Let me pray for us and then let's open and we'll look at this together will be an exodus chapter 19 and 20 Father in heaven we do great. Thanks that you have been so faithful to bring us back together to fellowship. I Lord, we are thankful that you have not treated us according to our sins, and that while you have given us a law, that law has revealed so much corruption in us, and so much pollution, so much of dishonoring of you, and we are thankful that you have given us a Savior in the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you that you have caused that law to drive us to your Son, And then you have written that law in our hearts, in the gospel, by the Spirit. We pray, Heavenly Father, that you would Give me great care as we enter in on a very difficult subject. Make us attentive. Father in heaven, we pray that you and your Son and Spirit would be present with us tonight and that we would all benefit from this enormously and that it would bear much fruit. Lord Jesus, we pray these things in your name and through your mediation and for your glory. Amen. Alright, so we are in Exodus 19, and then we'll look at maybe one or a couple verses in chapter 20. Exodus 19, 1. In the third month, after the children of Israel had gone out of the land of Egypt, on the same day they came to the wilderness of Sinai. For they had departed from Rephidim, had come to the wilderness of Sinai, and camped in the wilderness. So Israel camped there before the mountain. Moses went up to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountains, saying, Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob and tell the children of Israel, You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself. Now, therefore, if you will obey my voice, keep my covenant. You shall be a special treasure to me above all people, for all the earth is mine. You shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel. Now skip down to verse 16. Then it came to pass on the third day in the morning there were thunderings and lightnings and a thick cloud in the mountain and the sound of a trumpet very loud, so that all the people who were in the camp trembled. And Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. Now Mount Sinai was completely in smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire. Its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked greatly. And when the blast of the trumpet sounded long and became louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered by the voice. Then the Lord came down upon Mount Sinai on the top of the mountain. And the Lord called Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up. And the Lord said to Moses, Go down and warn the people, lest they break through to gaze at the Lord, and many of them perish. Also let the priests who come near the Lord consecrate themselves, lest the Lord break out against them. But Moses said to the Lord, The people cannot come up to Mount Sinai, for you warned us, saying, Set bounds around the mountain and consecrate it. Then the Lord said to him, Away, get down, and then come up, you and Aaron with you. But do not let the priests and the people break through and come up to the Lord, lest he break out against them. So Moses went down to the people and spoke to them. And God spoke all these words, saying, I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, any likeness of anything that is in the heaven above, that is in the earth beneath, that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them nor serve them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love me and keep my commandments. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor. Do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work, you nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that's in them and rested the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you. You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor's house, nor you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbors. Now skip down, if you would, to verse 22. Then the Lord said to Moses, Thus ye shall say to the children of Israel, You have seen that I talked to you from heaven. You shall not make anything to be with me. Gods of silver or gods of gold you shall not make for yourselves. An altar of earth you shall make for me. And you shall sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your oxen. In every place where I record my name, I will come to you and I will bless you. And if you make me an alder stone, you shall not build it of hewn stone. For if you use your tool on it, you have profaned it. Jonathan Edwards once said that in matters of divinity, there is nothing in which theologians or divines differed so much in church history as the relationship between the law and the gospel. And the older I've gotten and the more I've studied, the more I realize why it is such a difficult issue. It's an issue in which theologians have written volumes and volumes. They've written against other theologians. It has been debated, and for all that, even within reform camps, there are nuances of difference. In the reform camp, two of the big figures that stand at the head of the debate on the Mosaic Covenant and the law in relationship to the rest of the Scriptures are John Murray, who saw the Mosaic Covenant as pre-eminently part of the Covenant of Grace, as pre-eminently building on the Abrahamic Covenant. And then Meredith Klein on the other side, who saw it as a sort of intrusion of the Covenant of Works with Adam into redemptive history. That's not going to clear things up for you, but just so you know, even within the reform world, there's huge debates over this. What I want to do is I want to kind of talk about four things that have already set you up over this lesson and maybe the next. That is, the place of the law in redemptive history, then what we call the tripartite division of the law, the three-part division, moral law, civil law, ceremonial laws. And then we want to talk about how Christ fulfills the law and the law in relationship to Christ specifically focused on him and the incarnation in his work. And then we want to talk about what theologians call the three uses of the law. So those four things, and I'll break those down as we go along. The first is the law in redemptive history. The Apostle Paul in Romans chapter 5 will say that there was no law given between Adam and Moses. Nevertheless, men were still subject to the death penalty and the curse of the law. But what Paul seems to be saying in Romans 5 verse 12, I believe, is that there was law with Adam and there was law with Moses. There was external giving of