Ethics and Biblical Law

Welcome, good evening, and we are back to round two of introduction to Christian ethics. Hopefully you all had the opportunity to go through your reading. If you have not gotten your book, the book reading last week was chapters 1 to 4, which is the most reading I'm going to ask you to do this term.

The rest of the weeks there are two chapters this week, two chapters next week, and then one chapter each. There's only 12 chapters in a relatively small book, so if you got through the four chapters, then the rest of the reading should be fairly easy for you.

And if you're a little bit behind, you have plenty of time to catch up. As I said, it's not a super long read. I want to very quickly go over a few of the things that we talked about last week for two reasons.

One, to bring us up to speed, but also in regard to your notes, because this week there is a quiz that will be distributed online that you will do. Remember I said there's gonna be two quizzes in this class and a final, so there will be a quiz that goes out this week and it will include some of what we talked about last week, as well as some of what we're going to talk about tonight, but I thought I would just remind you of a few of the things we talked about last week, just so that you have these things fresh in your mind for when the quiz comes.

We talked about Christian ethics and we talked about the difference between ethics and morals, and if you'll remember in making that distinction, well actually let me, we'll do this. What is the distinction?

Does anyone remember? Yes, that's right. The one deals with ought and the foundations of right and wrong, and the other deals with what we see expressed among a people, the morals of a society or the morals of a group, ought and is.

It's very good. All right, so does anybody remember where the word ethics comes from? That is right, but with the Greek word was ethos, and it does originally refer to a stall or a place for housing animals, something that is firmly fixed is the idea.

That's where we get the word ethos. What about the word moral? Mores or mores, where we get the idea of the attitude or behavior of a people. What are the morals of a society? Very good. Now, we asked the question last week, why study ethics?

And I want to give you the answer. You can write this down or just go back to the video later if you need. The reason why we study, if you'll remember, is to help us conform our understanding to the perfect standard of God, to help us conform our understanding to the perfect standard of God.

What Bible verse comes to mind when you hear that? Which says, and notice he didn't look down once. Star student right there. Very good, brother. So the point in that text that I wanted to reference into this is where it says, do not be conformed to this world, but rather to be transformed by the renewal of our mind.

And so why do we study ethics? So that we conform our understanding to God rather than to the world. So ultimately it's a practical application of Romans 12, 1 and 2, seeking to better conform ourselves to God and to his standard.

Now what is, last week we talked about the subject of goodness, what is the standard of goodness? Yeah, this one is fairly easy. The standard of goodness from a biblical perspective is God. He is the standard.

His word, his commands become the standard for our understanding of goodness or virtue. And we could talk about what is goodness. We say goodness and virtue are in this sense synonymous. They are talking about the same thing.

And God is the standard. Hello David. It's fine. God is the standard of goodness and the ultimate standard of all virtue. Last thing from last week, we talked about the concept of subjective versus objective.

And this is something I don't think I made super clear last week, so I wanted to clarify tonight. And that is this. Ultimately all truth is subjective to God and objective for us, because God is the objective standard.

But it's subject to him. All right. All truth is subjective to God, meaning it is subject to him, but it is objective for us in that God is the standard. So truth does not conform to us. Truth conforms to God as the standard and we therefore must conform to him.

So when we talk about subjectivity and objectivity, particularly in regard to the subject of truth, we're talking about what is in relation to God as the perfect standard. Well tonight we are going to go into my favorite part of this class.

And it's my favorite part of this class because it deals with a theological subject in regard to how we understand biblical law. And we're going to see how there are differing understandings of how God's law is to be interpreted and applied.

And I hope that through the course of this evening I will be able to at least in some fashion persuade you into my understanding of God's law and how we are to interpret it. But I do not kid myself and think that I have had all the answers.

I know that I don't, but I know that this particular subject is one that often brings a lot of confusion for believers. I told this story last Thursday because I was at Set Free and I was preaching on Colossians chapter 2 where the Apostle Paul says do not let anyone pass judgment on you in relation to food or drink or the new moons or feast days or Sabbaths.

And I was talking about how there was a man a few years ago at Set Free who was he was part of the Hebrew roots movement which means that he held to the view that all of those Old Testament laws had to be maintained in the New Covenant.

And so he would argue with me about whether or not Christians really had the liberty to eat pork or to to violate the feast days or not keep the Sabbath and those things. And we would have that conversation and he was very adamant that I was wrong.

