, but it did not replace or negate the covenant made with Abraham.  The purpose of the law, even those we deem strange or maybe controlling, was to instruct and to be a mirror to reveal the imperfections and sinfulness in ourselves and our inability to be blameless. 

Because we can’t perfectly keep the laws, we are all guilty.  A person who steals $5 is a criminal just as a person who murders is a criminal although the severity and punishment differ. 

Slaughtering lamb and cattle in obedience to the Old Testament laws did not bring the Israelites righteousness, but it pointed forward to a means of righteousness.

That covenant led to the cross.

In Matthew 5, Jesus says He didn’t come to abolish the law but to fulfill it.  How is a covenant fulfilled?  By meeting its requirements:  in this case, to “be blameless” which only Jesus fulfilled perfectly.

In Luke 22:20, on the evening before His crucifixion, Jesus introduced the New Covenant in His blood which focuses on the morality required of God and Jesus’ substitutional punishment for our sins and breaking covenant.

In Luke 24:44-48, after His resurrection, Jesus reminds the disciples that the Mosaic Laws, the prophets, and the psalms were to be fulfilled.

Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations.

The fulfillment is explained by Jesus’ own words.  In them, can you see the fulfillment of God’s covenant with Abraham and the ushering in of a better covenant?

For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.

    - Mark 10:45

God gave His laws, all of them, to show us how lacking we are in and of ourselves to achieve righteousness, and He did it with the full intention of taking the punishment of our covenant breaking onto Himself.  That is not an action of a control freak.

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.

    - Romans 8:1-2

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