God's commandments. There was an external giving of it in the covenant of works to Adam. You shall not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and the day you eat of it, surely you will die, and dying you will die. And there is an external propagation of that law at Sinai to Israel. Interestingly, Adam is a son of God. Israel is God's son. Both take God's law. Law doesn't begin at Sinai. That's a mistake, sadly, a lot of evangelicals make. It's a mistake a lot of Baptists make, and even some Presbyterians make. Law does not begin in Exodus 20. Law begins in the Garden with Adam. A world without law would be like a football game without rules. I was reading this week, Ian Campbell made, in a little book called On the First Day of the Week, really draws this great analogy. He says he goes to schools and he'll talk to the kids and he'll say, hey, which would be more fun, football with rules or without rules? And they'll say, you know, he says in their little depraved hearts, they all, without rules, no rules. And then he says, they think about it and they're like, wait a minute, the fun comes from the rules. The rules actually make it fun. Now, that analogy has weaknesses, but a world without God's law is a world of chaos. A world that's not governed by law is a world of disorder and chaos and does not reflect that it is a world created by a creator. Now, that's a very simplistic way of me talking about the necessity of law, especially with Adam in the garden. Where it gets more difficult is law in redemptive history. Because after Adam disobeys the one command, and we've talked in the past, bound up in that first commandment, that one commandment to Adam, were all ten commandments. I've told you in the past, if Adam had cut down the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, made a bat, and killed Eve, that would have been murder. If he had chopped down the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, carved a little idol, and bowed down and worshipped it, that would have been idolatry. So it's not that Adam only had this one command and no other moral commands. Paul in Romans 2 will actually say that all men by nature have the law of God written on their hearts, and their consciences accuse or excuse them. And the reason he can say that is because Adam had the moral law written on his heart. What Adam forfeited was the delighting in and obeying of those commandments that when he rebelled against God. And so one of the promises of the New Covenant is, I will again write my law in your heart. I will give you a new heart. With David, we'll be able to say, Lord, how I love your law. It's my meditation all the day. The precepts of the Lord are good and right. And so we have to understand Adam had the Ten Commandments. He had a Sabbath day in front of him. He had a Lord God Almighty who created him and who was to be worshipped alone and whose name was to be reverenced. And Adam wasn't to make images of him. He had a wife he was to be faithful to. He wasn't to kill her. He ends up killing her and all of his posterity and their posterity through his sin. Adam is bound and subject to the Ten Commandments, just like Israel was bound to the Ten Commandments, just like all men are under the Ten Commandments. Sin is sin, because God's law is what it is. It is always wrong. Now, yes, there were going to be tricky things, like the Sabbath day changing from the seventh to the first day. There are difficult things. The fact that the law given at Sinai is given distinctly to Israel as a nation, separated from the other nations in redemptive history. There are very difficult things. But what we want to see tonight first is that in redemptive history, the law is first given to Adam. After the fall, it's necessary that the gospel precedes the giving of the law. Now, follow me very carefully. After the fall, God could not have said to Adam and Eve, well, let me give you my commandments. Listen very carefully. These are the commandments. God could not have done that. Why? He couldn't be justified by the deeds of the law. He couldn't be accepted. He couldn't be redeemed by what he did. Adam could have been redeemed by obeying before the fall. After the fall, it's an impossibility. It's an affront to God for man to try. It would be dishonoring him. It would be cheapening God's demand for perfect obedience. Before the fall, Adam could have obeyed perfectly. After the fall, God doesn't give them the law in Genesis 3.15. He gives them the gospel. I will put enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. I will redeem. I will crush the serpent's head. I will redeem a people to myself. I will separate a people for myself. I will create my church. I will save them. God says, I will do it. He doesn't ask Adam and Eve to do anything. They are to believe. It is faith alone. There's no do this, do this, do this, even though God does teach them to sacrifice. apparently, because their children do. But the gospel precedes the law. Interestingly, the word law in Hebrew is Torah, as you know, and the first time the word Torah shows up in the Old Testament is not with regard to the moral law here in Exodus 19 and 20, but with regard to the Passover in Exodus 12. The first time the word Torah shows up in the scriptures, it is the Torah of the Passover, the Law of the Passover. Now why is that important? Because the Passover was a picture of the Gospel. The Passover was the Gospel in typical form. And it's interesting to me that the first time the word Torah law is used in the Scriptures, it has to do with the law of the Gospel. That God is going to... It's not actually anything Israel's going to do. All they're doing is believing and receiving. But God has given them this law, and that law is the Gospel. It's actually something God is doing. He's giving them the blood. He's giving them the prescriptions. He's passing over. All they're doing is believing and responding in faith. And it's also important to note that God doesn't give Israel the Ten Commandments and the other 611 commandments in Egypt, but he gives them to them after he redeems them out of Egypt. This is an enormously important point. What that does is that eliminates us looking at the Mosaic Covenant and the moral law. It eliminates us looking at it as something by which Israel was to be saved. to see that Genesis 3.15, the Abrahamic covenant, remember justification with Abraham. He believed and was justified. God's deliverance of Noah and all them. I'm out of place here, but Genesis 3.15, Noah, Abraham, the gospel given to Abraham and the promise that the world's going to be blessed in his seed, that seed promise