And I was very adamant that he was wrong. But the reason why I bring that up simply is because I know that this is a subject upon which people disagree. However if we're going to talk about conforming to a standard we have to know what the standard is and therefore part of this class is coming to a conclusion about what does God say about certain things.

And so that's what we're going to talk about tonight. Three parts to tonight's class as each class I try to I'm a sucker for three points. So three parts tonight we're going to look at perspectives on biblical law that's our first part.

Part two we're going to look at grace as an excuse for sin and you'll see why that fits together with the first part. And then part three and this may come after the break depending on time we're going to look at subjectivity or excuse me subjectivism and Romans 14.

So if you have your if you have your syllabus this is all in the syllabus this is our three-point outline for tonight. And as you can tell I have a PowerPoint presentation tonight it's really not a PowerPoint it's more I just have some videos loaded in here.

We are going to watch a video it's only a couple minutes to get us into this subject really quickly. This is from a television show called the West Wing and I've used this video for years in regard to biblical law.

I hope that it makes sense when I'm when you're watching it why I would choose this video. There is a word in here that is not kosher. I will try to pause it before it gets there but that's just understand that it's there and it's part of the video.

But I do have I have it marked out where I can stop it. So we'll try to hope that that doesn't happen.

Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States. I wish I could spend more than a few minutes with you but the polls don't close in the east for another hour. There are plenty of election results still left to false fun.

You know with so many people participating in the political and social debate through call-in shows it's a good idea to be reminded every once in a while. It's a good idea to be reminded of the awesome impact.

The awesome impact. I'm sorry you're Dr. Jennifer Jacobs right? Yes sir. It's good to have you here. Thank you. The awesome impact of the airwaves and how that translates into the furthering of our national discussions but obviously also how it can.

How it can. A PhD. A PhD. Yes sir. In psychology? No sir. Theology? No. Social work? I have a PhD in English literature. I'm asking because on your show people call in for advice and you go by the name Dr. Jacobs on your show and I didn't know if maybe your listeners were confused by that and assumed you had advanced training in psychology, theology or healthcare.

I don't believe they are confused. No sir. Good. I like your show. I like how you call homosexuality an abomination. I don't say homosexuality is an abomination Mr. President. The Bible does. Yes it does.

Leviticus. 1822. Chapter and verse. I wanted to ask you a couple of questions while I had you here. I'm interested in selling my youngest daughter into slavery. You're sanctioned in Exodus 21 -7. She's a Georgetown sophomore.

Speaks fluent Italian. Always stood at the table when it was her turn. What would a good price for her be? While thinking about that can I ask another? My chief of staff, Leo McGarry, insists on working on the Sabbath.

Exodus 35 -2 clearly says he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself or is it okay to call the police? Here's one that's really important because we've got a lot of sports fans in this town.

Touching the skin of a dead pig makes one unclean. Leviticus 11 -7. If they promise to wear gloves, can the Washington Redskins still play football? Can Notre Dame still win? Can West Point? Does the whole town really have to be together to stone my brother John for planting different crops side by side?

Can I burn my mother in a small family gathering for wearing garments made from two different threads? Think about those questions would you? One last thing.

And the Christian is dejected and disappointed and unable to give an answer for anything because the person has established dominance through a use of biblical law. Now do you see why such a clip made the rounds when it was first aired?

It was talked about on several different Christian shows. It was bantered about as to how do you answer this question. It became so famous that it became known as the West Wing Question because it was such a seemingly difficult thing for a Christian who is represented by the woman in the show.

And it highlights an issue regarding Christian ethics. And as I said, I've used this video for quite some time because a person, the lady in this video, puts forward a particular ethic regarding something they believe the Bible teaches and the other person responds by essentially accusing them of cherry picking.

And that's not the word that was used in the video, but that is the accusation that Christians only pick out certain passages and other passages they do not care about or they don't use or they don't apply to themselves.

And as you can tell, every one of the verses that the president in the show played by Martin Sheen, as you can tell, the passages that he mentioned were all Old Testament passages. So how should Christians understand the Old Covenant law?

And are we hypocrites when we claim that there are things that are sinful and we base that on the scripture, but yet we do not believe other things that are forbidden in scripture are sinful? And that is the basis of tonight's class.

It's understanding that issue. So the first thing we're going to do is I want to introduce you to four perspectives, four perspectives on the Old Testament law for Christians. And when I say this, I'm not this is not the only perspectives on the Old Testament.

