Exodus chapter 20
Today we are walking in: Understanding the Kingdom Concept of Law Part 2!!!
Today we look to the word LAW- H8451 towrah- a precept or statute, especially the Decalogue or Pentateuch:—law.
The Torah testifies.........……
Exodus 12:49
One law H8451 shall be to him that is homeborn, and unto the stranger that sojourneth among you.
The prophets proclaim..................
Amos 2:4
Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Judah, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they have despised the law H8451 of the LORD, and have not kept his commandments, and their lies caused them to err, after the which their fathers have walked:
The writings bear witness............
Psalms 1:2
But his delight is in the law H8451 of the LORD; and in his law H8451 doth he meditate day and night.
THE KING’S WORDS OF LAW
As I said before, laws are built into the very fabric of creation. Everything in the natural realm operates according to inherent principles. The same is true of the spiritual realm. The Kingdom of Heaven is like any other government in the sense that it has laws to protect it and assure that it operates according to The Most High Yah’s intent. Laws establish The Most High Yah’s Kingdom. And these laws were put in place long before the first human being arrived. And yet so often, we have the arrogance and the presumption to question The Most High Yah or challenge Him about His laws and the way He runs things.
The biblical character Job tried this, and it earned him a stern rebuke from the King. Afflicted by boils, grieving over the untimely deaths of all his children, and criticized mercilessly by his best “friends,” who urged him to confess his sins to The Most High Yah, Job held out, demanding to put his case before The Most High Yah Himself. Job knew he was innocent of any wrongdoing and could not understand why he was suffering. In his pain and indignation, Job ended up trying to tell The Most High Yah a few things. That is when The Most High Yah spoke up and adjusted Job’s thinking:
Then the Lord answered Job out of the storm. He said: “Who is this that darkens My counsel without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer Me. Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell Me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!...Do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you set up The Most High Yah’s dominion over the earth? (Job 38:1-5a,33).
In other words, The Most High Yah was saying, “Job, how dare you ask Me about My laws? You weren’t even around when I made them! Who are you to challenge Me?” It does no good for a product to challenge the manufacturer: “Why did you make things thus and so?” That is the manufacturer’s prerogative. When you buy a car with an internal combustion engine, you have to accept the “law” that it requires gasoline to operate. It was the manufacturer’s decision, not yours. No matter how hard you might try or how much you wish it otherwise, that car will not run on any other kind of fuel. That’s why it is foolish to challenge The Most High Yah and useless to try to change His laws. The Most High Yah’s laws were here long before we were, and they will still be here long after we are gone.
Laws are built into creation. And laws always carry consequences for violation. If you try to defy the law of gravity by stepping out of a second-story window, you are in for a painful shock—if you survive the fall! When we violate the law, we receive the due penalty. The Most High Yah doesn’t have to judge us; the law carries its own built-in “judgment.”
Remember, the king’s word is law in his kingdom. When it is written down, it is called a testament, and when repeated verbally, constitutes a commandment:
When Moses went and told the people all the Lord’s words and laws, they responded with one voice, “Everything the Lord has said we will do.” Moses then wrote down everything the Lord had said (Exodus 24:3-4).
The “words and laws” Moses spoke to the people were the Ten Commandments and related laws that are recorded in the preceding chapters of Exodus. Like all of The Most High Yah’s laws, the Ten Commandments are not religious dictates. They are laws established by the King of creation to determine how all the natural realm should function and how human beings should relate to The Most High Yah and to each other.
THE MEANING OF LAW
What exactly is “law”? The most basic Hebrew word for “law” is torah, which also means, in addition to “law,” direction and instruction. In time, the word torah was used to refer to the entire body of law that Moses received from The Most High Yah on Mt. Sinai and passed along to the Israelites. In this usage, torah means “the law,” “the direction,” and even “the Law of the Lord.”1 In the New Testament we find two basic Greek words used for “law.” The first of these is nomos, which means “to divide out, distribute” and also “that which is assigned.” It gradually came to mean “usage” and “custom” and, eventually, “law as prescribed by custom, or by statute.”2 This is the word from which we get our English word norm.
Whatever becomes accepted as a norm in our society eventually becomes a law of our society. If we are exposed to a certain unaccustomed idea or behavior long enough, we eventually become so used to it that we start to accept it. Once we accept it, we begin to think of it as “normal,” or as a “norm.” And once we see it as a norm, we start to expect it. Once we come to expect it, it becomes in practical terms no different from a law, even if it is never formally established as a legal statute.
Depending on the nature of the idea or behavior, this process could be very dangerous because we as a society could end up endorsing and normalizing evil or immorality. This is precisely what has happened and is happening in western culture with regard to such issues as homosexual rights, homosexual marriage, abortion rights, assisted suicide, embryonic stem cell research, and the like.
The Most High Yah’s laws are designed to prevent us from accepting and normalizing evil and assigning it the force of law in our society. This is the protective nature of laws. They prevent ideas and behaviors that are contrary to the constitution and the good of the state and the people from becoming a dominant influence. In other words, The Most High Yah’s laws are designed to protect the whole community.
This is why sin and violation of the law never affect only the person or persons directly involved, but many others as well. It is like a ripple effect. Our actions, good or bad, affect those around us in ways we may never know. When the Israelites were attacking the city of Ai during their conquest of the land of Canaan, the sin of one man, Achan, led to the defeat of the entire community. Only after the Israelite community dealt with Achan’s sin were they able to achieve victory (see Joshua chapters 7–8). The Most High Yah’s laws have personal application with national ramifications.