coming through and then God giving Israel the Passover and then the exodus. All of that is gospel. That's all gospel. It doesn't mean there's no law. I mean, God says that whoever sheds man's blood, by man will his blood be shed. In the Noahic Covenant, murder is still wrong, even though there's no external giving of the law. But all of the external is gospel until we come to Sinai, and then there's prominent focus on the law. But we, I think, would make a big mistake to look at the Mosaic Covenant as preeminently a covenant of works for Israel. Now, I think there is an element of the Covenant of Works with Adam that is embedded in the Mosaic Covenant. God still demands perfect obedience. God has not cheapened his demand. Why must God demand perfect obedience? Because it's holy. God is holy. Not to demand perfection would be unholy. I mean, God is evil, like Allah, who doesn't demand perfection. Yahweh demands perfection because Yahweh is perfect and holy. Be perfect as your Father in heaven is holy. It's perfect. Be holy for I am holy. Now, just because man can't be perfect doesn't mean God doesn't require perfection. This is a big thing. It's very big. You'll hear Christians, well-meaning Christians who love Jesus, who love Him a lot, say, well, how can God demand perfection? We're not perfect. Because God demanded of His creature at creation, and that demand never goes away. And so when Paul comes to talk about the demand of the law in Galatians 3, he'll say, cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things. Pansa all the demand for perfect obedience is in that little Greek word Pansa all things Written in the book of the law to do them and Paul's taking that straight out of Deuteronomy He's getting that straight out of Leviticus 18 straight out of Deuteronomy at the end of Deuteronomy he is Paul is showing very clearly that within a the Pentateuch, God was already giving signs that He was demanding perfect obedience. Now, it's not that clear when you read through it, is it? When you read through the Mosaic books, and especially the Mosaic covenant books, Exodus and Leviticus and Deuteronomy, especially those books, it's not clear that God is saying, you have to keep this perfectly. You get those little nuggets as you go, but there's a sense where you can read it and you could, and this is why so many have twisted it, God has so ordered things that it could be twisted very easily because of the way God speaks about, if you keep my commandments, do this and live, all of these statements seems... I think on the surface, especially for the natural man who hasn't felt the weight of his sin and been converted, I think on the surface it can be twisted very easily. It's not until we get to Paul that we see what we should have seen. in those little phrases like, cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things, written in the book of the law to do them. And it becomes abundantly clear in Paul's letters, in Romans and Galatians, that God demanded perfect obedience. So in redemptive history, the law is in one sense, now let me make a distinction here, not the Mosaic covenant, but the law in its fair form. If you extrapolated the ten words, Now I know you're going to say, but there were more laws. We'll get to that. If you extrapolated the ten words, the ten commandments, and then took the blessing and cursing, threat and promise, and you took cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things in the book of the law to do them, and you put those things down on the table, you would have the covenant of works. You would have the form of the covenant of works. Here's the commandments, here's the demand, here's the promise and the threat. Just like with Adam. I do not, however, believe that the Mosaic Covenant is a covenant of works. I think it's part of the covenant of grace. It comes after redemption. It's given to a redeemed people. It's building on the Abrahamic covenant. I challenge you guys, when you're reading through the Old Testament, see how often God says to Moses what he's doing is, the promise I made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The promise I made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And remember, Vos says, Moses is simply carrying on those three promises made to Abraham, bringing them to the foot of the land. helping gather the people into a nation, preparing that nation to be set apart so the other nations could then receive the blessing of the gospel in the future. So all that's being prepared. So I believe in redemptive history, the Mosaic Covenant is not a covenant of works, but within it there's a very prominent form of the covenant of works to drive the people to Christ. We're going to get to that. That's why that's so prominent in the Mosaic Covenant. Paul will say, by the law comes the knowledge of sin. The law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. He'll talk about what we call the first use of the law, or the second use of the law, depending on who we're talking about there. But for now, let me just set us up by saying that. You see that God never intended for Israel to try to keep the law to be justified, or in some way that they could be good enough, because what does God tell Israel immediately after the Ten Commandments in verses 22 and following? What instruction does he give them? Well, not make idols. The altar, okay, look at verse 24, an altar of earth you shall make for me and you shall sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings. Now, who sacrifices? People that haven't kept the law. Who needs a sacrifice? Sinners, lawbreakers need a sacrifice. God knows that they're going to be lawbreakers, so He gives them, at the institution of the moral law, a command for the gospel. They need a gospel. Why do they need a gospel? Because they're not going to keep the law. They're not going to keep the law, and when they don't keep the law, they need a gospel. They need a sacrifice. It's amazing how close proximity that is to the giving of the Ten Commandments, and yet how many people overlook that. There's another really interesting place at the end of Deuteronomy. It's at the very end. Now, Deuteronomy is second law, right? Deuteronoma, second giving of the law. So, if you didn't get all the laws one time through, you're going to get them again, just in case you didn't get them. So, God's going to make sure you get them twice, because they're important, and He's holy, and it's important. But the last time he gives the law, he tells Israel to take these big stones, to whitewash them with lime, to write all the words of the law around those stones, on those stones, and