I'm not including how the Jews see the Old Testament. I'm not including Muslims in this. I'm including people who claim to be Christians in this group, even though you may argue that some of these may not be Christian.

I'm saying these people all claim fidelity to Christ and the New Covenant and all of them have differing views on how to understand, interpret and apply the Old Covenant. The first group is called the Torah observant, the Torah observant group.

And I'll put each one down as we go. I want you to be able to put notes for each of these. The Torah observant group is any group which advocates the keeping of all or most of the Old Testament laws as being mandatory for Christians.

Some would say that while salvation is all of grace, a person who is truly saved would want to obey the law of God as explained in the Old Testament. And therefore, a sign of salvation is submission to the Old Testament law.

And if a person is not submitted to the Old Testament law, they are at best out of the will of God and at worst lost. That's the understanding of this group. Often the most specific rules which are demanded are the dietary restrictions.

I go back to that story of the man from Set Free. I remember very specifically saying something to the fact that he did not keep the laws as they were written anyway. We were just sort of debating back and forth.

I said, I don't believe that you keep the laws. And he goes, sure I do. I don't eat this and I don't eat that. He picked out the ones that to him were the most obvious. And the most obvious ones were the dietary restrictions and the keeping of the Sabbath.

That was another thing that he was demanding. And that's normally what you will see in these groups is that there will be a keeping of not just the Sabbath, but a keeping of a Saturday Sabbath. So, what groups fall under this?

That's a question anybody can answer. Seventh-day Adventists. The SDA. We had a lady a few years ago, a very sweet woman. She and I had a very good relationship here at the church. She and her husband were members here for a long time.

And she began to take issue with some things that I was saying, take issue with some of what was being taught in Sunday school. And I could tell that she was being influenced by some Torah observant group.

And I come to find out it was a Seventh-day Adventist group. And she was convinced that because Jesus kept the Sabbath on Saturday, that we were wrong for worshiping on Sunday. And that was one of her most insistent arguments was that we were wrong because we worshiped on Sunday.

And she would make that a big deal. And finally that became such an issue for her that she left this church and went to the Seventh-day Adventist church. So, I've experienced this one firsthand. What is another group that would fall under this category?

Anyone else? Well, as I said, I'm not counting Jewish, but I would say Messianic Judaism. So, Messianic Judaism often will focus on keeping the laws, particularly the Sabbath laws. They'll call themselves Torah observant.

But Orthodox Jews would be un-Christian. But Messianic Jews would say they are Christian. They would at least claim to be. So, Messianic Judaism. And a few years ago, do you guys know who Michael Brown is?

Michael Brown is a, yeah, he's on the radio. What's the name of the show? Line of Fire Radio. He wrote one of the best books on homosexuality in America. It's called A Queer Thing Happened in America.

It's a really good book. And it just talks about the history of how the world has changed and things like that. But I have some issues with him. He's very, very, very charismatic. And so, we disagree on some things.

But overall, good dude in general. But he was here with Dr. James White doing a debate. And not with James White. They were doing a two-on-two debate. Him and James White debated two homosexual pastors.

Pastors. Let me make sure I go back and clarify. And they debated on the subject of homosexuality and Christianity. And we had like a night before where we got a chance to go and ask questions to James White and to Michael Brown.

It was at Gordon-Conwell Seminary, which is in Jacksonville. So, we went and sat in and got to ask questions. And a bunch of Messianic Jews were there because Michael Brown is Jewish by birth and has an extensive background in Hebrew.

And his Old Testament knowledge is just far and away really amazing. And so, a lot of Messianic Jewish people came to ask him questions. And you could tell when they came in because many of them were wearing traditional Jewish prayer shawls.

And so, you could tell they stood out from the rank and file believers in the room. So, Seventh-day Adventists would certainly fall under the Torah observant. Messianic Jewish people, Messianic Jews, would fall under this in general.

Not always, but in general. It's found among them. And there is another group. Anybody know what the other group might be? It's a group called Hebrew Roots.

Okay. Are they to be confused with Hebrew Israelites?

And often what happens is they end up going back into the Old Testament law and pulling in the Old Testament law. And like for instance, I know a lady right now who told me that her relatives are getting into that.

That they're starting to be very restrictive with their diet and they're starting to worship on the Sabbath and these things. And Hebrew Roots is like, it's not so much like a, like I said, it's not a denomination like Seventh-day Adventists.

It's more like a movement that moves within churches. Not that it should be compared in this way, but Calvinism and Hebrew Roots would be similar in the sense that Calvinism is found in all different kinds of churches.

