Search
God’s original intention was to do the work of the new creation on the fallen man of the old creation according to His promised grace. However, because fallen man did not know his own weakness and corruption and therefore did not realize his impotence and his need of God’s grace, God temporarily changed the way of His work of the new creation on the fallen man of the old creation. That is, He gave the fallen man the law, which was established according to what He is. Thus, in His work of the new creation on the man of the old creation, He initiated another dispensation, the dispensation of law, which extended from Moses to the coming of Christ.
God’s intention in setting up the dispensation of law according to His economy was to accomplish the following things through the law:
From the time that God called Abraham to be the father of a new race in God’s new creation to the completion of the grace that He promised to Abraham was a long period of approximately two thousand years. Four hundred thirty years after He gave Abraham the promise, the descendants of Abraham, the chosen people of God, became foolish and stubborn. Knowing neither themselves nor the grace of God, they were arrogant and stiff-necked. Therefore, on the one hand, God caused His chosen people to contact Him and to fellowship with Him through Christ, who was typified by the tabernacle and the offerings, that they might enjoy the riches in Christ as the grace that He promised to Abraham. On the other hand, He preserved them in the divine economy by giving them, through Moses, the holy and righteous law, which was established according to Himself, who is love and light.
God did not decree the law that His chosen people might keep it by themselves; rather, His intention was that they would satisfy the requirements of the law through the offerings, which typified Christ, and thereby be guarded. After He gave the law to the children of Israel, He began to deal with them according to the law through the offerings and the tabernacle. He did not intend for them to contact Him through the law; rather, He intended for them to contact Him according to the law through the offerings and the tabernacle. This is the fulfillment in type of the grace which God promised to Abraham. Suppose an Israelite committed a certain sin. According to the law, that one should be condemned, perhaps even put to death. However, the sinner could present a trespass offering, which was a type of Christ. The trespass offering was then offered on the altar by the priest. In this way the sinner could be forgiven. Therefore, he was not cut off by God; rather, because he had satisfied the righteous requirements of the law through union with the sacrifice, which typified Christ, he was blessed and was able to contact and fellowship with God, be at peace and be one with Him, and enjoy His riches. Thus, he was kept in the way of God’s new creation.
Through Moses God gave the law as the custodian of His chosen people, to guard them as the sheepfold guards the flock. Before Christ came, God’s chosen people were watched over and guarded under law, as the sheep are watched over and kept in custody in the temporary sheepfold (since the pasture is the permanent place for them to stay), so that the thieves may not come to steal, kill, or destroy them (John 10:10). Persons such as Moses, Samuel, David, and the prophets and saints in the Old Testament were all kept by the law in this way.
The positive function of the God-given law was, on the one hand, to keep the chosen people of God in custody for fifteen hundred years, and, on the other hand, to provide them with a child-conductor.
God caused the law to be the child-conductor of His chosen people in order to lead them to Christ (Gal. 3:24). In the original language, child-conductor means escort, guardian, custodian, one who cares for a child under age and conducts him to the schoolmaster. The law was used by God as a custodian, a guardian, a child-conductor, to watch over His chosen people before Christ came, and to escort and conduct them to Christ when He did come. For example, the prophet Simeon and the prophetess Anna, having been taught by the law, looked and waited for Christ and were thus led to Christ (Luke 2:25-26, 36-38); God’s chosen people, and John the Baptist in particular, also looked and waited for Christ, proving that they all were under the instruction of the law (Luke 3:15; 7:19).
