Bumby Bible Questions 16

Introduction

Well, again, good morning. As you can see and know, it’s the fourth Sunday morning of the month, and we’ve tried to get a routine going that every fourth Sunday morning at 9 a.m. we’ll do the question and answer. The one exception to that is if one of us is out of town, uh we we’ll postpone that to the next month. But every fourth Sunday morning will be our QA time, uh, and we’ve come to that time again. Uh we’ve also come to the begging type portion of the program, uh, and that is if you have questions, please submit those questions. Uh we still have some questions to get through, but we we need more uh for our list, and so don’t be bashful, ask those questions.

Uh we appreciate that input. Not just questions. We’ve actually used some of these questions uh outside the QA period and just done entire sermons on them. And so whether it’s a suggestion for a sermon topic or a QA question, then please, please submit those. The only stipulation we have is we ask you to put those in writing. And that’s just because Greg’s memory is not as good as it used to be. Uh and if you walk up to us and ask, we may forget. And Greg’s going to tell you how we want you to submit those questions. Because he forgot. One of the ways that you can submit questions is through our email address, Bumby BibleQuestions at gmail.com. You can Bumby Biblequestions at gmail.com. Somebody sent it to AOL.com.

That will not get to us. Uh so make sure it is at gmail.com. Uh you can hand it to us, writing it down on a piece of paper and let us know. Uh we we’ll probably get that. And then if you tell us, that’s fine. But again, we will forget. So if you come and tell us a question, that’s awesome. And then go grab a pencil or a pen and write it down and hand it to one of us, and we’ll make sure that we add it to our document. By the way, the scary note we should add is if we do run out of questions, we make up our own. And I assure you, you don’t want that. So if you want questions that you have to be answered instead of whatever Ken and I happen to think are interesting that month, go ahead and submit those questions, and that’ll make this a whole lot better, probably for everybody.

1. The Different Types of Law in the Old Testament

Exactly, exactly. Okay. To our first question. It says, Could you speak to the different types of law in the Old Testament? And what was their purpose? Speak to the different types of law in the Old Testament and the purpose of those. So as we look at this question, we have to understand that there is not what we’d call biblical terminology that perfectly segments the law into all of these categories. But for our discussion purposes, we have what we would call civil law. And the reason for that is just like within our law system, there are some laws that fit a civil idea. Restitution penalties, for example, for theft. That involves how we relate to one another and how we solve problems that we would have had with one another.

And so we call that those portions of law civil law. We also have ceremonial law. Certainly, thinking again of the Old Testament, the law of Moses, the law of God, the people of Israel not only had a code of living like we do in America, they had a God that they were to worship, a God that they were to obey. And so in their theocracy, their God-driven kingdom, they had the ceremonial law, which consisted of ideas of when to keep and how to keep the feast days, what type of sacrifices to offer, and under what circumstances would you offer which animal for what sacrifice? So you have a civil law, kind of in how we relate to one another, a ceremonial law and how we relate to God, and certainly a moral law that kind of undergirds all of it.

Why? Have laws? Why have discipline? Why have any sort of code of conduct of any kind? And this is where the Jews would get their ethical bounds. They would be learning from the perfect moral God, and he would pass on laws for them to keep to try to be more holy like God is. And so there are some laws that maybe they don’t fit into each of these categories real neatly, but they’re part of a moral law. How do we treat one another? How do we focus on God? Now, very important note is these are generally agreed upon, but they are made by man. And that becomes important because as we look at this question of how do we determine what types of law, what man has done over time, is come in and say, well, we are not under the ceremonial law anymore, and maybe not the civil law, but we are under the moral law.

And so what they’ve done is divide the law of Moses, the law of God, up, and said, Well, we keep some of it, but not all of it. And so we’re going to look at what the New Testament says about keeping all of the law or some of it. But keep in mind that these distinctions, whoever uses them, us, other people that you meet, these are man-made descriptions. And so if we’re to take the old covenant, the law of Moses, and divide it into these, again, generally agreed upon distinctions: civil law, ceremonial law, and moral law. One part of that question was: well, what was the purpose of that? Well, obviously, one purpose of God dealing with different, if we want to call them different types of law within the law of Moses, is because God dealt with Israel kind of on multiple levels.

