Judicial Laws of Moses (2) - Law and Judges

God’s system of government and justice is straightforward, but effective. It consists of wise judges applying God’s law. Understanding how judges are raised and how they operate is relatively easy. The challenge is to identify the universal laws that judges must apply. The problem is that God’s judicial laws are mixed up with a lot of other material and scattered throughout the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The universal judicial laws are hidden among instructions about the tabernacle sacrifices that were fulfilled in Jesus and rules that were only relevant while children of Israel were living in Canaan. Therefore, before attempting to apply God’s system of law and judges, we must identify the laws that that God intends for every human society.

Our challenge is to identify the instructions that applied only to Israel and distinguish them from permanent the laws that allow any human society to function peaceably. Searching through the stuff that is no longer relevant will not be easy, but we should be wise enough to handle the challenge.

Most Christians give up before they get this far. They acknowledge the need for law, but just assume that God’s law is irrelevant. His law is ignored, despite Jesus statement that it still stands and Paul saying that it is perfect. Rejecting God’s law and replacing it with human law is foolish. We cannot say that God’s law is unusable, if we have not attempted to discern which of his laws are relevant to the operation of civil society in the modern world.