then to take those stones that the law has been written on and to set them up into an altar and then sacrifice on them. What's that picture? Words of the law on stones, turned into an altar, and blood going over those laws. To me, that's a very clear picture of when you break these commands, you're going to need blood to cover. Where else is a picture like that in the Mosaic economy? There's a picture of that in the Ark of the Covenant. Because where do the ten words go? Where do the two tablets go? Into the Ark. There's some of the things that are stored in the Ark. And then a mercy seat goes over it God looks down, He dwells here, the commandments are here, He's going to view the people in light of these, and blood goes between them. So that when He looks down, and when the glory of God dwells between the chair of Him, there's blood between God and our standing with the law. Because the blood covers our transgressions. And so I think God is already giving Israel in the Mosaic economy gospel as he gives them law. He gives them law. Law is not gospel. He gives them gospel because when they break the law they're going to need the gospel. That's just a preemptive, kind of, my thoughts on the Mosaic Covenant. I think the Mosaic Covenant is part of the Covenant of Grace, a building on the Abrahamic Covenant. Because there's so much gospel. I mean, besides the sacrificial system, you're going to get the priesthood, and the temple, or the tabernacle, you're going to get all these gospel pictures. You know, Jesus tabernacles among us. He's the showbread. He's the light of the world. He's all the things in the tabernacle, right? John, we beheld His glory. He tabernacled among us. He enfleshed himself. The tabernacle had badger skin. Jesus is going to take human skin. You have all these things. God's going to dwell in a tent. God's going to dwell in Jesus. He is the sacrifice. All those typical pictures are all in the Mosaic economy. So to say the Mosaic economy is a covenant of works seems to me a huge failure in category. But to say it has no covenant of works in it seems to be a huge failure in category because it has the demand of the law and the promise of blessing and cursing. So it's not an either or, it's a both and, it's a covenant of grace with a covenant of works embedded in it. We'll come to what I think about that at some point and feel free to disagree. I ultimately think the covenant of works is embedded in it because Christ has to be born under the law to keep the law and fulfill the covenant of works. To give the blessings to his people in the covenant of grace. That's what I think. Again, lots of people disagree with this, but Mosaic Covenant, Redemptive History, part of the Covenant of Grace, building on the Abrahamic Covenant, but within it is this very clear form of the Covenant of Works in all the laws, the demand for perfect obedience, the promise of blessing and cursing in it. Now, in Redemptive History, there's something very unique about the Mosaic Covenant for Israel. This is where most of my Baptist friends are going to go first. I think they should go here second. But it's important. There's something very distinctively Israelitish about the Mosaic Covenant. Gentiles were not in the Mosaic Covenant. Gentiles were excluded from the Mosaic Covenant. The Mosaic Covenant was made with Israel as a nation. The Mosaic Covenant was Israelitish. It was given to Israel as God's covenant people. It was for Israel distinctively. And there were several features about the Mosaic Covenant that kept Israel separate in redemptive history. Remember, we're talking about the law in redemptive history and the Mosaic Covenant in redemptive history. So for instance, we'll come to the tripartite division in a minute, but for instance, you have the dietary laws. They would be part of what we call the ceremonial laws. They were part of Israel's ceremonial ritual cultic aspect of Israel's history. Israel was not allowed to eat things with the cloven hoof. They were not allowed to eat bacon. They were not allowed to eat. All those good things that we love to just chow down on. We have barbecues and cookouts. They couldn't enjoy it. And you're going to find a lot of well-meaning Christians who are not well-studied Christians saying and writing books about God cared about the health of his people, and bacon's not good for you, and God wanted clean arteries for clean people, all kinds of just craziness, because God's going to tell Peter, go ahead and eat bacon. Bring home the bacon, Peter. Bring it home. Bring me home the bacon, buddy, because I love some bacon. That's a blessing in the new covenant. Now, too much bacon? Not good. Clogged arteries. God didn't care, if I can say this reverently, all that much about Israel's health. I'm sure God cared. He cares about everything. His main point of making dietary laws was not because of Israel's health. Let me tell you what it was because of. there was, first of all, a very practical function. If you were a Jew, and you're surrounded by Moabite neighbors, and Amalekite neighbors, and Canaanite neighbors, and your 15-year-old son wants to go play with the Moabite girls over here, this good-looking Israelite, you know? He's at that age. The Moabite girls are over here hanging out. There's a Moabite nightclub over here. They want to go hang out at the Moabite nightclub. You may not like the Moabite music. God's told you not to send your kids there. He's told you not to send your kids there. If your son can't eat what the Moabites eat, it is a protection, one added benefit of shielding him from going over there. It's hard to hang out with people if you don't eat what they eat. That's just this one little practical separation. Now that's just a practical thing about it. There's so many layers of the dietary laws. But one is it's hard to hang out with people that eat differently than you. You know, when we invite people over to our house, and they're vegetarians, and my wife makes a dish, I'm like, where's the meat? And they're like, oh, we're vegetarians. I'm like, oh. And, you know, I just want to be like, well, hon, I'm going to go out. I'll be back. We've got to go get some food. It really does put the strain on the table fellowship. And so I think there's a practical function separating them by what they ate and what they couldn't eat. Obviously, rebellious Israelites aren't going to care, and they're going to go shack up with all the Moabite women they can. And they did. But, there's that practical dimension. In redemptive history, the clean and the unclean, we've talked about in the past, show the Jews and the Gentiles. They're a picture. The