Some people distrust God because they dislike specific laws he established in the Old Testament and object to the severe penalties he imposed for breaking them.
They cannot imagine associating with the strict and punitive moralist these decrees portray.
These folks misread God’s purposes for issuing the Old Testament laws and overlook the grace and mercy he offered violators who repented.
Moral, Ceremonial, And Civil
On their journey from Egypt to their promised homeland, God audibly conveyed a moral code to the Israelites, instructing them to worship him alone and, in sum, to treat others as they themselves wished to be treated. It is commonly referred to as the Ten Commandments.
God later inspired Moses to record ceremonial laws that instituted celebratory and commemorative feasts and festivals for the Israelites and instructed them in how to worship him, purify themselves symbolically, and offer atoning sacrifices for their sins. He also established civil laws, including dietary restrictions, hygiene regulations, and clothing rules, that addressed matters of public safety, interpersonal ethics, and social cohesion. Together, these decrees are called the Mosaic Laws.
The Israelites viewed the Ten Commandments and the Mosaic Laws as a unified, perfection-based system representing God’s will. Breaching them, intentionally or accidentally, constituted sin, disqualifying a person from heaven in the absence of sincere repentance and faith in God’s mercy. Violating a single precept was deemed the same as breaking all of them in this regard.
Like us, the Israelites were imperfect individuals, born with a fallen nature. They all violated the Ten Commandments and the Mosaic Laws at some point, whether in their hearts, minds, or actions. Thus, each one was a sinner according to God’s standard.
Sacrifices and Penalties
God ordained various sacrifices to atone for certain intentional and unintentional violations of the Mosaic Laws. Acceptable sacrifices ranged from flour, oil, and incense to unblemished bulls, sheep, goats, doves, and pigeons, depending on the lawbreaker’s wealth and the seriousness of the offense.
God also authorized penalties for violating specific laws, ranging from fines and restitution to imprisonment and exile to flogging and execution, depending on the type, context, severity, and intentionality of the offense. The death penalty was reserved for the deliberate transgressions he deemed most egregious.
Most of us would agree that God was justified in imposing the death penalty for capital offenses like murder, rape, slave trading, and child sacrifice. We can also understand why he required it for violations like idolatry, blasphemy, witchcraft, and divination. After all, he insisted the Israelites worship only him.
However, God mandated capital punishment for infractions that many today consider common behaviors, too anodyne to warrant a severe rebuke, much less the death penalty. These offenses included breaking the Sabbath, cursing or striking a parent, homosexuality, and adultery.
Mitigating Factors
The Israelites rarely enforced the death penalty for these and other capital offenses for several reasons.
The Ten Commandments and Mosaic Laws promoted righteousness and discouraged misconduct, establishing cultural norms that reduced the number of incidents warranting capital punishment.
The Israelites had a rule-based judicial system for adjudicating violations of the Mosaic Laws, staffed by priests and elders. Defendants had due process rights. Vigilante justice was not permitted.
Convicting someone of a capital offense that carried the death penalty required the testimony of at least two qualified witnesses who had personally observed the alleged violation, an uncommon circumstance.
The courts had the discretion to impose a lesser penalty or grant a pardon based on the facts and circumstances of the offense and whether a lawbreaker confessed to the violation and sincerely repented.
Here are two examples of God himself granting pardons to people whose capital offenses warranted the death penalty according to the Mosaic Laws.
Old Testament Example
David, widely considered Israel’s greatest king, was a serious lawbreaker.
As a teenager, he defeated Goliath, a giant Philistine warrior. As king, he organized Israel’s twelve tribes into a nation with Jerusalem as its capital, expanded the country’s borders through military conquest, and wrote many of the Psalms.
However, amid all this royal success, David, a married man, impregnated a married woman who was not his wife. To cover up this sin, he arranged for her husband, one of his loyal soldiers, to be killed in battle.
Thus, David was an adulterer personally and a murderer by proxy. According to the Mosaic Laws, he deserved the death penalty for these violations.
However, after being confronted by one of his trusted advisors who spoke on God’s behalf, David confessed these sins. married the woman, and recommitted himself to living righteously.
God forgave David in response to his repentance and allowed his reign to continue, but his life thereafter was tumultuous.
New Testament Example
The religious leaders brought an adulterous woman before Jesus one day and asked whether she should be stoned, as the Mosaic Laws required.
He replied that whoever was without sin should cast the first stone. Dumbfounded, her accusers slinked away one by one, keenly aware of their own sinfulness.
After the last person departed, Jesus asked the woman if anyone had formally convicted her of adultery. Rather than refuting the premise of his question by asserting her innocence, she replied that no one had, implicitly affirming her guilt.
Jesus told her to go and sin no more, effectively forgiving her without dismissing the seriousness of her sin.
Applicability Today
Are reborn believers today subject to the Ten Commandments and Mosaic Laws?
The Ten Commandments apply to us in their entirety except for the activity restriction in the fourth commandment, which pertains to keeping the Sabbath. Jesus effectively rescinded this prohibition when he healed people multiple times on that holy day. However, the universal principles of human dignity and equality inherent in this commandment remain applicable.