You can find Calvinist Baptist. You can find Calvinist Methodist. Do you know that? George Whitfield was a Calvinist Methodist, right? So you can find Calvinism in various churches. You can find Hebrew Roots in various churches because it's more of a teaching that makes its way in.

But Hebrew Israelites, sometimes referred to as Black Hebrew Israelites, are a group that believe that they are the true descendants of Israel. And typically Black people who believe that they're by descendants are the true Israel.

They have been persecuted and they believe that they are the true Israel that God is working through right now. So that's different than Hebrew Roots. Now, how they understand Old Testament law, I'm not sure.

So I can't put them up here because I'm not sure. I'd have to look that up. Yeah, there's a lot of confusion in the Hebrew Israelite movement. But no, it's not the same as Hebrew Roots. Hebrew Roots, like I said, is like a teaching that makes its way into churches.

And you'll know people when you talk to them. I remember one time I was at Sandmar, which is a t-shirt distribution company, back when I had my t-shirt company. And I went in and I sat down and was waiting on my t-shirts to come out.

And I sat next to a guy and we just started talking about the Bible, started talking about the gospel. And he immediately told me that he was convinced that Christians should be keeping the Old Testament dietary laws, Christians should be circumcised, Christians should keep the Sabbath and these things.

And I asked him, I said, would you consider yourself Hebrew Roots? And he, yeah. So it's like I said, it's a movement to try to push back the idea of holding to these Old Testament laws. And when I was teaching on Colossians 2, and if you want to hear my sermon on this, you can go to Sermon Audio, Colossians 2, 16 and 17.

I listened to some sermons from these guys because I wanted to hear how they understand what I think is the clearest passage in the New Testament telling us that we don't do those things. And they totally turn that text on its head.

They totally say that Paul is actually telling us to do those things rather than not to do those things. And so they're convinced that the Christian to be right in their ethic, that their ethic, remember that's what this class is about, their ethic is based in keeping the Old Testament law in its fullness.

The next group that I want to discuss is what we would call the tripartite distinction, the tripartite distinction. And I'll write it up here for you to be able to know how it's spelled properly. Now tripartite means a three part distinction.

The tripartite distinction separates the Old Covenant law into three parts. And those three parts are moral, civil, and ceremonial. Moral, civil, and ceremonial. Now I do encourage you to take notes because remember I'm talking about pop quizzes and stuff.

These things will definitely be on the quiz, at least part of them. So keep that in mind. So when we talk about the tripartite distinction, this separates the Old Covenant law into a three-fold division.

And the division goes like this. The civil laws were for national Israel. I said national laws, I should say national Israel. That the civil laws specifically are for national Israel, for the government of the state.

When we say state, I don't mean state as like the state of Israel today, but the nation of Israel. The government of the nation was governed by civil law. So for instance, there are laws in the Old Testament that say if your ox tramples another person's crops, couldn't get the word out, if your ox tramples their crops, then you owe them this much in return.

Those would be an example of what this would see as civil law. And all of the laws are based on these civil commandments. The ceremonial laws are laws that specifically related to priestly duties in the tabernacle or the temple.

So we can say priestly duties, yes.

Would the feasts and festivals fall under that?

Yeah, there would still be ceremonial laws. I guess it's not only priestly duties, but specifically those things that relate to ceremonies and feasts. Yes, absolutely. And the third is the moral laws.

And this particular belief system, this tripartite distinction, believes that the moral law is to be found in the Ten Commandments specifically. So the Ten Commandments. Now, who would adhere to the tripartite distinction?

You're probably right if you're nervous. Yeah, but who holds to a tripartite? You're right, we're going to talk about that in a minute. Actually, I don't, but I'll explain why in a minute. But typically Reformed people do.

But so do Roman Catholics. So Catholics and Reformed Church both hold to a tripartite distinction. Don't press me too hard on this, but for tonight, I'm simply saying those who would claim to be Christians.

Catholics would certainly claim to be Christian. Now, whether we could debate their theology, the same way a Seventh-day Adventist claims to be Christian, but we could debate their theology, right? Well, I've had interactions where they argue, certainly we're Christian, so it depends, right?

But the tripartite distinction is expressed, if you want to write this down, in the Westminster Confession. The Westminster Confession, Chapter 19, Section 3 -5, clearly expresses this as the position of the Westminster, and it's in the London Baptist Confession as well.

