Genesis Vol 3.pdf - College Press

WHAT GOD DID THRU ISRAEL
to meet the institutions, aspirations, and needs of the human
spirit (cf. Rom. 8:26-27).
2. The perpetuation and development of the essential
principles, laws, and institutions of true religion. These
are, as we have learned already, the Altar, the Sacrifice,
and the Priesthood. (Cf. Gen. 8:20, 12:7-8, 13:18, etc.;
Exo. 20:24-26; Heb. 9:22; Lev, 17:ll; Exa 12:5; Rom.
3:24-26; Rev. 5:9; 1 Pet. 2:j, 9, 24; Heb. 9:ll-28; Rev.
1:6, $:lo, 20:6.)
3. The revelation of the essential principles of moral
conduct, and of national and social righteousness. There
were many noted lawgivers in the ancient world: Minos
and Rhadamanthus of Crete, Hammurabi of Babylon,
Numa Pompilius of Rome, Solon of Athens, Lycurgus of
Sparta, etc. Undoubtedly there was a strain of Semitic
moral (and civil) law-norms of right and wrong con-
duct-handed down by word of mouth from generation
to generation (Rom. 2:14-15). The apostle tells us that
under conscience, however, as educated by tradition alone,
man became more and more sinful; hence the necessity of
incorporating these basic norms into a permanent code:
this was done through the mediatorship of Moses (Gal.
3:19). There can be no doubt, in the minds of honest
intelligent persons that if all men could be induced to
shape their lives by the two Great Commandments as in-
corporated in the Decalogue (cf. Matt, 22:34-40, Deut.
6:5, Lev. 19:18, Exo. 2O:l-17) this temporal world of
mankind in which we are living today would be a very
different world. H. A. Overstreet (The Mature Mind,
96) points up the superiority of the Mosaic Code to all
other legal codes of antiquity, in these words: “The Deca-
logue remains for us the first great insight of our culture
into man’s moral nature. There had been other ‘codes’
before this one, but they had lacked the consistency of
moral insight conveyed in the Decalogue. One and all,
they had been class codes, making arbitrary discriminations
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