Are the Old Testament Laws dead? - Part 1

If you claim that the Old Testament laws are dead, I believe it to be an outright distortion of what the Bible says...please read your Bible again! 

A dialogue with a Roman Catholic made me reassess what I had been initially taught concerning the Laws in the Old Testament as being abrogated with New Laws and Commandments in the New Testament.

First and foremost, I would like to state that God is perfect and everything He does or says is perfect, i.e. He is the embodiment of perfection.

• Matthew 5:48 - Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
• Psalm 18:30 - As for God, his way is perfect; the word of the LORD is flawless. He is a shield for all who take refuge in him.
• Numbers 23:19 - God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?
• Psalm 19:7 - The law of the Lord is perfect, refreshing the soul. The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple.

Man was created perfect by a perfect God in His perfect image and likeness. In fact even the very breath in man was perfect because God blew His breath of life into him.

• Genesis 1:26 - Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness,...
• Genesis 2:7 - Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
• Genesis 2:25 - Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.

But man fell from grace and lost the perfect nature that God gave Him.

• Genesis 3:6-7 - When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
• Romans 5:12 - Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned.

But you may ask, "Didn't you just say that God creates everything perfect?". And the answer is that a perfect Adam was endued a choice to choose between good and evil. As such we are all given choices to do good or evil. To have life or death. To obey the Lord our God or to follow the devil.

• Genesis 2:16-17 - And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”
• John 14:15 - If you love me, keep my commands.
• Isaiah 65:12 - "...You did evil in My sight and chose what displeases Me."
• Deuteronomy 30:19 - "...So choose life in order that you may live."  

But what does this have to do with the Laws of the Old Testament? The Laws of God on the other hand was and is not subject to changes by God or changes through the influence of the powers of this dark world or the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Thereby they remain as they are...PERFECT & UNCHANGED! 

 
If the Law wasn't subject to these changes then what happened to the world we are in today. This was also created perfect. So why all the destruction, misery, famine and decay in this perfect world. Did the world also commit sin like man and fall from the presence of God? 

• Psalm 115:16 - The highest heavens belong to the Lord, but the earth he has given to mankind.
• Genesis 2:15 - The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.
• Genesis 3:17-19 - To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground,  since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”
• Romans 8:19-21 - For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. 

Man was given dominion over this world which he lost to the hands of the devil who deceived him of his God given authority thereby subjecting himself and his world to death and decay. This is why the devil in his temptation of Jesus tells Him, after showing Him the kingdoms of the world and their splendor,“All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”. The world we see today is now groaning for the children of God to be revealed, for when this happens will the creation be liberated from this bondage to decay. This is possible only at the return of our Lord (A subject for another day).

But what about the verse Hebrews 8:6-7? Does it not say, "For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another." Some quote this to say that the Old Law/Covenant is replaced by a new and better one. And doesn't this go against the perfect nature of God's Laws as quoted earlier in Psalm 19:7.

• Hebrews 8:6-7 - But in fact the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the old one, since the new covenant is established on better promises. For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another.
• Psalm 19:7 - The law of the Lord is perfect, refreshing the soul. The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple. 

But does Hebrews 8:6-7 talk about the replacement of the old law with a new one? If you notice, the word used in the verse is "Covenant". So what's the difference between Law & Covenant?

Law can be stated as a rule of being or of conduct, established by an authority able to enforce its will; a controlling regulation; the mode or order according to which an agent or a power acts. In the context of the Bible, law refers to a body of divine commandments specifically given in the first five books of the Bible which is also called the Torah. The children of Israel were given these Laws by God through Moses. What did the law mean to Israel? The law was what governed their behavior. It covered all aspects of life. There were directives for everything and sacrifices for all the ways you could break the law. The law was how you did Judaism. It is what kept them in relationship with the God of the covenant and it was what governed their relationships with one another.

Now what was the old covenant that God made with Israel? To understand this, first we need to know what a covenant is. The English word "covenant" means "a coming together". The Hebrew word for covenant is "Berith" which occurs 280 times in the Old Testament. The translators of the Old Testament into the Greek Septuagint used the word "Diatheke" in place of the word "Berith". Jerome, translator of the Latin Vulgate used the word "Testamentum" for all the renderings of the Greek "Diatheke" in his New Testament. In fact Jerome is entitled with separating the Bible into its two parts, "Old Testament" & "New Testament" which still holds to this very day. Therefore "Diatheke" referred not just to "covenant" but also to a "last will and testament". So who is the Testator of the Old Testament and the New Testament? And what was the covenant or testament made by the Testator?

To be continued...