So the tripartite distinction is believed by most Reformed people who hold to a confessionally Reformed position. As I said, I don't hold to this, and I'll explain why in a moment, but I think that it's helpful, but I don't think that it's altogether perfect.

I'll go ahead and give you my thoughts on it. As we're going to see when we begin to talk about the moral law, the Ten Commandments include the Sabbath, and therefore you have to deal with the issue of the Sabbath, and how you understand the Sabbath, so right away you're dealing with an issue of, is Sabbath-keeping moral, and how do you address that?

But also, how do you distinguish ceremonial and civil law when the commands themselves become moral obligations when they're commanded by God? How do you say it's not a moral law if God commands it to be done?

And if you don't do it, you're under God's curse. That's where the issue lies. But like I said, we're going to talk more about that, but that's why I think this is oversimplification. That's my position, is that the tripartite is too easy.

It doesn't deal with the more difficult parts. But in general, this is the view held both by Rome and the Reformers, that the law is to be understood with three parts. That the law is moral, that's the one that we keep, and the civil law went away with Israel because Israel is no longer a...

But it's also no longer what it was after the destruction of the Temple in AD 70 and everything. The Old Covenant is done away with in the sense of the Old Testament Israel is done away with, and the Old Testament ceremonies are fulfilled in Christ.

So these two no longer have applications. So this does give an easy answer to the West Wing question. Well, I like easy when it's right. I don't like easy when it's oversimplified. But for a simple answer to the West Wing question, if the woman said, well, homosexuality is a sin, which she did, it's abomination.

First of all, I would not use Leviticus 18 .22. If I was describing homosexuality as a sin, I would use a New Covenant passage, which is found in 1 Corinthians 6, Romans 1, several other passages which relate to marriage, being between one man and one woman, all those things.

Leviticus 18 is not the passage I would go to. However, I do think it is eternal moral law that homosexuality is wrong. So I think it would fall under here. However, the other laws he described in the video, such as the law of not touching the skin of a pig, falls clearly under ceremonial law.

The law of not planting crops side by side certainly falls under the civil law of Israel. And so that is where the answer could be given. But of course, the film is not intended to give an answer. The film is intended to make the Christian look foolish.

So we understand what the film is about.

You were going to say? Well, yeah, the slavery question too.

Could, could very well be. Yep, yep, absolutely. So we have Torah observant is one. And again, I'm only giving you four today. I'm not saying these are the only four. These are the four I want you to consider as we study ethics.

Okay? The third one is called theonomy. Theonomy. The word theonomy comes from two words, the word theos, which means God, and the word namos, which means law. And therefore, the word theonomy refers to God's law.

Now, I want to, I want to clearly make some, I want to make something clear. The tripartite distinction is still understood in theonomy. So these are not absolute, absolutely different. Where they differ is typically those who hold to a tripartite distinction do not see a place for the civil law of Israel in national law today.

Theonomy believes that all national law should be based on God's civil law given to Israel. So the idea of theonomy is the idea that God's law should be the standard for all men's laws. Right? And so that is where theonomy comes from.

And there's different versions of this. For instance, there's something called, there's something called, oh goodness, I just dropped my word. General, thank you, AJ. General equity theonomy. General equity theonomy, I'll write that down, essentially says that while the laws given to Israel are specific to Israel, they set a standard which then provides a general equity by which we create other laws for other nations.

So for instance, America is not governed the same way Israel was. America has supposedly democratically elected officials. And Israel had a monarchy. So the governmental structure is different. However, there can be general principles applied from the laws of Israel to a government like the United States.

And they would call that general equity theonomy. Now that is a more broad use of the word theonomy, and one that I really wouldn't take a big issue with. And I mean, there's some things I would disagree with, but basically I would say, yeah, okay, God says it's wrong to murder.

We should say it's wrong to murder. And if that's what we're saying, fine. And if God says a murderer should be punished by capital punishment, then make it happen, Captain. By the way, we are going to talk about the subject of capital punishment.

Isn't that one you have, capital punishment? Bert's going to be teaching in a couple weeks, and we talk about capital punishment. We're going to talk about God's perspective in the sense of what does the Old Testament say?

What does the New Testament say? How do we apply our ethic to something like capital punishment? But ultimately, theonomy has a general equity view, but then there is more of a strict theonomy, a nationalistic form of theonomy, and that is a little bit more, a little more, I don't want to say harsh because I don't think that's even the right word.

