The Covenantal Nature of Law
Law defines the parameters of a relationship.
For instance, United States law defines ones relationship to the United States. If we as citizens begin to break the law and live outside the law, our privileges as citizens will be negatively affected; the law will have something against us. Citizens are those who agree to, and conform to, the Law. When a citizen breaks the law he is breaking the terms of his citizenship and must then suffer the consequences. For this reason men, like R. J. Rushdoony for instance, will sometimes speak of the law as a form of warfare; it guards and protects the State by defining a legitimate relationship to the state and the consequences of violating that relationship.
And because Law defines the basis and parameters of a relationship (its privileges, duties and consequences of violating the relationship) Law is inherently covenantal.
Scripture testifies to this understanding of law in places such as Romans chapter 7. Here Paul asks us:
“Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth? For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man.” Romans 7:1-3
In the context Paul is discussing the Christians relationship to the Law and he uses the analogy of the marriage relationship to teach us about our relationship to the Law of God.
In verse two Paul speaks of the woman who is bound by law to her husband. He then speaks of her being released from the law of her husband and being free from that law if her husband dies. The specific privileges, duties, responsibilities and consequences of violating the terms of that relationship come to an abrupt end upon the death of the husband.
Notice Paul is speaking of the marriage covenant, but he is speaking of it in terms of law. You could just as easily substitute the word covenant for law and it would still make just as much sense:
“Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth? For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the covenant to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the covenant of her husband. So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that covenant; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man.”
Covenants and law are in many ways similar to each other as they both deal with the parameters and obligations of relationships. Law cannot escape being covenantal in nature.
This is also brought out very clearly in the case of the Ten Commandments. God repeatedly singles out the Ten Commandments (that which we often call the Moral Law) and calls them a Covenant.
In Exodus 34 the Lord recounts the Ten Commandments and then says to Moses:
“…Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel. And he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.”
In Deuteronomy 4 Moses is recalling the giving of the Ten Commandments to the nation of Israel and says this in verses 12-14:
“And the LORD spake unto you out of the midst of the fire: ye heard the voice of the words, but saw no similitude; only ye heard a voice. And he declared unto you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, even Ten Commandments; and he wrote them upon two tables of stone.”
Again, a chapter later in Deuteronomy 5 Moses refers to the Covenant God made with them at Horeb and proceeds to recall the Ten Commandments once again. He finishes reciting the Commandments and says:
“These words the LORD spake unto all your assembly in the mount out of the midst of the fire, of the cloud, and of the thick darkness, with a great voice: and he added no more. And he wrote them in two tables of stone, and delivered them unto me.”
Clearly the Covenant spoken of in verse 2 is the Ten Commandments which follow with nothing else added to them; God spoke no more than that.
And in first Kings 8:9, speaking of the Ark of the Covenant we are told:
“There was nothing in the ark save the two tables of stone, which Moses put there at Horeb, when the LORD made a covenant with the children of Israel, when they came out of the land of Egypt.”
And in verse 21
“And I have set there a place for the ark, wherein is the covenant of the LORD, which he made with our fathers, when he brought them out of the land of Egypt.”
Clearly the Ten Commandments written on the two tables of stone in verse 8 are the same as the Covenant spoken of in verse 21. In all these examples the Ten Commandments, what we often call the “Moral Law”, are clearly singled-out themselves as a covenant.
In these Scriptural examples we see something of the Covenantal nature of law, and this becomes very significant, I believe, as we struggle to obtain a Biblical understanding of Law.
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