SCRIPTURE: Exodus 21
OBSERVATION/APPLICATION:
‘Why then’” they asked, ‘did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?’ Jesus replied, ‘Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. [Matthew 19:7-8] Confession time, there are some laws here that really bother me.

If you give your male servant a wife, and they have children, and the male slave leaves, he has to leave his wife and children behind? A man sells his daughter to be the wife of another man? If she doesn’t please him, he can replace her? If a man beats his slave and the slave survives, he’s not punished because the slave is his property? If a bull gores a free person, the penalty is death, but if a bull gores a slave, the penalty is 30 shekels?

These are some very hard, very unjust, no matter what culture or time!!! What do we do with these laws? If God is the source of these laws, they seem so ‘un-God-like’. This covenant arrangement made between God, Moses and Israel was only a shadow [Hebrews 10:1] and is now obsolete [Hebrews 8:13], but it’s just hard to fit these laws with the heart of God.

Because I trust God, I give Him the benefit of the doubt. I take some comfort from what Jesus says to the Pharisees about Moses permitting divorce because of the hardness of hearts, that this was not God’s will from the beginning. In other words, the law of Moses does not always reflect God’s original creation design. We need to always keep this in mind as we interpret or apply the rest of Moses’ laws. The obvious laws (the moral) law are not disputed, but many of the lesser laws need to be applied with care. God revealed His eternal law in a time-bound, culture-bound way. He tolerated some things (like slavery, polygamy, war). He also allowed Moses some freedom in designing laws that suited the time and the stubbornness of the people.

When it comes to the difficult laws mentioned above, we know that from the beginning God honours male and female the same, that God created no slaves, and that people ought not to be sold as slaves or wives. And above all, we know that in Jesus we see the fullness of God’s law. He is the epitome of God’s love. Whenever I struggle with something in the old law, I look back at Jesus, and see in Him what God intended from the beginning!

PRAYER:
Lord, there are many shadows in the old covenant, but thank You for showing us the eternal heart of God.