God caused the law to be the child-conductor of His chosen people. Therefore, on the one hand, they were taught by the law to look and wait for Christ. On the other hand, when the devout ones among them did their best to keep the law, they realized their impotence, shortage, and failures, because they committed sins through their deeds (Psa. 51:2-4) and had the sin that they inherited by birth in their nature (Psa. 51:5); hence, they presented the offerings, which typify Christ, to receive God’s forgiveness. By presenting the trespass offering (which signifies Christ bearing the sins of the people and receiving God’s judgment on the cross on behalf of man, thus dealing with the sins in man’s actions—1 Pet. 2:24; 3:18), they received forgiveness for their sinful deeds (Lev. 5:1-19; Isa. 53:5-6, 10-11). Moreover, by presenting the sin offering (which signifies Christ being made sin on behalf of man and causing sin to be condemned through His death on the cross, thus dealing with the sin in man’s nature—2 Cor. 5:21; Rom. 8:3), they received God’s forgiveness for their nature (Lev. 4:1-35). Therefore, as the child-conductor of God’s chosen people, the law also led them to obtain God’s forgiveness through the offerings.
The law also led the devout ones in the Old Testament to come before God to contact Him and thereby enjoy all His riches through the tabernacle and the temple, both of which typify Christ (John 1:14; 2:21). This matter is revealed and portrayed especially in the Psalms. The psalmists were devout people who were instructed by the law and who were forgiven by God through the offerings. Because they loved God (Psa. 18:1), sought God (Psa. 42:1-2), loved the habitation of God’s house and the place where His glory dwelt (Psa. 26:8, Heb.), and longed to be with God and to behold His beauty (Psa. 27:4), they were infused with the riches of God in God’s house (Psa. 52:8). They were planted in the house of Jehovah, they flourished in the courts of God, they brought forth fruits, and they were full of sap and green (Psa. 92:13-14, Heb.). Furthermore, they were abundantly satisfied with the fatness of His house, and they drank of the river of His pleasures, enjoying His riches (Psa. 36:8-9).
The psalmists considered the law of God to be the living word of God (Exo. 34:28). As revealed in Psalm 119, they believed in the word (v. 66), chose it (v. 30), loved it (vv. 47-48, 97), tasted it (v. 103), rejoiced in it (v. 14), sang it, praised it (v. 54), sought it (vv. 45, 94), longed for it (vv. 20, 40), hoped in it (vv. 43, 74), and trusted in it (v. 42). Therefore, through the living word of God they were enlightened (v. 135); they received the life supply, the enlivening, and the quickening (vv. 25, 50); they were watered by the word (Psa. 1:3); and they received other blessings, such as restoration (Psa. 19:7a), deliverance (119:41), strength (v. 28), comfort (v. 76), nourishment (v. 103), upholding (v. 117), and safeguarding. Moreover, they enjoyed God as their portion (v. 57); they had knowledge, wisdom, understanding, and discernment (vv. 66, 98-100); they were preserved from sin (v. 11), from stumbling (v. 165, Heb.), and from every evil way (v. 101); their footsteps were established; and they were made the overcoming saints (v. 133).
The New Testament clearly indicates that God’s original intention was to deal with His chosen people according to grace and not according to law.
The law was not in God’s original intention, nor was it God’s original ordination for man. It was added later along the way because of transgression (Rom. 5:20; Gal. 3:19). God originally did not have the intention to deal with man according to the law; rather, the law was added because of man’s fall and corruption.
The function of God’s giving the law, on the negative side, was for man to have the knowledge of sin (Rom. 3:20). God gave the law to the children of Israel, not for them to keep but for them to transgress, in order to expose their wickedness. While God was giving the law, they fashioned a golden calf at the foot of Mount Sinai and worshipped that idol, thus violating the first three of the Ten Commandments of the law. After Moses received God’s law, he came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of stone, on which were written the Ten Commandments of the law; but upon seeing the people worshipping the idol, he broke the two tablets of the law. That indicated that when the law was received, or while it was being received, or even before it was received, it was already transgressed and broken by the people. Therefore, God’s intention in giving them the law was that they would transgress it so that their offense might be shown, even that it might abound (Rom. 5:20). This was to expose their fallen condition, thus causing them to have the knowledge of sin. Without the law, man cannot know what sin is (Rom. 7:7). But when the law comes, man not only can know what sin is, but he can know what kind of sin he has committed. Like a mirror, the law reflects the true condition of a man that he may know himself. The law does not make a person evil; rather, it merely exposes the evil that is already in him. Therefore, the negative aspect of the function of the law is that man may have the knowledge of sin and thereby flee to Christ.
