Friday: Further Study: Laws in Christ’s Day
Further Study: Read also Ellen G. White, Oath Taking,
pp. 201-204, Testimonies for the Church, vol. 1.
If Adam had not transgressed the law of God, the ceremonial law would never have been instituted. The gospel of good news was first given to Adam in the declaration made to him that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent’s head; and it was handed down through successive generations to Noah, Abraham, and Moses. The knowledge of God’s law, and the plan of salvation were imparted to Adam and Eve by Christ Himself. They carefully treasured the important lesson, and transmitted it by word of mouth, to their children, and children’s children. Thus the knowledge of God’s law was preserved.-Ellen G. White, Selected Messages, book 1, p. 230.
Discussion Questions:
- Long before Moses penned the laws that were to govern Israel, the Egyptians and Babylonians had systems of societal laws that were, in some cases, similar in content to some of God’s laws. Even atheistic societies have laws that protect people and property. Law, though, is often based on moral concepts; that is, law should encourage people to refrain from certain types of evil and to do certain types of good. From where, though, do societies get their sense of good and evil?
- How does the whole concept of good and evil impact the question of God’s existence? In other words, if there is no God, from where do the concepts of good and evil come? From where is the only place that they could come if no God existed?
- We often use the concept of
law
in different ways. We talk about the law of gravity, the law of motion. We talk about international law. We talk about the law of the land. We talk about tax law. What do all of these laws have in common? In what ways do they differ? What is the probable consequence of violating any of these laws? What are the benefits of cooperating with these laws? How do the principles of law help you to understand the purpose of the Ten Commandments as it relates to the life of believers? - In class, go back to Wednesday’s lesson and deal with the issue of how we as a church need to be careful that we don’t make the same mistake that some of the leaders did by adding burdens to the law that were never meant to be there. Why is such a mistake easier to make than we might think, no matter how well-meaning we might be?
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To what kind of laws mentioned in this week's lesson do the laws on clean and unclean foods, tithing and circumcision belong? The law on circumcision was abolished on the cross but the other two remained. How can we determine which laws were nailed and which were not?
Mervin, Bro Paul in the book of Hebrews gave a beautiful description of the law which was nailed to the cross and what is to be observed. Whenever we read the books of Exodus, Lev, Numbers and Deutro we read about 5 different laws:1. Moral law, 2. ceremonial law, 3. health law, 4. civil law and 5. statues and judgment. Those 5 laws had to be kept by the children of Isreal. The ceremonial law was the only one which required animal sacrifice. That sacrifice pointed to Jesus which will take away the sins of the world. Jesus came and did what he promised, therefore we do not want any more killing of animals for our sins. Jesus got rid of it.
I believe none of the law is nailed away(that little sense). we still have to keep it! by principle. The law has a lot of good principles that we should still observe