Sunday 8 December 2013

The Promise Preceded the Law

God's nature since eternity past is love. Unrighteousness is any behaviour that doesn't reflect God's nature of love. God planned to send His Son to be crucified for our redemption before the world even began. 

Some time after the fall of man He gave promise to Abraham that in His seed (not seeds - plural, but seed - singular, which is Christ) all nations - all nationalities - would be blessed (forgiven, justified, saved). Abraham believed that promise - and his faith was credited to him as righteousness. 

The time of the promise was not yet, but in the interim, God through Moses gave a covenant - a system of Law to the physical nation of Israel in particular, after bringing them up out of Egypt.  This Law expressed God's nature in many ways. It showed them what was loving and what wasn't. It showed them what was righteous and what wasn't. It illustrated many divine principles. Keeping the Law had certain promises attached to it. Some of its components were not God's pattern in the beginning of creation but were included because of the hardness of men's hearts. The tabernacle (later the Temple, in Jerusalem) was to be the exclusive place of worship, and the Levites the sole officiators. Blood sacrifice was intrinsic to the whole system. It's feasts all commemorated Israel's deliverance from Egypt and events along their journey to Canaan. These feasts and the entire Law foreshadowed and prophesied the coming of the promised seed when a new covenant would be made - a covenant which, unlike the old covenant, would no longer be centred around the nation's historical deliverance from Egypt.

When the time of the promise came, God sent forth His Son.

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