Since the law causes man to have the knowledge of sin, it causes him to know himself and thereby sense his need of God’s grace. Under the exposure of the law, man knows that he is fleshly, that he is sold under sin (Rom. 7:14), and that in his flesh nothing good dwells (Rom. 7:18). What he does, he does not acknowledge; what he wills, this he does not practice; but what he hates, this he does (Rom. 7:15). To will is present with him, but to do the good is not (Rom. 7:18). He can only cry out hopelessly, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death?” (Rom. 7:24). Therefore, the law causes man to know the true condition of his weakness and impotence; consequently, it causes man to deeply realize and sense his need of God’s grace. Thus, man receives God that He might bear all his responsibilities and allows God to work Himself into him to be his element and to work through him to accomplish His purpose.
In the dispensation of law, not only were God’s chosen people guarded by the law, but Christ was brought in under law to the chosen people who waited for Him in that dispensation (Luke 2:25), and to those who would believe into Him in the coming dispensation. In that dispensation of law, under law, Christ was born under law of a virgin who piously kept the law (Luke 1:27-33; Gal. 4:4), and He was circumcised, named, and presented to God according to the law (Luke 2:21-24). He also lived under law as a law-abiding, lawful, proper, and perfect Man (Luke 2:40-52). Eventually, according to the requirements of the law, He went to the cross to accomplish redemption for God (John 19:28), terminating and replacing the law (Rom. 10:4). Thus, He transferred both God’s chosen people in the Old Testament and those who believe into Him in the New Testament from the law of the old covenant to the grace of the new covenant (Rom. 6:14), that they should not be guarded and enslaved under law any longer, but rather enjoy the grace and freedom in Him (Gal. 5:1-4; Rom. 5:2).
In the dispensation of law, God also obtained the pious men and the righteous men, those who fully kept the law under the law of the old covenant through the tabernacle and the offerings, both of which typified Christ. These, as Zachariah and Elizabeth, were righteous and blameless in the sight of God according to the Old Testament commandments and ordinances (Luke 1:5-6). They were blameless, but not without blemish, not without sin and sins. They still needed the unblemished sin offering and trespass offering (Lev. 4:28; 5:15), which were types of Christ, for their atonement that they might have contact with God. Moreover, through the tabernacle and the temple they came before God to enjoy all His riches, that is, to enjoy God as the source of life and the supply of life (Psa. 36:7-9). Thus, they were kept in the way of God’s new creation. In this way, God obtained this group of people who are typified by the moon underneath the feet of the universal woman in Revelation 12, as the second part of the new race of the new creation, to constitute the New Jerusalem as God’s eternal expression in the new heaven and the new earth.
God’s original intention was to do the work of the new creation on the fallen man of the old creation according to His promised grace. However, because the fallen man did not know his weakness and corruption, and therefore did not realize his impotence and his need of God’s grace, God temporarily changed the way of His work of the new creation on the fallen man of the old creation. That is, He gave the fallen man the law, which was established according to what He is. Thus, He initiated another dispensation, the dispensation of law, which extended from Moses to Christ. God’s intention in setting up this dispensation of law according to His economy was to accomplish the following things through the law; first, to keep the chosen people in custody that they might satisfy the requirements of the law through the offerings, which typified Christ, and thereby be guarded, as sheep are guarded in the sheepfold; second, to provide the chosen people with a child-conductor that they might be led to Christ, that through the offerings they might be forgiven, and that through the tabernacle and temple they might enjoy God’s riches; and third, to cause the chosen people to have the knowledge of sin and of themselves, and thereby realize and sense their need of God’s grace. As a result, God kept His chosen people in the custody of the law, obtained the second part of the new race of the new creation, and brought Christ to the chosen people who waited for Him in the dispensation of law and to those who would believe into Him in the coming dispensation.