The ceremonial laws and atoning sacrifices God instituted in the Old Testament are not binding on reborn believers. The death of Jesus paid the penalty for all our sins—past, present, and future; egregious and innocuous; willful and unintentional. His sacrifice gave us direct access to God at any time, just as we are, eliminating the need for us to conduct these rituals or for an intercessor to do so on our behalf.
The civil laws that God prescribed in the Old Testament do not apply to reborn believers because we are not citizens of ancient Israel.
However, the community values embedded in specific laws, such as caring for the vulnerable, sharing our resources with the needy, and loving our neighbors, remain operative for us generally. The legal principles inherent in some decrees, such as restorative justice, equality before the law, the presumption of innocence, and the right to confront one’s accusers, inform the judicial systems in many countries today.
The New Testament reiterates the Old Testament laws and commandments regarding sexual ethics, but does not reaffirm the penalties for violating them. Instead, it elevates grace, mercy, forgiveness, and redemption over punishment.
Purposes Beyond Conduct
The Ten Commandments and Mosaic Laws did more than govern the Israelites’ personal behavior.
They comprised the legal framework for the theocracy the Israelites established in their promised homeland.
They differentiated the monotheistic Israelites from their polytheistic pagan neighbors, morally and culturally, furthering their renown as God’s chosen people following their dramatic departure from Egypt and the Red Sea crossing.
These decrees also served several theological purposes.
- The laws and commandments formalized God’s authority over the Israelites and served as a constant reminder of his sovereignty.
- They revealed what God considers righteous and holy and what he detests.
- The thoroughness of the laws and the exacting specificity of the atoning sacrifices required the Israelites to approach God on his terms with humility, reverence, and intentionality; he was not to be considered casually or obeyed nonchalantly.
- The penalties God authorized for violating the laws and commandments revealed the seriousness of sin from his perspective.
- The hierarchy of punishments disclosed which sins he deemed most egregious and, inversely, the personal behaviors and societal norms he valued most.
- The atoning sacrifices revealed God to be merciful while the penalties revealed him to be just.
- The comprehensiveness of the laws and commandments made it clear to the Israelites that their personal performance would never qualify them for heaven; they would have to trust in God’s mercy for their salvation.
Judging God
Those who disparage God because they dislike the Mosaic Laws are essentially saying their moral values and ethical judgments transcend his.
If that were true, he would not be God; they would.
These folks need to remember that God is perfect. His righteousness exceeds ours. His sense of fairness is more acute than ours. His determinations of what is equitable are more accurate than ours. When he inspired Moses to record the laws and penalties, he was more concerned about their equity than we could ever be.
Those who deem God unjust because they consider his Old Testament punishments unduly harsh forget that he is supremely merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. His justice comes to the fore only after sinners fail to respond to his offer of redemption and choose to remain unrepentant.
In some cases, God’s physical penalties served to limit punishment, ensuring its proportionality to the offense, preventing cycles of escalating vengeance, and preserving the dignity of the violators. Examples include an eye for an eye, not the exenteration of two eyes in retribution for the loss of one; a maximum of forty lashes, precluding the vindictive administration of a higher, more torturous count.
Some argue that God is morally inconsistent because reborn believers are not required to abide by the civil laws he mandated for the Israelites. His moral values have never changed, but the demographics of his followers have evolved.
The Israelites were familial citizens of a single nation with a unique culture, a theocracy organized around God’s moral values in which personal sins, including lapses in proper worship, carried civil penalties. Today, reborn believers from a range of ethnicities live in countries around the world with distinctive cultures, diverse belief systems, and differing forms of government. We are now subject to local laws and penalties enacted by secular legislative bodies that are not bound by God’s immutable moral values.
The Mosaic Laws regulated certain practices that God condemns elsewhere in the Bible, such as polygamy and slavery. These civil laws do not mean that he approved of these activities when conducted by the Israelites, but hypocritically condemned them when practiced by other people groups. His moral laws have always applied equally to everyone. He still deemed these practices sinful even when conducted by the Israelites.
These particular civil laws reflect God’s awareness that the Israelites would engage in these immoral activities despite his preference and that regulations were necessary to protect those adversely affected by them. In this regard, God acted like state legislators today who enact civil laws regulating activities they personally disdain, but their constituents endorse, like cannabis sales and online gambling.
Some critics contend that the thorniest Mosaic Laws can be disregarded because they were written by someone other than Moses without God’s inspiration.
These folks need to convince Jesus otherwise.
He vouched for the Old Testament’s divine inspiration and frequently discussed the Mosaic Laws without repudiating their origin or authority.
New Testament Standard
Jesus lived a sinless life during his time on earth in perfect obedience to the Ten Commandments and the Mosaic Laws.
He said we would also fulfill the laws and commandments if we love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and treat others the way we would like to be treated.
Read More
Disregarding God’s values gives rise to moral relativism, which ultimately can justify all sorts of evil. Learn more here.
Further insights into the Ten Commandments can be found here.