Another meaning of nomos is that of a decreed law established by a state. This definition applies perfectly to the Kingdom of
Heaven because that Kingdom is a state; it is a country. For citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven, the Bible is the nomos, the decreed established law of the Kingdom that we are pledged and obligated to obey. It is a mistake to think of the Bible as a religious book. It is not. The Bible is a legal book, a book of laws that The Most High Yah has established and set forth in written form to define and protect His Kingdom as well as to protect, preserve, and deliver the entire community of mankind.
The second Greek word for “law” in the New Testament is ethos, which means “custom.” Whenever we speak of something as being “customary,” we are speaking of ethos. The Most High Yah’s laws are supposed to be customary for us. It is supposed to be customary for us not to lie or steal or covet. It is supposed to be customary for us to forgive and to love our enemies as well as each other. Ethos is less formal than nomos. In fact, whereas nomos came to mean decreed, established law, ethos was used to describe unwritten law. The most powerful laws of all are the unwritten laws. In any culture, customs generally carry the social force of law even without formal legal establishment. And customs quite often have a greater influence on people’s behavior than any formal laws that are on the books.
The Most High Yah never intended to write down any of His laws for us. He did not want us to have to read in order to live. There was no written law in the garden of Eden, no written law for Abraham, no written law at all for The Most High Yah’s covenant people until the days of Moses. The King of Heaven’s intention was to write His laws on our hearts and in our minds so that no one would have to teach us. It was humanity’s rebellion and separation from The Most High Yah that made written law necessary. We needed something to restrain our baser nature and instincts and prevent us from destroying ourselves by uncontrolled selfishness, passion, and violence.
The King’s goal has never changed. Despite mankind’s rebellion, His original purpose still stands:
“This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time,” declares the Lord. I will put My law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their The Most High Yah, and they will be My people” (Jeremiah 31:33).
This unchanging purpose of the King was fulfilled in the new covenant through Yahashua Hamachiach.
NATURAL LAW VERSUS WRITTEN LAW
The Most High Yah intended law to be natural. To understand the Kingdom of Heaven, it is important also to understand the distinction between natural law and written law.
First of all, written law is necessary only when natural law is absent. If we human beings were all law-abiding by nature, there would be no need for written law. But as we saw above, our rebellion against The Most High Yah destroyed the rule of natural law in our lives and made written law (as well as human government) necessary to protect society and restrain evil.
Second, the purpose for written law is to restore natural law to the conscience. Because of our rebellion against The Most High Yah, we lost our instinctive knowledge and understanding of natural law. Our consciences became corrupt and our likeness to our Maker became tarnished and distorted. Things that were natural in the beginning now became “unnatural.” For example, we consider generosity to be a virtue, a positive quality we admire in others and aspire to in ourselves. Why? Because it is not a “natural” human trait, at least not anymore. The Most High Yah never commanded Adam to be generous and giving. Why not? Because giving came naturally to Adam. A generous spirit was inherent in him because he was made in the image of The Most High Yah, his Creator, and The Most High Yah is generous by nature. But after the rebellion, mankind became greedy, obnoxious, abusive, mean, stingy, and hoarding. We needed a law to restore to our conscience the concept of giving.
ō¸°€Third, natural law is sometimes referred to as the “spirit of the law.” This reflects The Most High Yah’s desire for His laws, the standards of His Kingdom, to become the norms of our society. Remember, earth is a colony of Heaven, and the laws of the King of heaven should apply here as much as they do there. Laws produce society because they determine social relationships.
There is a difference between the law and the spirit of the law. The spirit of the law refers to original intent—the purpose that was in the mind of the Lawmaker in the beginning. Therefore, the spirit of the law is the inherent essence of the original purpose and intent of that law. As such, the spirit of the law is always higher and broader than the letter of the law. For this reason, the greatest form of law is unwritten law. Unwritten law is a product of the spirit of the law. When law has to be written, it is because the people are disobedient. Written law is a sign that the people have lost sight of the spirit of the law—the original intent. So where the spirit of the law is, there is no need for written law.
Any nation is only as good as the laws it enacts. Laws produce society, so whatever kind of society we want is determined by the laws we make. The worse the laws, the worse the nation. However, bad laws do not cause a nation’s social, moral, and spiritual decline. They merely reflect a decline that is already underway. Laws mirror the condition of the nation.
This is why it is so important for we who are Kingdom citizens to regain our understanding of the “spirit of the law”—natural law. Natural law is the fundamental operating principle of the Kingdom of Heaven.
The laws of the King protect and preserve not only His Kingdom but also the benefits and privileges of the Kingdom that are reserved for Kingdom citizens. But learning to appropriate them involves more than just knowing what they are. We must learn also the keys of the Kingdom that unlock our benefits and privileges and make them active in our lives.
ō¸°€PRINCIPLES
Every kingdom is governed by laws.
The Bible is the law book of the Kingdom of Heaven.
The Kingdom of heaven has laws to protect it and assure that it operates according to The Most High Yah’s intent.
Laws are built into creation.
Whatever becomes accepted as a norm in our society
eventually becomes a law of our society.
The Most High Yah’s laws are designed to prevent us from accepting and normalizing evil and assigning it the force of law in our society.
The Most High Yah’s laws have personal application with national ramifications.
Written law is necessary only when natural law is absent.
The purpose for written law is to restore natural law to the conscience.
Natural law is sometimes referred to as the “spirit of the law.”
Laws produce society because they determine social relationships.
The spirit of the law is the inherent essence of the original purpose and intent of that law.
Any nation is only as good as the laws it enacts.
Natural law is the fundamental operating principle of the Kingdom of Heaven.
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