The Body of Commandments
Statutes and Ordinances of Scripture
The Law Is Truth. The Song of Moses and the Song of Christ
A Word to the Reader
This book is commonly called the Old Testament. In English "old" suggests what is worn out, outlived, fit for a museum shelf. Yet Scripture never calls it so. Scripture calls it everlasting.
"And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant" (Gen 17:7)
"And my covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant" (Gen 17:13)
"Old" here is no verdict; it renders only "former," "first in time." What comes first is not what has decayed but what was laid as the foundation. A foundation does not grow old because the walls were built later.
The Lord speaks of His word otherwise than we are used to speaking of old books:
"The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever" (Isa 40:8)
"For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven" (Ps 119:89)
"Concerning thy testimonies, I have known of old that thou hast founded them for ever" (Ps 119:152)
And the last word of the last prophet before four centuries of silence is not "forget," but:
"Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all the people, with the statutes and judgments" (Mal 4:4)
What This Body Contains
Here is gathered what God commanded man: commandments, statutes and ordinances from the Torah, the Prophets and the Writings, together with the commandments given by the Lord Jesus in the Gospel of John and in Revelation. They are not paraphrased but given in the words of the text itself, and each carries the place it is taken from, so that the reader may verify rather than take it on trust.
Gathered together they show a plain thing. The Law is not a set of ritual prohibitions belonging to a vanished nation. It is a description of how life is ordered: do not kill, do not steal, do not lie; give the hired servant his wages the same day, not holding them until morning; return the poor man's garment before sundown, that he may have something to sleep in; leave the corner of the field to him who has no field; take not the millstone to pledge, for by it you take away a man's bread; hear in judgment the small as well as the great; muzzle not the ox when he treads out the corn. Not one line of this has grown old.
Why the Lord Jesus Stands Here Also
Christ neither abolishes this nor replaces it with Himself. Of the Father's word He says:
"Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth" (John 17:17)
Truth cannot be repealed: to repeal it would be to declare it a lie. Of Himself He testifies that He kept the Father's commandments (John 15:10), and the Father's commandment He calls life everlasting (John 12:50). He adds the commandment of love but adds it as a summit, not as a substitute.
And at the very end of Scripture, in Revelation, the overcomers sing the song of Moses and the song of Christ - not one instead of the other, but both together; in the text Christ is called the Lamb: "they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb" (Rev 15:2-3). Of the saints it is said that they keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus (Rev 14:12). And there, in the opened temple of heaven, is shown the ark of His covenant (Rev 11:19) - the same in which the Ten Commandments lay.
The Old Testament is not old. It is first and it is everlasting.