unclean food, picture the Gentiles have nothing to do with that. The clean, God's people have been consecrated covenantally. Clean food, clean animals, clean people. That's separation. Obviously, when Jesus comes and the Gospel is fulfilled, the wall of separation is broken down, the middle wall is torn away, there's no distinction, God lets down the animals, you can eat, it's all clean, the Gospel is going to the nations. No more distinction for Israel. No more dietary laws. That's a huge passage for the abolition of the dietary laws. They have been fulfilled in Jesus, in his death. In fact, Jesus alludes to this in Mark 7 when he says, nothing that enters the mouth is unclean, but what comes out of the mouth. So I think Jesus already in Mark 7 is intimating that the dietary laws have served their purpose. You also had the issue of the sacrifices, the clean animals and the unclean animals, which is a little separate than the dietary functions. I think the dietary functions were to show Israel that they were to be a separate nation. Now, why did Israel have to be separate in redemptive history? Well, I think two or three maybe reasons in redemptive history until Christ comes. One is that God had promised to send a Redeemer, and that Redeemer would have to come to a nation in order to bless the world. So God created a nation, separated them, hedged them about with these laws, so that a Redeemer could come. And those laws would show forth the righteous rule of the God who was coming in the Redeemer. Because no other nation had the righteous rules of Yahweh. No other nation had true religion. And so those laws showed that this is true religion. That Israel is the nation that's been given the true religion. That the other nations, even if they have the Code of Hammurabi and other ethics systems, they do not have the righteous rule of Yahweh. Now, you have to listen very carefully. In a sense, God's eschatological rule, his rule in glory when he's going to perfectly rule in perfect righteousness, broke into time and space in redemptive history in the formation and the giving of the law to Israel. God's righteous rule that we're going to know one day when Christ comes back in glory, when God rules perfectly and there's no unrighteousness and it's all righteousness, that broke into time and space and intruded into time and space in the formation of Israel in the Old Testament. And that was to show us that God was King, and that God was the Righteous Judge, and that God was the Just God, and that God's ways were holy, and that God is the Separate One, He is the Holy One of Israel, that He is the Separate God, from all the other gods of the nations. And so, God's end-time righteous rule broke into time in the Old Testament to display under type, in a type, as Israel is a nation under type, God's righteous rule. That's why you have civil laws. That's why you have the civil laws. The civil laws are God exacting justice in a nation-state church. In a state church, a nation church. Those civil laws were only for Israel. They're not for America. We'll talk about that. Those were only for Israel. The, if you do this, this will happen. If you do this, this will happen. If a man does this, then this shall happen. That was God's end time perfect rule breaking into and forming itself in a typological picture in redemptive history until Christ comes. And then he doesn't implement it in the nations, but we know that he's going to implement it perfectly in heaven in that perfect rule. Now, I think the laws given to Israel, the civil laws given to Israel, so we've already talked about ceremonial laws, the civil laws given to Israel also were there to protect the nation from itself. How are those laws there to protect the nation from itself? If there was a death penalty for speeding, I would never speed again. Just telling you, up front. If you got the death penalty for speeding, people would be driving like 15 miles under the speed limit everywhere. Now, that wouldn't have been a commensurate punishment, and we can get into that, but the point is, there was a sense where that limited wickedness, and it enabled the nation, though the nation cast off restraint and became worse than the nations, Nevertheless, it allowed it to continue in redemptive history until Christ came. It, in a sense, protected the nation from itself. I think that's a very important point that a lot of people don't ever get. That not only did it reflect God's righteous rule, but it also kept God's nation continuing until Christ came. Now, you'll see that when they go to Babylon, they don't have civil law anymore. And when they come back out, it's such a mess in the rooms. You know, it's not being exercised in Israel. the way it should be in the days of Jesus under Roman rule, but as it exists as a nation not in bondage, there was some semblance of restraint going on. And so the civil law functioned for restraint. So you have the ceremonial laws keeping Israel from the nations, dietary laws and whatnot, You have the civil law protecting the nation until the Redeemer comes, keeping the nation from itself and reflecting God's righteous rules. So all of those things. I know you could add to that. I know you could add to that. It's important that we get this. Because if we don't get this, we're going to make the mistake of a lot of people being like, well, these laws are in the Bible and God tells us to obey the Bible. So that's why it's important to get this. The moral law, the Ten Commandments, was the moral kernel of every other law. All 613 laws that God gave Israel had a moral kernel to them. So what would the moral kernel be of how we're to worship God? Like the specific ceremonial laws about how God wants to be worshipped. What commandment would be the moral kernel of that? The second commandment, not making idols, worshipping God the way he wants to be worshipped. Maybe the fourth. when you should worship. You have all these festivals within the ceremonial Sabbaths. The first, certainly the first, you shall have no other God before me. So that kernel was going through every other law at every point. The laws of marriage, the seventh commandment was governing them. Even the civil law was being governed according with the moral commands. So even those civil cases, though we don't today want to take those exact cases and punishments and impose them on the state, nevertheless, we do want to say adultery is always wrong. We do want to say every sexual perversion is wrong, and the civil government should punish that. Now that's not my job to go tell them how to run the country, but the moral commands never go away. We'll get to