Articles
Israel Has Never Actually Kept the Law
“For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all. For he who said, ‘Do not commit adultery,’ also said, ‘Do not commit murder.’ Now if you do not commit adultery, but do commit murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.” (James 2:10-11)
On an individual level, none of us can claim we have not sinned. Ergo, none of us can claim we have kept the law perfectly. But another interesting point to consider is that the nation of Israel has never collectively kept their laws either. In other words, there has never been a point in the history of the nation of Israel where the entire Law of Moses was actually enforced. When we read Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, we are not reading about what Israel did. We are reading about what God wanted Israel to do. How well did Israel fulfill God’s instructions? A reading of their history yields a rather depressing answer.
In the time of Josiah, king of Judah, the Passover was celebrated. This was a big deal because the Passover had not been celebrated (correctly) since the days of the judges (2 Kgs 23:22). That means that when David and Solomon were kings, the Passover was not actually being observed as prescribed.
When Israel is taken into exile by the Babylonians, one of the stated reasons for the exile is to make up for lost sabbatical years (2 Chr 36:20-21). In particular, they needed to make up for 70 unkept Sabbath years, which approximates to about 490 years worth of disobedience.
Between the time of Joshua son of Nun, and the time of Nehemiah, the Feast of Booths was not kept as prescribed (Neh 8:16-17). That’s arguably 1,000 years of national law-breaking right there. That’s everything in the time of the judges, and all of the kings as well.
This isn’t even getting into the rampant idolatry (1 Kgs 11:5, 7; 15:12; 16:13, 26; 21:26; 2 Kgs 17:12, 41; 21:11, 21; etc.), the use of the forbidden high places (1 Kgs 3:2-4; 11:7; 12:31-32; 13:33; 14:23; 15:14; 22:43; 2 Kgs 12:3; 14:4; 15:4, 35; 16:4; 17:9, 11, 29; 21:3), child sacrifice (2 Kgs 16:3; 17:17; 21:6), cult prostitution (1 Kgs 14:24; 15:12; 2 Kgs 23:7), witchcraft (2 Kgs 9:22; 21:6; Jer 14:14; Ezek 12:24), murder and adultery (Jer 7:9; Hos 4:2; 6:9), and all other manner of abominations that took place before the exile.
But what about after the exile? We should give the post-exile Jews a little credit. After all, they seem to have genuinely abandoned cultic idolatry. While our common modern day definition of idolatry as a form of coveting persisted in the nation, they do appear to have stopped worshipping actual gods of silver and gold after returning from Babylonian exile. The Jews of Jesus’ day likewise do not appear to be worshipping actual idols (in spite of their many other faults). The books of Ezra and Nehemiah likewise evidence a revival of interest in reading the law and celebrating old feasts like Passover and Booths. Interetstamental literature like 1 and 2 Maccabees likewise evidences that the Jews were observing things like kosher food laws and the Sabbath year.
But were they really keeping the whole law? Well… not really. The end of Nehemiah evidences a huge struggle to get all their problems under wraps. Nehemiah returns from a hiatus as governor to find that the people are not paying tithes (Neh 13:10-14), not keeping the Sabbath (Neh 13:15-22) and not putting away their foreign wives (Neh 13:23-29). Malachi likewise ends his book by claiming a need for the hearts of the fathers to be restored to their children and vice versa, in order to avoid an impending curse on the land (Mal 4:5-6). The lack of true autonomous rule after the exile also meant that some laws were basically unenforceable. Many crimes in the law of Moses, like adultery or rebelling against parents, carried the death penalty. Yet it is clear in Jesus’ day that the Romans would not permit the Jews to put anyone to death (cf. John 18:31). Once a nation free to keep the law and failing to do so, they now find themselves a nation prevented from keeping their law, even if they desired to do so! Such is the corruption of sin in this world—the laws of God are not truly keepable, either because of circumstances, or because of our hearts.
“Is the Law then contrary to the promises of God? May it never be! For if a law had been given which was able to impart life, then righteousness would indeed have been based on law. But the Scripture has shut up everyone under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe” (Gal 3:21-22).
The path to God is not to keeping the whole law perfectly. That is impossible, even for those who desire it desperately! Rather, the path to God is through the faithfulness of Christ and our faith in Christ. May God help us to look to him in trust! May God help us to put our trust in him!