They were a nation. And so, just like our nation has certain civil laws of what happens when you break the speed limit, what happens when you steal from your neighbor, those kind of punishments that don’t necessarily always have to do with eternity. But here’s a punishment for something you did right now. And so God dealt with them as a nation, and so they needed a national law or a civil or what we might even call a criminal law. Now, this doesn’t have anything to do with the question, but I find it kind of interesting that one distinction, if we look at the laws, they’re national or civil or criminal laws. They in many ways line up with ours, but one thing that you may notice that is absent in the nation of Israel, that to our knowledge, they never had a prison system.

They had punishment, but it was all had to do with either fines or just death, uh, but no prison system. But God dealt with them as a nation, and so they needed a law that governed them as a nation. They were also God’s people to worship him at the tabernacle and in the temple, and so they needed that ceremonial law that dealt with them in regard to their religion and their worship to God. And then God held them to a high moral standard, and so they had that moral or ethical law. We might throw into this mix maybe even a fourth level, if you will, and that is that they were God’s vehicle through which to fulfill the promises in Christ. And so many of these laws or regulations had some kind of foreshadowing element to them.

And so that particular law that we’re looking at in the Old Covenant might not have been just for them. It might have been in some way to foreshadow. We take, for example, the laws of cleanliness, being clean and unclean. And some of those we might look at that and say, well, why were those distinctions made? Why was that so important? Well, much of that may have been just simply to foreshadow the problem of sin and how Jesus was going to deal with it. And so they had these different, if we want to call them, categories of law. And they were different categories because God dealt with them in these different categories as a people. Of course, that creates a problem because how do we decide which laws are forever, right?

2. The Law of Moses Is the Law of God

Because it’s still wrong to steal, and which laws were temporary, whether it be the cleanliness laws or the animal sacrifice laws. Some of them are more distinct. It’s very clear in the New Testament why that would be. But one commonly given solution to this problem, we think biblically is wrong, and we’re going to show you why, using the Old Testament scripture here in just a moment, is to say, well, if it refers to the law of Moses, that was just for the Israelites. And if it’s the law of God, that law is forever, because God is still our God, and we don’t have the law of Moses anymore, but we do still respect God. The problem with that is that’s not what the scriptures teach. If you look with me in the book of Nehemiah, we’re going to look at two passages.

And notice how God refers to the law, and how even the people of Israel refer to the law. If you look at Nehemiah chapter 10 first, I’m sure you it’s worth it because we’re going to look at another Nehemiah passage, too. So we’re going to take some time. Find Nehemiah chapter 10 and verse 29. And if you notice, as they are learning about kind of redoing their obligations to the covenant, they’re kind of being re-invigorated in their zeal. We see in Nehemiah 10, 29, join with their brothers, their nobles, and enter into a curse and an oath to walk in God’s law that was given by Moses the servant of God, and to observe and do all the commandments of the Lord our Lord and his rules and his statutes.

So what they’re agreeing to is two separate things that combine into one. They were to walk in God’s law that was Moses’ law. You see the same there. But also, what did that mean? Well, to do all the commandments and statutes. So it wasn’t just, all right, just the Ten Commandments involved. No, this was the whole gamut of the law of Moses they were to keep, the law of God. But also, if you look in Nehemiah chapter 8 and verse 1, again, the language is pretty strong here. Chapter 8 and verse 1. And all the people gathered as one man into the square before the water gate. And they told Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses that the Lord had commanded Israel.

So, yes, this is the law of Moses that they were going to be read, but where did it come from? Well, it was that the Lord had commanded them. And by the way, you see this in the book of Luke, too, in the first couple chapters, that the law of Moses is synonymously used as the law of the Lord. Why would that be? Well, as verse 1 says, there is only a law of Moses because who gave it? Well, God did. And they are the same because the same God gave all of those laws, whether it be about sacrifice or cleanliness, or civil law, and how we relate to one another, how we steal, what is the punishment for murder, disobeying parents. All of those laws were given by the same God to the same people and considered part of the same covenant.

