God's Law

As Israel stands on the edge of the wilderness, torn between the Promised Land and Egypt, God calls Moses up onto Mount Sinai and gives him the law that Israel is to follow. It starts with the Ten Commandments, yes, but He also provides law for how to bring sacrifices, how to live with one another, how to handle property and belongings disputes. There are even rules for sexual relations, ceremonial cleanliness, skin diseases, and mildew. 

Since that time, men have been trying to figure out what all of these laws mean and how we're supposed to apply them to this or that situation. In fact, that's the big beef with the Pharisees - they had "codified" all this law into hundreds upon hundreds of tiny little commands to "clarify" what God meant when He gave the law in the first place. 

But none of that is necessary. 

Notice what God doesn't say in His law. God doesn't say that He's given us the foundation and that it's up to us to figure out how to apply it. God doesn't say that this is just the starter law and that the rest of His instructions will come later. God doesn't say that we should invest our time in decoding and re-coding what He's said so that we can make sense of it and know what He really meant when He spoke on that mountain. 

No, what God says is, "Here is what you must do. This." 

Simply this. The law is complete as it was given to us. The law is whole as God spoke it. The law specifies all of the things that God cares about in the way that we live and move and have our being. If it's not in the law that God actually spoke, it's not in the law. Period.

And this is what I love about God. No matter how much we have convinced ourselves otherwise, there is no mystery in what God desires of us. There's no guessing, no figuring it out, no having to decipher or decode or anything. God spoke, and He meant what He said, and this is what He desires of us. Plain and simple. This is how we are supposed to live. 

Honestly, when we read a law that includes what to do if there's a spot of mildew on a single brick in your home, how could we ever think that God left something out?