Continuous Law Reform (14)

Human law-makers spell out their laws in enormous detail. They attempt to cover every situation and every permutation of events. They always get it wrong, of course. There are always some situations that they did not foresee. Clever lawyers always find loopholes and criminals escape justice, because the wording of the law is not right. Human laws constantly need to be updated and reformed.

This continuous law reform creates full-time work for the law-makers and lawyers, but creates a lot of confusion for ordinary citizens. The law is constantly changing so they are uncertain about what is a crime. The law gets incredibly detailed. The result is that even lawyers do not fully understand the law. Human law is strangled with confusion.

God has a different approach. He did the task once and got it right. He gave ten basic laws, the Ten Commandments (Ex 20:1-17). Five shape our relationship with God. Only the five that relate to our relationships with other people have to be enforced by human judges. Their meaning is straightforward and simple.

God also gave same illustrations of how his laws should be applied in the “case laws” (Ex 21-23). The case laws explain the differnce between manslaughter and murder. They give examples of stealing.

God left the rest to wise judges applying the law in various cases. This is a wiser approach. God does not need to reform his law, because the meaning of stealing and murder have not really changed.