And so while it is true that we can look back at the old law, the law of Moses, the law of God, and see that they may fall into different categories. What’s not true is that some of those were just for the nation of Israel and would be done away with, and some of those are eternal. Some want to bind certain portions of the law of Moses on us today, and say, we’re still under the part of the old covenant, that law of God. Now, the law of Moses, that ceremonial civil stuff, that’s been done away with. But what the Old Testament called the law of God is still in effect today. But as Greg just showed, the terms law of Moses and law of God, in regard to the old covenant, are used interchangeably.

In fact, if we look, we see that the law of God included these, what we might call ceremonial things. Turn with me to 2 Chronicles chapter 31. As you turn to 2 Chronicles 31, remember the argument that is made by some is that the law of Moses included the ceremonial things.

That’s been done away with. But the law of God, keep the Sabbath day, those kind of things, that’s still in effect today. But notice how the Old Testament refers to itself. 2 Chronicles chapter 31, look at verse 3. In talking about what we would classify as the ceremonial things, 2 Chronicles 31, verse 3, the king also appointed a portion of his possessions for the burnt offerings, for the morning and evening burnt offerings, the burnt offerings for the Sabbaths, the new moons, and the set feast, as is written in the law of the Lord. And so there it’s called the law of the Lord, and it’s referring to that ceremonial part. And the point of all of this is that we can’t make a distinction between the law of Moses and the law of the Lord or the law of God in regard to this old covenant.

3. Every Part of the Old Law Done Away

It was all one. We can’t arbitrarily break it up into these categories and then decide arbitrarily again which category was done away with at the cross and which category still goes forward. That’s not the teaching of both the old or the new covenant. So there’s really two concluding remarks on this that would help us understand what do we do with the old law then if we can’t break it up in terms of application. What do we do with it? Point number one, less important than the second, is who are all of these commands for, whether it be ceremonial or civil. It was for Israel. This was part of their covenant. So it’s a major Bible interpretation problem, by the way, from the get-go, to take a room full of Gentiles and say, you have to keep this law of Moses.

It was always intended going back to Deuteronomy 20, and you can look at Exodus 20 and see who was this covenant for? It was for Israel. And so we’re binding laws on the wrong people, even if they’re meant to be bound. But certainly in the New Testament, an even stronger argument is made that the old law in its completion has been done away with. Certainly in Matthew chapter 5, Jesus makes this point in verse 17 and 18 that all things would be fulfilled at a certain point, which means they would come to an end. But really, we want to show you these two passages. Look at one in Galatians chapter 5 and verse 3. This was a really tough issue for the Jews to have to give up their law system.

And you’d imagine, as comprehensive as what we’ve looked at is, it controlled every part of your life, it controlled your family, how you worshiped, everything. And so then to be told by some apostles in the New Testament times, all right, well, we’re done with it. That would be difficult. And so they had the Jews had a hard time letting some of these things go. But notice in verse 3 what Paul tells the Galatians here. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision, that he is obligated to keep the whole law. And if you do that, just read the first phrase in verse 4, you are severed from Christ. Fallen from grace. If you keep one component of the law, circumcision, which by the way isn’t one of the Ten Commandments.

It was part of that bevy of laws, then you are obligated to keep the whole thing. You are rejecting Jesus. And so if we keep even one part of the law, we have been severed from Christ. That’s certainly a major problem. But also, let’s conclude on this passage, Romans chapter 7. Paul works on this point again. In Romans chapter 7, beginning in verse 2. For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage. Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man, she is not an adulteress.

Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God. For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the spirit and not in the old way of the written code. And so Paul says very clearly, if you are with Christ, if you are married with him, is there any part of you that can live with or under the old law?

No, not a single percentage point, not a single law. And so is there overlap? Well, yes. It’s still wrong to steal, but why? Because the old law said so? No. Because Jesus, the New Testament apostles who were inspired by God, said so. It is a completely new and different entity that we’re now under. And so while it’s great to understand the old law and to have these descriptions that help us identify parts and facets of the law, we need to see that God intended it for Israel, and it fulfilled its purpose when Jesus came with something greater and better. So every part, however we might want to divide it up, every part of that old law was done away with at the cross, and we now live under the new law, which is that law of liberty given in Christ Jesus.