It's a little more aggressive. So, for instance, things like punishing people for working on the Sabbath and things like that. So, those would be, that would be a further, more difficult view. Now, some proponents of this would be men like R .J. Rushdoony, whose book is actually sitting on my shelf if anyone wants to take a look at it, his book Christians and Biblical Law.

R .J. Rushdoony would be a more aggressive form of theonomy. Greg Bonson was a theonomist. And a more modern speaker would be someone like Jeff Durbin of Apologia Church. He would be a theonomist, probably more in line with the general equity view.

And so, if you're interested in hearing what they have to say, feel free to look them up and learn a little bit more from the horse's mouth. Especially Jeff Durbin has a lot that he says about this subject and you can look him up.

Also, Doug Wilson is a pastor in Moscow, Idaho. Not Moscow, Russia, but Moscow, Idaho. And he is a theonomist. Doug, Douglas Wilson. And I will be debating Douglas Wilson in a couple of weeks on the subject of post-millennialism versus amillennialism.

It is somewhat of a humorous debate. It's not intended to be too terribly funny. I mean, too terribly serious because the positions of amillennialism and post-millennialism are so very close anyway. There's only a few distinct differences and we're going to really argue about the small differences between us.

But Doug Wilson would hold to a view of theonomy. In fact, some have argued that the town that he lives in, which is Moscow, Idaho, that they're trying to produce a theonomic society there because sort of the church is sort of overtaking this little small town.

There was a video. A crew went out there and filmed and did an interview, a news interview, asking about this church that was making such big waves in such a small town out in Idaho. And you can look that up.

It was an interesting video because he was talking about theonomy. I wish I had brought it. He was talking about theonomy. And he said something about homosexual marriage. And the lady said, well, homosexual marriage is the Supreme Court has ruled that homosexual marriage is right.

This is the lady interviewing him. And he said, yeah, well, they once said Roe versus Wade was right too. And he just kind of gave her a look like those can be overturned because Roe versus Wade was overturned.

So anyhow, so those are examples. And again, they would still understand a tripartite division. So this would be a subset of two. Theonomy is more of a subset of two. Finally, we're going to look at number four, which is called by different names.

I'm going to call it new covenant priority, new covenant priority. Now, some people, and I myself included, would also call this new covenant theology. Sometimes maybe use the term progressive covenantalism, but that's a little different.

That's based on the works of Willem and Gentry and the book Kingdom Through Covenant. So I don't want to completely combine the two. But basically, new covenant theology or new covenant priority would say that the old covenant in its fullness has been replaced by the new covenant.

And therefore, the laws of the old covenant in their fullness are no longer binding on the Christian. The Christian is bound to a new law, the law of Christ, also referred to as the law of liberty or the law of love.

Those three phrases are all used in the new covenant. And I will write each one down, the law of Christ or the law of liberty or the law of love. All three of those phrases, again, are used in the new covenant.

This would argue that the tripartite distinction is not biblical and is arbitrary. That's my position. I believe the tripartite distinction ultimately becomes an arbitrary issue where people get to decide for themselves what is moral and what is civil and what is ceremonial because the Bible never makes that distinction.

There's no chart in the Old Testament that says this be moral, this be civil, this be ceremonial. This position does not deny that there are laws in the old covenant that we are to obey, but rather that the new covenant scriptures take priority over the old covenant.

And the best way to describe this, as I have over the years come to be able to understand it and describe it, is if you imagine we have the old covenant and the new covenant, and the old covenant specifically relates to the covenant of Moses and the new covenant specifically relates to the covenant of Christ, that there are laws which transcend all covenants.

So we would call these transcendental laws. Spelled that a little wrong, but it's transcendental laws. So, for instance, when Cain killed Abel, was that before Moses? Yes. Was that before the Ten Commandments?

Yes. Was it wrong? Yes. Was it wrong? Yes. Yes. Was it wrong for Cain to kill Abel? Daisy, you look like you're confused. It was wrong, right? Okay, thank you. Yeah, we agree. Cain was wrong for killing Abel, right?

But there was no written law against which he sinned, right? Now, was it wrong when Joseph's brother sold him into slavery? Yeah. I mean, it was wrong for them to abuse him. It was wrong for them to sell him, consider killing him, but then decided to take the cash instead of having him killed.

That was wrong. The point of this little illustration is that there are laws which transcend covenantal boundaries. Prior to the covenant with Moses, murder was still wrong. Kidnapping was still wrong.