Old Testament law to its origin, purpose and dignity

Paragraph I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX Tί οὖν ὁ νόμος τῶν παραβάσεων χάριν προσετέθη ἄχρις οὗ ἔλθῃ τὸ ? δὲ μεσίτης ἑνὸς οὐκ ἔστιν ὁ δὲ θεὸς εἷς ἐστιν The Old Testament law, given to the people of Israel at Sinai through Moses, was a revelation of the will of God and was supposed to serve the salvation of people. However, from a Christian point of view, in fact, quite the opposite happened, and convinced legalists rejected the saving grace of Christ's deliverance. This created a painful mystery for the human conscience, which required resolution in the interests of protecting Christianity itself. Touching her repeatedly, St. The Apostle Paul puts forward this subject with particular clarity in Gal. III, 19–20 and offers fundamental coverage. Already at the very beginning, the interrogative form directly emphasizes that we are not talking about the reason and purpose, but about the very essence of the law, as it is by nature. What was “this law” (ὁ ν ό μες), not just known to everyone, but also most appropriate to such dignity? The answer reads:τ ῶ ν παρ ά βασεων χ ά ρω προσετ ί θη. What is noted here, of course, is only the positive effect that the law was supposed to fulfill in the world - along with other divine factors. Otherwise, there is no reason to introduce it, since - instead of a negative influence - it would be easier to weaken the force it paralyzes. Therefore, the adverbial preposition χ ά ρω has a connotation (of assistance “in favor”) of something that here receives new support for its continuation and development. This naturally shakes the ancient opinion (of St. John Chrysostom and many other ancient commentators: Blessed Theophylact, Icumenius, Blessed Jerome, etc.) that “the law was instead of a bridle” in order to restrain and thereby gradually eliminate and destroy crimes. On the contrary, his intended service honors the auspicious role for τ ῶ ν παραβ ά σεω. By its very meaning and according to the usage of the Apostle (Rom. 2:23, 4:15, 5:14; Heb. 2:2, 9:15), the term παραβ ά σις does not mean sin in general, but a special crime of a precisely formulated and strictly imperative norm, a violation of its legal bindingness. Consequently, this violated principle must already be present in order for illicit passage through it to be possible. But for the children of Israel it was always the law that was such, which is why the “crime” for the Old Testament (Heb. 9:15) is determined by the existence of the law (Rom. 4:15) and in its very discovery is inextricably linked with it (Rom. 2:23, 25, 27; James 2:9, 11). This means that in the analyzed text the legalistic instructions of Moses are conceived as the object of offenses. Hence we find that the law did not come into being without being violated. Then the strength of resistance to legalistic correctness must be allowed in the performers, if all their zeal is resolved by one oath (Gal. 3:10). Only this force is now acquiring a certain form of criminality. It is clear that this is a former sin, which the law does not cause, but already presupposes. And in fact, “even before the law sin was in the world” (Rom. 5:13). It is no less indisputable that it is not from the law (Rom. 7:7), for the latter only illuminates it in terms of moral and legal criminality and here serves as a means of recognizing sin as precisely sin (Rom. 3:20). Here all the dark desires and vague desires of the flesh receive special energy and become clear in their sinfulness. Previously, they were in a hidden, apathetic, as if dead state, but now they come to life (Rom. 7:8-9) in the form of an active illegal struggle and are fully comprehended from this side, due to which the Apostle also says about himself: I do not know lust, if the law had not said: You do not lust (Rom. 7:7). Having been legally insane before the law (Rom. 5:13), as an inherited property of fallen human nature, sin continues to become more and more sinful. (Rom. 7:13). In this sense, the law is “the power of sin” (1 Cor. 15:56), for, irritating the slaves sold to it (Rom. 7:14), by its coming it multiplies sins (Rom. 5:20) as antinomian acts, entailing a curse or condemnation of death. It is clear from everything that the law, calculated “in favor of crimes,” presupposes the already existing presence of a kindred sinful element in man. Therefore, it is said about it προσετ έ θη - applied above and in addition to the former, from which the inevitable result is increased excitement and special functioning of early sinfulness. So - according to the experiences of history - it was in fact, and the Apostle reveals to us that this did not happen contrary to the law-making will, since everything was provided for at the very beginning, when the law was given for the sake of his crimes, so that sinful attractions would be known and understood as irresistible in their progressive multiplication for all people. If the indispensable preliminary and obligatory condition for the establishment of a law