4. Were We With God Before Our Physical Birth?

Alright, question number two. Ask if God knew us before we were born, and our spirits returned to Him who sent us, does that mean that we were with Him before our physical birth? And really the question here is, is, is, we’re going to discuss this, but I think all of us would agree that the Spirit lives on beyond the body and is eternal going forward. But is our spirit, for lack of a better way of saying it, is our spirit eternal going backwards? Has it always existed, or did it come into existence at the same time as our physical form? And so that’s question number two. And so really to look at this, we need to understand what the Bible says for fact. And so in this first slide, we’re looking at things that are very clear, and we’ll draw some conclusions from there.

One of them is in Jeremiah chapter 1 and verse 5. This is described of Jeremiah by God. Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. And before you were born, I consecrated you. I appointed you a prophet to the nations. So verse 5 is interesting. Before I formed you in the womb. So that becomes tricky, but what we do know is with Jeremiah, God appointed him, as verse 5 would continue to say, to be a prophet. That he has set apart a consecrated mission for Jeremiah. And did Jeremiah fulfill that? Yes. But for the purpose of our question, we’re trying to figure out well, at what point did Jeremiah’s spirit or soul come into existence? This leads a little bit of wiggle room here.

You could say that God knew in his omniscience what Jeremiah would do. Or you could say, well, he was already with God, and then he was just transported to earth. I think one of those makes more logical sense than the other, but technically this hasn’t ruled any of those out yet. We can’t dismiss the foreknowledge of God. But if we talk about our beginning and our end, we were formed in the womb. Ecclesiastes chapter 12 teaches that they’ll come an end to us. Look at Ecclesiastes 12. And in verse 7, where the wise man says, Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it. And so two conclusions there. Number one is our body will return to the earth, dust to dust, ashes to ashes, we say.

And so the body will come to this physical body that we possess right now, will come to an end, and it will exist no more. But the second part of that verse is that the spirit will live on. The spirit will return to God. And so we have a beginning, a physical beginning, and a physical end. And really the part of this question is we have a spiritual, we don’t have a spiritual end, but did we have a spiritual beginning? So we still have to kind of reach some conclusions on that from what the Bible gives us. So what about our spirit? Obviously, the flesh has a beginning and an end, but what about the spirit within us? If you look at Zechariah chapter 12, verse 1, Zechariah chapter 12 and verse 1.

The oracle of the word of the Lord concerning Israel, thus declares the Lord, who stretched out the heavens and founded the earth, and formed the spirit of men within him. Now it’s very important. It would be great to say, you know, this is creation at this point. The word formed is very particular. What did God do with the spirit? Well, he formed it, meaning at one point he did what with it? It came into be. When you match this with Colossians chapter 1, that everything that was made came from God and from Jesus, it means that at some point nothing else existed. Can we understand that fully? No. Do we understand Jesus’ role in creation fully and the Holy Spirit’s role in creation fully? I don’t think so.

5. God Makes Us, Both Body and Soul

We have some good clues, but I don’t think we have the whole puzzle completed for us. But what we do know is there was a time at which we had to be formed. Which means there was a time of lack of formation, in which case God has stepped in. And so as we start looking back, and we say, well, there was a formation point, it wasn’t an eternal basis. And so God formed this spirit within the physical body that He’s created us. The Bible is also clear on this point that God makes us, that we are the result of the work of God. Both body and soul. Turn over to Psalm 139, where the psalmist says, Psalm 139, you’re probably familiar with this text. Psalm 139, we’ll begin our reading in verse 13.

That says, For you have formed my inward parts. You have covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are your works, and that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance yet being unformed, and in your book they all were written. The days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them.

Verse 16, your eyes saw my substance being yet unformed, and in your book they’re all written, the days fashioned for me when as yet they were none of them. And so it’s possible when the scriptures talk about God knowing a prophet or even knowing us before we were born, it doesn’t mean that we had a relationship with God pre-body form with him in the Spirit. It may simply be saying God in his foreknowledge knew that there would be a prophet born and he would have a particular mission. God knew every one of us in the sense that his foreknowledge knew of our creation, knew of our being coming into existence. Similar language in talking about the idea of forming the inward parts is found in Genesis chapter 2.

In Genesis 2, verse 7, it says that he breathed into him the breath of life, giving him a soul or a spirit. And so there seems to be in Scriptures this inclination toward the idea of not only the body being created as a new being, but also the spirit being breathed into that body as a new creation and as a new being.

