To most people, Moses is known as Israel's first great prophet who led Israel out of Egyptian bondage and as the receiver of the Ten Commandments, and that he was also Israel's leader for some forty years during their wanderings in the wilderness before they entered the promised land.

However during this period, as the prophet and leader of Israel, he instructed and guided them through the rewards, disciplines, and chastisements as they observed or violated The Divine Law, as handed down by God.

God's Divine Law not only consists of the Ten Commandments but also consists of Statutes and Judgements. It embraces all of the needs, activities, and requirements of men and nations. It directs them in all things that should and should not be done. The divine Law, like the eternal, immutable laws that rule the physical universe, governs the conduct of men and society. It is a natural Law, and as such, not subject to change, and the passage of time has no effect upon its existence or is effectiveness. Obedience to it leads to spiritual, economic, military, and physical blessings, and transgression of it leads to effects just the opposite.

When it come to violations of the law, the Bible only allows for two types of offenses: capital crimes and civil crimes. And there were only two types of punishment: 1) death for capital offenses, and 2) restitution for civil offenses. There is no such thing as jail time in the Bible.

Among those offenses punishable by death were murder, adultery, bestiality, incest, sodomy, and rape. Today's society, much to its disadvantage, has turned against the severity of this decree and in so doing, it overlooks the fact that the purpose of terminal punishment under Biblical Law was not to make the wrongdoer suffer, but to protect society against criminals and also for the suppression of capital crimes by the permanent removal of evildoers from a society which they endangered.

Examples of the civil laws -- and of particular interest to the present generation, so steeped in economic problems -- are the requirements such as periodic cancellation of all debt, thus preventing one generation from heaping its financial burdens or abuses on a succeeding one; the prohibition of usury, or the lending of money with an interest accumulation for its use; and the establishment of an unchanging and uniform tax rate, alike to the servant and to the master, based, not on property value (for property had no assessed valuation), but only upon the increase of the individual, or earnings, and only after the deduction of the family's routine living expenses.

The Ten Commandments were intended to be the "fundamental and abiding truth for Israel and for the world, and they are divided into two classes of duties: duties to God and duties to others.

The first four Commandments related to God. There was one God and no other gods or idols were to be tolerated. God's character was to be held in reverence; and God's day, the Sabbath, or seventh day, was to be kept holy.

The remaining six Commandments had to do with man's relationships with other men. The Statutes and Judgements followed. This body of the Law left no room for a legislature, or for legislators or lawmakers. God's Law was sufficient for that age, for this age, and for all ages to follow. Only magistrates were required to administer the Law as situations arose.

Now I know that some of you are mulling over these remarks about the Law and may be saying, "But how in the society of that time, could the Law have foreseen the various contingencies of today's mechanical and technological age, such as traffic laws for the automobile?"

But I assure you that these laws are complete and no other law is necessary. You see many of the Statutes were matters of equity from which inferences can be drawn to fit new circumstances by the magistrates who apply them. Broad principles are subject to many applications. Take, for example, the Divine injunction, "Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn." Specifically, this says that while the ox is being worked, it is entitled to feed on that in which it works. In other words, the ox is entitled to share in the fruits of the harvest.

But application of this principle has a literal application to our daily lives. In its broader context, it says that the laborer is entitled to share in the fruit of the harvest. Let's apply this to corporations, which are legal entities certainly not known to the period when the Divine Law was given. If they had adopted this rule of equity by permitting the employee to have a fair share of company profits, there would probably be no labor unions, with all their attendant grief to our society today.

Regarding traffic codes, Bible Law was a law of damages and restitution for damages. Stop signs, lines down the middle of roads, etc., are absolutely necessary to establish orderly traffic flow and to establish blame and liability, in event of accidents. But failure to observe them, unless a damage results to some person, cannot be a crime under Biblical Law.

Why There was an Atonement

One of the first acts of apostasy by the Israelites in the wilderness was worshipping the golden calf while Moses was on the Mount. Not only were they severely punished by God for their action; there was added to the Divine law of Commandments, Statutes, and judgements a new set of laws -- the Ordinances, or the Ritual laws.

These sacrificial laws provided a system of national worship by which atonement was made for sin, which is defined in 1 John 3:4 as "transgression of the Law." Atonement was necessary for Israel, if they were not to be cast off forever by reason of their broken Covenant. Thus an offering was stipulated by which the judgement of a righteous God would be enabled to "pass over" the guilty nation and let the people go free.

Centuries later when Christ sacrificed His own life for Israel, there was no further need for the ritual law of the ordinances. In other words the small sacrifices made by men gave way to the Great Sacrifice of Jesus Christ. When Christ, on the Cross, said "it is finished," He meant, among other things, that the priesthood and the sacrificial Ordinances, under the priesthood's charge, were ended, or done away with completely. So through Calvary, while the ritual laws were abolished, we were still left with God's Divine laws, as codified in the Commandments, Statutes and Judgements.

It was the law of the Ordinances which Paul said was dead. He asked the question: Why serve the law which was added? However, the Divine law of the Commandments, Statutes, and Judgements, as laid down in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, was not the added law, and they remained, and will continue in effect throughout all human history. As Christ said at the beginning of His ministry:

"Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets; I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled."

I should also state that the first appearance of the Divine Law was not first disclosed to Moses at Mount Sinai. For example, we have God's statement when blessing Isaac, as to His reason for fulfilling His sworn oath to Abraham.

"Because that Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws." Genesis 26:5

So God's laws began long before Mount Sinai and are eternal and were even known to man long before the time of Abraham. No doubt when God walked and talked with Adam in the garden, and when He later gave His instructions to Noah, the Law was clearly given to each of them.

But as Mr. Howard B. Rand states in his book Digest of the Divine law:*

"Once the fact is established that law observance is essential to orderly social relationships it becomes necessary to make known to men the laws that must be kept. But along with a knowledge of that law is the need of an effective instrument or organization through which the law may be administered for the benefit of all men."

God recognized this need and even though His laws were known for centuries before Abraham's day, God called Abraham and Abraham's family through whom He proposed to work, making them a servant nation to become the administrators of Kingdom laws not only in Israel but throughout the entire world.

Today we recognize Abraham's descendants as the Anglo-Saxon, Celtic, and kindred peoples of the world, and through them, God would demonstrate to all nations the righteousness and perfection of His Kingdom.

Moses understood this when he told the people of Israel to:

"Keep therefore and do them: for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people." Deuteronomy 4:6

Thus Israel was charged with obedience to the laws, statutes, and judgements of God and since we as the Israel people of the world have failed to keep them as our forefathers promised God, we are now suffering politically, economically, and religiously.

The solution, of course, is to repent and return to obeying the laws of God.

If you are interested in more specific and detailed information of the Divine Law may I suggest Howard Rand's book entitled "The Digest of the Divine Law" which is available from this ministry for a donation of $9.