must be the presence of a value corresponding to it, then it is neither a primordial nor an eternal institution, but arises and ceases along with the appearance and disappearance of its double. But it is known that sin is of historical origin and was subject to abolition upon the realization of the promise. Therefore, for the law there is an exact limit of being in the “coming of the seed to which the promise related” in its fulfillment. This is something later and, moreover, such that the law is annulled after the destruction of the conditioning sin. Then it is unshakable that the promised seed is Christ (Gal. 3:16), with whom “the shadow of the law has passed away.” These are the boundaries for the existence and operation of the law. Only in them does it have temporary and limited importance, and its historical merits are undeniable. The law, being a revelation of the will of God, was published in this dignity with the character of a legally compulsory decree, obligatory for strict execution (δυαταγε ί ς). This property of his was also ensured by the mediation of Angels, whose presence was indicated by all the wonderful signs at Sinai (cf. Ps. 106:4) as the Greek translators of LXX saw evidence of them in Deut. 33:2, reading: ἐ κ δεζυον α ὐ το ῦ ἄ γγελοι μετ᾽α ὐ τον (in Slavic: “The Lord came from Sinai, and appeared to us from Siir and came from the mountain Parani, and came with tens of saints, at His right hand Angels with Him"), This belief is characteristic of both Judaism (judging by Josephus, Philo, the Book of Jubilees) and early Christianity, where Archdeacon Stephen denounced the stiff-necked Jews (Acts 7:53) that they accepted the law “by the dispensation of angels” (εἰς διαταγὰς ἀγγέλων), and – they did not save. The Christian first martyr considered such participation of disembodied heavenly spirits to be a symbol of the glory of the law, just as the Epistle to the Hebrews (Heb. 2:2) takes it as a sure guarantee of the firmness of the Old Testament word, the crime and disobedience of which entailed righteous retribution. On the other hand, the last mediator of the Sinai law was Moses, for the Lord handed the tablets of the covenant to the leader of Israel (Exodus 31:15), who brought them to the people in his hands (Exodus 32:15). Therefore, in fact, the law was given “by the hand of Moses” (Lev. 26:46), and this was a great prophet, marked by the special favor of God in the radiance of his face (2 Cor. 3:7). All this speaks loudly about the greatness of the law. The Apostle does not at all deny this historical difference, but by it he determines the real dignity of the Sinai Institute. In it, the will of God did not reach people directly, and even angelic assistance was accompanied by active human cooperation, through which only the whole process achieved the desired success. The Jews refused to speak to Jehovah themselves and chose Moses for this purpose (Exod. 20:19), and he stood between the Lord and between them at the time when the covenant was instituted at Horeb (Deut. 5:5, 2). Here Moses was not just a delegate of his people, but also their mediator in relations with God, due to which Christ, in comparison with him, is called the best intercessor of the new covenant (Heb. 7:6, 11:15, 12:24). As a result, we have that the special feature of the Sinai law was that here the revelation of God was mediated, for it was published for mandatory execution through an intermediary. This means that all actual typicality lay in this property - mediation, from which the very nature of the entire institution should be accurately revealed according to its real qualities in a positive or negative sense. But the writer has already asked himself the question: what is the law according to its dignity? - and naturally, to answer, he focuses on the most characteristic difference. “Mediation” serves as such, and the Apostle takes this quality in the very essence and speaks of ὁ μεσ ί της, understanding such a subject by its most fundamental role, and not by specific applications, often random and insufficient. So: what is any mediator by this very property of mediation? By clarifying this, the true nature of the intermediary institution itself should be revealed. Words of St. Paul on this subject (in verse 20) are brief and categorical, but so mysterious that some classify them among the “inconveniences of understanding,” which the Apostle Peter found in Paul’s writings (2 Pet. 2:16). In any case, we have almost 500 interpretations of this verse with different shades, sometimes directly opposite. Some proceed from the conviction that the mediator is Christ and that, being one for the Old and New Testaments, he has the right to cancel the first and, by his God-manhood, could unite Jews and pagans. But in the apostolic text it is undoubtedly not Christ, whose prerogatives and actions are not hinted at. Others see there the unity of God in the fact of the promise, excluding the duality in the gift of the law; however, it is incomprehensible why a single subject cannot issue