A God who has no law cannot keep what he doesn’t. The law is not divine. In fact to argue that the Exodus 20 Decalogue is of God and by God demonstrates how one’s Bible study is average and poor.
The chronicler in the Old Testament baptizes every human invention by the name of God. That is why you see all killings and massacres in the O.T are in the name of God no wonder the Palestinian conservative belief system (Judaism and Islam) is still bombing each other in the name of God. This misconception of who God is has been geared by the primitive revelation of God in our Bible which poor scholars, Bible
This misconception of who God is has been geared by the primitive revelation of God in our Bible which poor scholars, Bible teachers, and pastors have taken literally at the expense of Biblical constructive criticism. If we read the Bible literally and take it word for word and letter to letter, then we have turned ourselves vulnerable to many evils. This is why every religion has the audacity to defend it’s doctrines in the same book. Courtesy of Biblical abuse.
And others quote it out of context and through their proof-texting they do what I call Biblical Electrical Engineering, where they connect a context on food to that about sex…(Leviticus 11 to Songs of Solomon) imagine. This is how LEGALISTIC religions have come to a conclusion that the LAW is God’s mind and will. When we read the Bible we must dissect and disseminate two things:
1-THE CONTENT (GOD, his revealed word, and will to his people through events and nature)
2-THE CONTAINER (JEWS as the recipients of God’s word)
Many people when, they read the Bible, fail to tell the difference between the container and the content. I have always argued that the Bible is filled with the history and Mythology of Jews. However, in the studies of inspiration and revelation we know there is always a theology behind or actually within these mythologies of the Jews.
It is the work of any Bible student to drop the myth and pick the theology in there. Throw away the container and eat the content. So we shouldn’t appreciate the law like the Israelites slaves in the wilderness did. We are not Israelites and we are not in the wilderness. The Torah (all laws including the Exodus 20) was a container issue specifically for Jews and all we (our generation as Gentiles) can do is to pick the content of this whole thing, which Jesus has exhibited in one word: LOVE.
Now, logically we all know you cannot have a loving God and again have him with laws. LOVE IS NEVER LEGAL. LOVE IS FREEDOM. What needs the law is social anthropology, which has been infected by sin and failure. In our sinful world we need the law for social order and make sure we enforce the unruly to order so as to survive in this crisis. A God who is perfect, holy and righteous needs not a law to operate in heaven where there is sobriety and all things are in normal state.
When you see a guard on a bank it is not because a lion will enter the bank but because another man might take another man’s money. So the guard is a law against the sinful will (greed) of the thief (another man). The interesting turn of events appears when the very guard also takes what he is supposed to protect. (WHEN THE LAW EATS ITS OWN WORDS/CHILDREN).
Let me demonstrate: In the book of Exodus, the law is given in the name of protecting the welfare of citizens and promoting life. In the book of Deuteronomy, the law is practiced by stoning those under the law. So people live by the law and are stoned and killed in and by the Law. DO YOU SEE THE NAIVETY OF THE LAW?
This is the very thing that happens in our modern legal systems. When a criminal hurts you, you use the law and prosecute him. However, the very criminal also uses a criminal lawyer to defend himself against his accuser and both of you are accommodated in the same constitution. Now if this is not sophisticated Babylon (confusion) what is it? How dare we then say, that the law is the will of God. Do we really know who God is?
Whoever says that the law in Exodus 20 was given by God makes an omniscient God a fool, very uninformed and whose thinking works in circles. He makes him a fool in a sense that he tells a sinner not to SIN. (A sinner not to sin – sinner because he sinned and sinning and you tell them not to do what they are and already doing and will do).
Thou shalt not commit adultery, whoever looks at a woman has already committed adultery, I was born in sin and in sin, my mother conceived me. If God is not redundant, why would he give such a law to such people in such a world!?
Thou shalt not have an image of God graven or imagined. Who of us doesn’t have at least a mental image of who God is!!!? Isn’t this violation pre-observance?
I wish I could continue. So friends the law in Exodus 20 is equal to the constitution of your country. It is healthy to be a law abiding citizen for the good of yourself and your environment but not for your eternal destiny.
We cannot equate God to our counter-measures of the challenge we are faced with. The law was invented by the Hammurabi leadership whose concern was about the science of managing society with its evil propensities and making sure it survives in its state.
If the law is the will of God, then every Republic’s constitution is the will of God in that country.
Our problems are bigger than what the law prohibits. Just do yourself a favour and be a law abiding citizen for your good in a chaotic and contagious environment. If you know you have a vulnerable body and you want to keep it.
Pr. I. T. WHITE
iTiS Well of Worship Fellowship (John 4:24) 