all that. This is why only the two tablets went in the Ark and not all the other commandments. So what we're talking about right now, we're moving into the tripartite division of the law. This is not popular with a lot of broad Calvinists today. I don't know why. D.A. Carson actually says that he rejects it because it's too neat. For such a fine scholar as D.A. Carson, who I will never be, 1 1,000th of the scholar D.A. Carson, I have such respect for this man. I don't see how that's an argument against something. It's too neat. It's too right, so it's wrong. It's too clean. No, it's not too clean. Every law falls under moral, civil, or ceremonial. There may be some crossover at times. But those are the categories everybody in church history has used. Even Roman Catholics, who we reject their gospel like Thomas Aquinas. Like seriously, medieval Catholics got the tripartite division of the law. Early church got it. Reformers got it. Puritans got it. How would I know that there's a threefold use? Well, Paul says in Colossians 2.16, let no one judge you in festivals, new moons, Sabbaths. These were a shadow, but the substance is Christ. Now, if you look at those three things, they are all ceremonial. Festivals. Ceremonies. New moons. Ceremony. Sabbaths. There were lots of Sabbath days at the end of those festivals. Ceremonies. They are ceremonial laws. Civil law. Paul will take case laws about putting people to death. 1 Corinthians 5, the very last verse, and he will apply it to church discipline, not to stoning people. Clearly, those case laws have a spiritual application in the New Testament, but they do not have a civil, binding nature to them anymore. Paul will say, you shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain. Pay your pastor well. Let him eat. Let him eat. And he's like a dumb ox. Pretty interesting. Never hear a pastor say that. Pay your dumb ox well. You're a pastor. But, but, Paul will say, Paul will actually, though, he will affirm that the moral commandments keep going. He'll say, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not bear false witness. He'll list off four or five and then say, and if there are any other. And what he means is, you know them. He'll use this the sixth commandment in Ephesians 6 1 will say children obey your parents in the Lord This is right honor your father and mother that it may be well with you and that you may live long in the land Which the Lord your God gives you now, there's a redemptive historical shift. We'll talk about that But Paul very clearly affirms these moral commandments as Jesus affirmed moral commitments. I know the Sabbath is the big sticky one we're not going to get in that right now, but At least nine of the ten, and I'm going to say all ten, because it doesn't make sense to leave the fourth out, but at least nine of the ten are clearly affirmed as continuing, as binding, as still the standard. Colossians 2.16, no more ceremonial. I mean, Christ is our Passover. 1 Corinthians 5.7. He's the Passover lamb. We don't have, we don't celebrate the feast the way Israel did. We celebrate it with Jesus. We keep the feast by keeping Christ. There are a number of other places I could go. Paul says, you know, one man that steams one day above another. Everybody can be convinced. He's talking about the festivals. And if you want to celebrate Passover, whatever. even though I think you're sacrificing and it's probably wrong, but you can't bind anybody with that. But Paul will bind lots of people with the moral commands. Jesus will stand on the mountain as the greater Moses, giving the law as it was intended to be given, and will say, if you look at a woman, you have committed adultery. You shall not commit adultery. You've committed adultery if you look and lust. The heart of the law was the heart of the matter was the matter of the heart. And so it should be a song. It would be cheesy. Eternal Flame. The Bengals. What now? You said you didn't want to get into it right now, so I'll ask you right now. Okay. I knew I could count on you. But you just made, you know, you just stated the verse that says, let no man esteem one day above another, yet you're saying one day the Sabbath is above another. Yes, can I table that? Because I do plan on dealing with a biblical theology of the Lord's Day somewhere in upcoming talks. But let me table that, because the point I just want to make tonight is the tripartite division. Ceremonial festivals, worship rituals, tabernacle worship, sacrifices, priesthood. There was ceremonial loss. Civil laws, steal an ox, you better go get yourself a couple extra oxen to give back. Moral law, the Ten Commandments, the moral precepts, the moral right and wrong, the totality of right and wrong. The tripartite division is so foundational. If you want to read a good book on this, a friend of mine, Philip Ross, did a doctoral dissertation called From the Finger of God. I think you can get a copy for about 15 bucks. It was his dissertation. It's not easy, but it's not super, super hard. But it is a historical study and a theological defense of the tripartite, the threefold division of the law. I think that you'll find that rewarding. He has a lot in there on the Sabbath, Steve. It's probably the best thing ever written. I think he actually focuses too much on the Sabbath in it, because I know that's the hot button issue, because I think we should deal with this subject without just making the controversial commandment the issue, and get the bigger picture without missing the forest. But he'll deal almost more thoroughly with the Sabbath in there than anybody. He'll interact with Carson. He'll interact with a lot of other really great scholars that disagree. Let's just introduce the fulfillment in Christ. And then what we can do is pick back up on this the next time and then go into the uses of the law, because I think that'll be helpful. Israel is God's son. Israel is God's son. God gives his son a law. Israel and all Israelites are under the law. They are subject to the law. They are subject to the requirements of the law and the demands of the law. Jesus, Paul tells us in Galatians 4.4, was God's son, born of a woman, born under the law. Paul will tell us in Romans 9 that Israel was given the promises and the oracles and the worship of God. And Paul will say, of whom are the fathers, and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who was an Israelite, who is God blessed over all. So, Christ came from Israel. He was an Israelite. And he was born under the law. I've said this in the past. I think it was William Charles Robinson who said, Christ Jesus was the last man of Israel. When Jesus died on the cross, the last man of Israel died on the cross. This goes into the whole Jesus as true Israel stuff we've talked about. When Christ died on the cross, the last Israelite was dying because He came to fulfill everything that Israel existed for. The only reason Israel existed was for the Redeemer to come. That's the only reason He created the nation. The only reason he created the nation was because he was going to send the Redeemer as an Israelite born under the law. And that means that Jesus was subject to everything in the law. When Jesus went to heal one of the lepers, what does he do? He sends him to the priest and says what? Go for a testimony to Moses. Jesus could not even Though as God he supersedes the laws given to Israel in one sense, the ceremonial and civil, as man he was subject to it. Israel was commanded to be circumcised. That was a covenant sign that they were to keep for their redemption. If you weren't circumcised, you were saying, I don't need the gospel. Circumcision was a picture of the gospel, a bloody cutting away, judgment. The cross is circumcision. When Israelites went through and took that sign, that sign on them ceremonially, that ceremonial sign, they carried around their whole life with saying, I am a sinner and I need redemption. I need the filth of my heart cleansed. God has promised to do that in bloody judgment. bloody sign pointing to bloody judgment for the cutting away of the filth of the heart, the sin. When a male Israelite took that sign, he was saying, I am a sinner. Jesus was not a sinner. He said, there's no unrighteousness in me. He said the writer of Hebrews says he was wholly harmless undefiled separate from sinners The writer of Hebrews also says that he was tempted in all points even as we are yet without sin Paul says in 2nd Corinthians 521 he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us Pilate said This man's done nothing wrong. Pilate's wife said, have nothing to do with this righteous man. The thief on the cross said, he's done nothing. We deserve this justly. The demon said, we know who you are, the Holy One of God. Jesus was sinless, but he took a sign of humiliation as the representative of his people, a sign of circumcision that said, I need my sins cleansed. Though he had no sins. Because he's the representative of his people, he's born under the law, and that was a command. Circumcision was the first, actually, of all the commands given to Israel. It was really the beginning. Paul will say elsewhere, whoever is circumcised religiously is a debtor to what? Keep the whole law. Jesus takes that sign and in that sense he's saying, I am a debtor to keep the whole law. And he was a debtor to keep the law and he was a debtor to take the punishment that sign foretold. So even as a baby, Jesus is fulfilling the law. Had God put Jesus in a home of an unrighteous father and mother, they wouldn't have kept the law, he wouldn't have been able to keep the law. I mean, he's consecrated according to the law, he's circumcised according to the law, he's taken to the temple according to the law, he's dedicated to the Lord according to the law. Even as a baby, Jesus is passively fulfilling the law. As true Israelite, born under the law, obviously we know the passage when he comes to be baptized, the counterpart of circumcision, the replacement, as his ministry develops. God commands Israel to receive the sign of baptism. Jesus is baptized, though he has no sin. I love, Travis pointed out that Sinclair Ferguson noted that all the people went into the Jordan River to be baptized by John. symbolically denoting the washing away of their sin in the river. And that John essentially, after all those people had gone, Jesus comes and John takes the symbolically filthy, polluted water and pours it over Jesus because the sins of the people are going to be poured over him. and the judgment of God is going to come against him. And so, Jesus in those acts, as the representative Savior, sin-bearer, has to undergo those things in accord with God's command as true Israelite, because these are commands given to the covenant people, as representative of his people. We all know that there, he'll say to John, it's necessary that we fulfill all righteousness. That's a big verse for his keeping the law. The very fact that he obeyed perfectly and the law said, do this and live, but he does it and dies because he not only has to fulfill the demand to take the curse, he becomes a curse. He is the only one that deserves to get the blessings of the covenant. He fulfills that, merits those blessings, but then becomes the curse so that we get the blessings in him. Jesus will obey all the moral law. He will... You know what? This is really, really, really interesting. Sinclair Ferguson said this once, and I'll never forget it. He'll say, you know what Jesus was doing from his birth until he was 12? Because we don't see him until he's 12 again. You know what he was doing? And Ferguson says, I know what he was doing. He was going to the temple. Every year, Luke says. Every year they took him. When he was 12, it says they took him, as was their custom. Every year he was going to the temple, keeping the law. Every year he was going to worship his father. Every year he was obeying as the perfect Israelite. He is the perfect Israelite. And so Jesus' life is a life of law-keeping. in order to merit the blessings promised in the covenant of works as the second Adam, as the true Israel. He is keeping that law. Think about this. He never lusted. He never spoke back to his mother. He never stole. He never had a selfish thought, a proud thought. He never worshipped another god. Never took the Lord's name in vain. Never did anything. Never did one thing sinful. Ever. 33 and a half years. I can't even make it through 33 and a half seconds without doing things wrong. 