different orders, even if not completely consistent with each other. Still others contrast this unity (of God) with the multitude of Angels or people, while duality would be sufficient for this. Still others understand ἑ ν ό ς impersonally, but this contradicts the very title of a mediator, who is always the reconciliator of two conscious wills, for impersonal separation requires only a mechanical fusion or subordination. We now see that all the noted interpretations do not so much explain the apostolic text of interest, but rather introduce extraneous considerations into it and thereby obscure the immediate meaning of the phrase: ὲ θε ὸ ς εἷς ἐ στ ώ . Therefore, we must concentrate on the most apostolic terms in their immediate, direct meaning. The word μεσ ί της belongs to a rather rare one and in later Greek speech is used about a person who is, as it were, in the middle between several, acts as a mediator for them, negotiates with them, reconciles, etc. We find the same thing in the only example of a Greek Old Testament translation of the LXX in Job. 9:33 (“Oh, that he may be an intercessor for us, and reprove, and listen between both”). Then it is both grammatically and factually certain that a mediator can be no less than two separate parties, even if each contains several members. It is important that mediation requires at least two different parties. But from this the converse is also true, that it cannot be imagined in any one situation where a mediator is really unthinkable and does not exist. This is the very nature of mediation, which necessarily presupposes an existing duality. According to the presence of an intermediary under the Sinai law, this is necessary for him too, why is it necessary to find two here too. One is clear to everyone. This is God as the primary author of the Old Testament law. But He is one in the strictest sense of eternal numerical identity, in which the slightest division and the mediation caused by it is unacceptable in him. However, the latter inexorably postulates duality and without it it would be an empty fiction, while the law was an unshakable historical fact for everyone. His very existence certainly presupposes two mediated partners, and in God, as one of such, there is no duality, for He is absolutely one to the most perfect degree. Now we get the following irremovable conclusion: since legislative mediation certainly refers to duality, and it cannot be found in a strictly one God, then it is obvious that the second side is not divine and could not identify with the first until complete coincidence. Therefore, here any connecting rapprochement had to be based on the adaptation of the higher to the lower and caused self-restraint in the most factual discoveries. Naturally, the law that appeared under such conditions turns out to be not exclusively divine, is not a purely divine institution and does not serve as the complete embodiment of the will of God, since here it enters into an agreement with another, and this was the weak and sinful people of Israel in all its human defects. “The law is not made for the righteous, but for the wicked” (1 Tim. 1:9)... The divine radiance is refracted in the human environment and is absorbed not in all its immediacy and clarity, but only with modifications and variations. Given the inequality of sides, it is inevitable that what is prescribed for people and formulated in relation to them is not something absolutely divine, does not represent an adequate and unalloyed radiation of the glory of God, does not exhaust the entire essence of the will of God - divine in its original source and authority, but anthropomorphic in the content and form of the specific norms of the Sinai legislation. Such an understanding is inevitably based on the indisputable fact of Mosaic mediation and is justified by the categorical evidence of Scripture. The prophet Ezekiel also spoke about his ancestors on behalf of Jehovah: “And (I) gave them commandments that are not good, and excuses, but they will not live in them.” Christ the Savior Himself on the issue of divorce decisively declared to the Jews (Matthew 19:8): “Moses, because of your hardness of heart, commanded you to let your wives go; but from the beginning it was not so,” for then the reverse order prevailed, which suffered a downward adaptation here. As a result, an unshakable thesis is acquired that the Old Testament law, as mediated humanly in its historical discovery, is only an accommodative institution of divine pedagogy (Gal. 3:24) and is a temporary means of the supreme providence on the way to the perfect crowning in Christ Jesus, where divinity and humanity were inseparable, unmerged and complete. Legalism was a passing flicker of ever-present light and inevitably fades away with the rising of the Sun of righteousness (Gal. 3:25), preparing the vision of people so that “all, beholding with open face the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Cor. 3:18). Professor Nikolai Glubokovsky. 1927, V, 22 (8) – Sunday. You might be interested in: