Attribute of God’s Moral Law Definition: Moral law: The description of how things ought to occur. Moral 1. Capacity of reflective choice 2. Ability of self-caused action
Adam & Eve 1. God created them with abilities of personality: intellect, will, emotions: The capacity for self-caused action. 2. God created Adam and Eve with a right attitude and disposition of heart that told them how to act and react in every situation. The further people got from the garden of Eden, the more people lost that rt attitude & disposition of heart. What Adam and Eve had written on the fleshly tablet of their hearts, God on Mt. Sinai wrote on two tablets of stone, and we have an external record (objective and phenomenal) that states the same as the internal record written on the heart – (conscience, subjective and noumenal). So God gave The 10 commandments These commandments: • Are the written expression that heart which God wrote on our hearts. • Did not create obligation, but are always there because of people’s created design. Every design has design requirements. • The are written descriptions of what always had been and always will be.
Twelve of the characteristics of moral law: 1. Immutable (Cannot ever be righteously changed for as long as God is God and people are people and the world is the world.) • 10 commandment are according to the very nature of things. • They must never change. •
Moral law demands exactly what is required for God's highest glory and for our highest good. The ten commandments are: • They are the description of holiness • Holiness is natural, beneficial, wholesome, reasonable. Sin is unnatural, harmful, disruptive, dissipating, unreasonable. •
Harry Conn said, “I would serve God for another 1000 yrs. even if there were no hell to shun and no heaven to gain.”
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Attribute of God’s Moral Law
Consider the first commandment: You shall have no god before Me.
Notice: It does not say, “You shall have a god.” - - - because everybody has a God. •
First cmmdmt. Everybody has a god. Some men – it’s their wife Some men – it’s their job Some men – it’s their talents Some men – it’s initials after their name. Some men – it’s alcohol.
What God is trying to do is to get us to have the right God. Any other thing supreme in our lives above God in our lives will hurt us. • God has made man to be a worshiping creature. • Man is designed to be a worshiping creature, a God-centered creature. God gave us His law for our good always and for our survival as it is this day. In the OT, God wrote the commandments on two tablets of stone. In the NT, God writes the commandments on the fleshly tablets of the heart. In conversion, God seeks to recreate in man that right attitude and disposition of heart that directs him how to act and to react in every situation. If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation. (One aspect of 2Co. 5:17) By virtue of a new relationship, you don’t need the law because out of a right attitude and disposition of the heart, you are doing automatically what the law says to do because you love your fellowman.
2. For our good always • Dt. 6:24 • Principle behind each commandment -- "The why behind the commandment" • If we let any thing else be supreme in our life, it will destroy us. • • • • •
God made man to be a worshiper. designed to be a God-centered creature. God is working to get us to worship the true God, When man sinned, he lost that rt. attitude and disposition of heart. In sin he damages his conscience, and God in love works to restore it. In conversion in salvation, God is at work to re-create that rt. attitude & disposition of heart inside of the saved person.
3. intelligent. God’s commandments direct us to live according to God’s intelligence. 4. Obedience shall be practical (possible to apply. God never gave us a law we couldn’t keep as we walk in relationship with the Holy Spirit.)
Attribute of God’s Moral Law
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5. God gave the law for the highest good of people. We are to obey it for our good always. – Deut. 6:24 Command: “honor father & mother” was the most wonderful thing God could ever tell me to do. (Love transforms its object.) 6. impartial. It is for the benefit of every person equally. It matches the law of nature. God created every person equally valuable and for the same purpose. Thus, the law is the same for the poor and for the rich. It is not God’s design that a poor man steal a loaf of bread and be sent to prison 20 years, And it is not God’s design that a rich man steal $10,000 and only get 30 days of jail time. 7. The lawgiver shall give in the punishment, His evaluation of the seriousness of violating the precept. The punishment connected with the law must fit the crime. In the penalty, the law-giver shall give his evaluation of the seriousness of violating that law. The severity of the penalty must be proportional to the seriousness of the offense. In the OT, punishment for adultery was death. Today, a lack of the seriousness of it. Today, many look at the 10 commandments as 10 suggestions, not 10 laws. Consequences of adultery. It is the main cause of lack of financial provision for the family. Broken home, now not one home, but two homes with greater strain, and less time available to nurture and train the children in character and skills. The effects of the sin of adultery is the most significant reason that the next generation is not prepared for life and living and being successful and productive. To state again:
The lawgiver shall give in the punishment, His evaluation of the seriousness of violating the precept. • •
The severity of the penalty must be proportional to the seriousness of the offense. Eye for an eye: • God says, “You must be careful. Your punishment must never be too sever. The upper limit is an eye for an eye. • Jesus (Mt. 5-7): If you can find a basis in wisdom to extend mercy, and not bring the punishment, do it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Attribute of God’s Moral Law •
Mercy is preferred over judgment whenever wisdom can find a way to extend mercy.
8. Perfect obedience shall be rewarded with the continual favor and protection of the Law-giver (15:22) The law is to protect man’s civil rights. • The person who sins will die. The wages of sin is death. • Yet God wants to forgive man. • However, mercy is the most difficult thing in the whole world to administer. • Mercy: not getting what you deserve. • If God is going to forgive a person, what is He going put in place of the penalty so that He can extend mercy? • The punishment of the law upholds the honor of the law. In the atonement, God has done as much to uphold the honor of the law as would have been done if He had not forgiven, but brought the punishment upon the sinner instead. The cross must do as much to turn away the world from sin as the law does. • Has the death of Christ ever deterred you from sinning? • Has it become a road-block in your life so that you do not travel down the road of disobedience against the will of God? • But mercy is the most delicate thing in the universe to administer. Mercy must not result in bringing more hurt to God and to our neighbor than would have happened if the penalty of the law were carried out.
Has the death of Christ ever deterred you from sinning? Shall I put Christ to an open shame? As a result of the cross:
Am I passionately concerned now about not committing sin, and am I eager to know how to love God better and my fellowman better?
Heb 6:4 For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, Heb 6:5 and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, Heb 6:6 and {then} have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame. We can only live the Christian life out of relationship with the Holy Spirit.
God will be there to help you if you want help. • • • • •
There was a king named Zaleucus, king of the Locrians in southern Italy. His people were being destroyed by adultery. So he made a law that an adulterer would have his eyes put out. He son committed adultery. He loved his son.
Attribute of God’s Moral Law • • • •
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He loved his people. He wanted to protect his people. So he put out one of his own eyes; then one of his son’s eyes. Everytime Zaleucus went walking, his empty eye-socket was a testimony of his high regard for his law, and he also loved them, and he would do what was necessary in personal suffering to prevent that destruction that comes from adultery, and to display his love for his son and for his people. He must uphold his law because law is good and right and wholesome.
God’s law was so important to Him that He sent His own Son to die in order to uphold it. God’s wonderful law Ps.119:97 “O, how I love your law; it is my meditation all the day.” Not antinomian = against law, opposing the necessity and purpose of God’s law.
Matthew Henry referred to antinomianism this way: "There are many who in word and tongue profess to know God, and yet in their lives and conversations deny and reject him; the way they live is a contradiction to their claim that they are actually Christians.” 9. (15:35) The law is honorable -- worthy of our respect, admiration, and of our obedience. The purpose of the penalty is: • to maintain people's respect for the law, • to uphold the honor of the law. • to influence people to obey the law. Ps 19:7 ¶ The law of the LORD is perfect, restoring the soul; The testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple. Ps 19:8 The precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; The commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes. Ps 19:9 The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever; The judgments of the LORD are true; they are righteous altogether. Ps 19:10 They are more desirable than gold, yes, than much fine gold; Sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb. Ps 19:11 Moreover, by them Your servant is warned; In keeping them there is great reward.
The purpose of the penalty is: • to maintain people's respect for the law, • to uphold the honor of the law. • to influence people to obey the law. 10.
The Law of God is loveable. 23:32) Do I see the intelligence of God being expressed in them? The love of God being expressed in them? The kindness of God being expressed in them in His commitment to protect the innocent?
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Attribute of God’s Moral Law The law of God is universal. The moral obligation to love God with all the heart and our neighbor as ourselves applies everywhere, to every nation, in every culture, in Heaven, on earth, and in hell. Love is the universal obligation. The commandments teach us the right way for love to live. The instructions of the Bible are always the wisest and most beneficial course of action in any situation. They are always what love truly demands.