6. Jesus’ Preexistence Makes Him Unique

That he had a vision for us, yes, Jeremiah 1 5, but it doesn’t mean that we’re puppeteered by him. A beginning point doesn’t necessitate the rest of our actions. And so what we have to look at is rather than looking at what that means for us, look at how powerful that reflects on God. How powerful that reflects on Jesus to create us with the idea that we always existed. Basically, that we’re eternal in, again, lack of a better way of describing eternity, that we’re eternal in both directions. That our soul has always existed. And that problem is that when we look at the descriptions of God, in particular Jesus as God himself, one of the things that was noted about him in his uniqueness was his preexistence.

Remember this passage in John chapter 1 and in verse 1. It said, In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. One of the attributes that makes him unique and makes him God was that he was in the beginning with God. If we believe in the pre existence of the Spirit and the soul, then we might have to argue that, well, so was I. I was in the beginning with God before I got my body. But the passage here indicates that what was unique about the deity of Jesus, one of the things that was unique, was that he was with God because he was God. In fact, in chapter 1, verse 30, it says of him, this is he, John the Baptist says, this is he of whom I said, after me comes a man who is preferred before me, for he was before me.

Now, a good New Testament Bible student would recognize that John the Baptist was born first. He was older than Jesus. But John is saying, no, he was before me. He existed before I did. Obviously, John’s not confused about their birth order. What John is saying is that Jesus had a pre existence, that he is eternal. That makes him unique. There’s no passage in Scripture that speaks to our unique quality of having that pre existence. John the Baptist didn’t assume he had one, because he says Jesus was before me. And even in verse 3 of chapter 1, all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. And that means obviously our spirit would be involved in that, but also to emphasize and echo that point shows just how important it is what Jesus did for us, who he was, what it meant coming into this form, and how he sits at the right hand of God.

Sometimes we think of Jesus as somewhat lesser, and it we could not be even close to the truth when we have that opinion. He was with God at creation, and that means a great deal. But for us, and for the focus of our question then on our spirit, we have to look at one other passage this morning that says very clearly the Spirit will live on in two different directions. In Matthew chapter 25, many are familiar with the idea of heaven, eternal life, but Jesus links heaven and hell here. And there’s all these kinds of opinions on the spirit. Well, if we were with God, maybe he just forgets us, or maybe there is no hell, it’s just an annihilation. Jesus takes that bow out of the quiver here in Matthew 25, 46.

And he talks about the separation of judgment. There will be some on the left and some on the right, those who took care of brothers in Eve and those who ignored them. Verse 46, these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. So that is, there are two sets of existence that go on for eternity, whether it be punishment or reward, heaven or hell. And it’s great to think about heaven, but Jesus says, okay, but the other side of that coin is punishment or hell. So as we look at this, we see in conclusion, obviously, that the Spirit will live on. And when you look at earlier, if Jesus is the preeminent judge, that’s where he sits in Matthew chapter 25. If he is the Son of God who created all things, which is what John 1 says, if he is preeminent, as Paul would write in Colossians and John the Baptist would say, then what does that mean for us?

Conclusion

That we should subservient our will to his, be thankful that we have a loving Creator, and then trust in Him to take care of us for eternity. Well, that’s it. Clark says we’re done. Thanks for the questions. And again, please keep those questions coming in in written form to us in all the ways that Greg described. But we appreciate the questions and we appreciate your attention this morning. But Greg, would you lead us in a word of prayer? Let’s pray. Our dear God and most gracious and wonderful and loving Heavenly Father, we praise your name and we exalt you as the creator, the one and only God of all time, who has been, is, and forever will be. Thank you for looking upon us with favor.

Thank you for creating us, loving us, and sending your Son to die for us. We pray that as we break into your word that we always meditate on its effect on our lives, allow ourselves to be transformed and to be constantly renewed and refreshed by what you desire that we be formed by. Thank you for making your will known to us so that we can research it, that we can please you and understand what law we’re under and how to better reach you. Thank you for the opportunity for a relationship. Thank you for allowing us to be called your children. We pray that every day we exalt you as the God and Father that you are, and just constantly give you the glory that you alone deserve.

Be with us as we study our word in our Bible classes and help us to worship you in a manner pleasing in your sight. We pray all these things in Jesus the Christ’s name. Amen. We’re now dismissed to our Bible classes.