33 and a half years. I'm 34. Do you know how much sin I've done? Jesus never sinned. Jesus never sinned. Now, there's a sense to, let me just say this briefly as we close, because I just really wanted to introduce how All this is coming together. When we get to the uses of the law, this is really going to drive home a lot more. Because we'll get into, you know, the law shows us our sin and our need for a Savior and it's written on our hearts and all that. But it's a little more tricky to see how the ceremonial laws find their fulfillment in Jesus. I'm sorry, the civil laws. It's a little trickier. The ceremonial are easy, right? He's the Passover lamp. He's the temple. He's the priest. He's everything. He's the sacrifice. He's the Feast of Tabernacles. His first sermon in Luke 4, he says, the year of the Lord has come. That's the year of Jubilee. He's there. He is the year of Jubilee. That's forgiven. Debt's cancelled, land restored, lives given back. It happened once in a lifetime, interestingly. Do you believe if you lived an average lifetime every 50 years, if you lived an average lifetime, it would happen once in your lifetime. Redemption happens once in a person's lifetime. Jesus comes once to give that redemption. So it's very easy to see how all the ceremonial things are pointing to Him. But the civil, but the civil law is harder. And let me just say these two or three things tonight real quick. I think that the civil law was preparing us for the cross too. Let me tell you how. Let's say Naz stole one of my sheep. Oh Naz, sheep stealing Naz. Oh sheep stealing Naz. Get me a video camera and surveillance camera and a gun. Naz took one of my sheep and we're Israelites and I'm like, Naz, how could you take one of my sheep, man? Old Boaz down the street saw you take it. He said you had a party up in here and you were eating one of my sheep. What would Naz have to do if he got caught? Pay me back. How many sheep? four sheep. Now, there's this weird thing in the civil law where sometimes, I think with the ox, it's five. I think five oxen. I may be mistaken. You need to check. Sometimes it's two for certain things. With the sheep it's four. And I don't know the answer to that, except maybe the more valuable the being, the more retribution there is. But, now this is amazing. Vern Poitras points this out in his book, The Shadow of Christ and the Law of Moses. There is a principle of restoration and retribution. Now follow me closely. There's a principle of restoration and retribution. Now restoration, what does Naz owe me? You owe me one sheep. Restoration. He owes me one. He took one. He owes me one of equal value. Retribution, punishment. He has to give me three more sheets. Yeah, there's a punishment incurred to show that punishment fits the crime and what you did deserves more than just, hey, you got to replace it. But now there's got to be what does Jesus do? He keeps the law. Restoration, and he dies on the cross. Retribution. He takes the punishment. He can't just fulfill the law that Adam broke. He can't just restore. He has to be punished. So even in the law, there are these principles of justice that are preparing us for the gospel. This is huge. There's gospel justice in the civil laws. There's gospel justice. I think Poitras is right. I commend that book to you because, you know, he'll even be humble and he'll say, well, this is a possibility. And I understand. Just say that's it. That's what it is. I mean, it makes so much sense that God's justice requires punishment, restitution or restoration and retribution. Jesus restores and is punished for our salvation. There are a couple of the civil laws that prepare us for the gospel. It's the last thing I'm going to say tonight. The first, I think it's Deuteronomy 21 or 28, I think it's 21. You have the law of the drunken son, the drunkard and the glutton son. And if a man is the son, this is the one that everybody who hates God tries to use against the Bible, or what are you going to do, stone your son? Well, God stoned his. at Calvary. So yes, I'm going to believe it's God's word. And I think there is more than just drunkenness and gluttony. I think it's rebellion. I think there's probably, because generally God doesn't impose the death penalty in the civil law on things that don't deserve the death penalty. Generally, if you punch somebody, God's not like, death, even though it deserves death, if it's evil, malicious, harmful sin, if it's sin, it deserves death. All sin deserves death. But in the civil law, certain sins got the death penalty. One of the most perplexing is this one about the disobedient, drunkard, and glutton son. Because it does seem harsher. Well, Phil Riken in his Exodus commentary will actually say there's probably rebellion and there may even be murderous rebellion involved in this like Barabbas who led a rebellion and the thieves on the cross were probably also murderers like the guy that stole from the Samaritan and beat him to a point of death almost and left him to die. The thieves often were also murderers so it's not just crucifying these thieves because they stole some money, but there was probably also murder involved. They probably beat someone to death for their money. So there may have been a heightening of what is meant exactly in Exodus with the drunkard and glutton son. But it's interesting right after it talks about he should be taken to the elders of the city and if he is and if he's unruly, he should be stoned and you should put the evil one away from you. And then you have this law in which whenever someone is set to die, they're to be hung out in public. They're to be hung in a tree and most as cursed as everyone who hangs on the tree. It's interesting because if you put those two things together, and then you read Matthew chapter 11, and Jesus is contrasting John the Baptist and himself, and John didn't eat and drink. He says, but the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they said, a drunkard and a glutton. the obedience line. representatively being tagged as the disobedient son, and then Paul says, he's hung on the tree, Galatians 3, cursed is everyone who hangs on the tree. Look, a drunkard and a glutton, cursed is everyone who hangs on the tree. The obedient son, taking the death penalty for the disobedient sons. Public display of God's justice, and yet in that act salvation for rebellious drunkard gluttons like us. Rebellious sinners like us. So I think even the civil law, and I'm going to stop here and let you guys talk, and I know some of you may need to go, but the civil law even has gospel principles and gospel preparation in it. And you know what? Very few Christians ever get this, sadly. I remember I was getting this in seminary, and I remember a bunch of seminary buddies arguing with me, because they were like, well, don't you think that civil government should still death penalty for murders? And I'm like, that's not the point. I don't even want to get into that. I could argue that from Genesis 9 with the death penalty with Noah. I don't even want to argue that. I'm talking about why God gave the law in redemptive history. In fact, I actually think there's a redemptive historical point to why God had the death penalty instituted. Because if you let murderers loose, they're going to kill everybody and there won't be anybody to redeem. There's even a redemptive point in why God has murderers taken away to protect people, so people can get redemption.