Confused about the law....

[xdisciplex]

I listened to Andrew Wommack and he said that God dealt with humanity with grace for the first 2000 years before he gave them the law and became really harsh on sin. For example he protected Cain from being murdered by others. Even though Cain was a murderer he protected him. Or Jacob for example married two sisters. Something which was also forbidden under the law and which is an abomination to God. This means that under the law Jacob would have been killed.
But this confuses me. Why did God behave so different at different periods in time? If God is the same then why does he not always behave the same?
When God gave the jews the law they stoned this one guy who collected wood on the sabbath. But then Jesus comes along and allows his disciples to collect fruits or whatever they collected on the sabbath and suddenly it was totally okay. I don't understand this. If I had been a pharisee and lived at Jesus time and if I had only known these rules which God gave then I would also have freaked out when suddenly somebody comes along and turns everything upside down. Isn't this a normal reaction? How could the pharisees not be offended by this? If the law clearly says that it's so and so then how can you not be offended if suddenly somebody turns everything upside down?

And I also don't understand what the law was good for. It was supposed to show the jews that they need mercy because they cannot fulfill it. But what does this mean? Did God purposely make the law so strict that nobody could fulfill it? Or was the law simply God's expectation upon the jews?
Or did God sit up there and think "Let's make a law which is so strict and has so many rules that nobody can fulfill it" ?
I don't know what to think about this. Was the law good or bad?

Jesus for example allowed his disciples to collect food on the sabbath but if somebody had done the same 2000 years before then they would have stoned him to death. God himself told Moses to stone this person which collected wood on the sabbath. Doesn't this mean that a sincere jew would have demanded everybody to be stoned who works on the sabbath? Then wasn't it a normal reaction that the jews freaked out when Jesus did this? This is really a scary thought. If I had lived back then maybe I would have done the same and maybe I would have been against Jesus and even felt like I'm doing the right thing. Isn't this a scary thought?

And what I also don't understand is this. What happened to a person which collected wood on the sabbath and then was stoned for it? This person's life was simply ended. Does this mean that this person went to hell? But then what was the law good for? If everybody who broke it was directly killed then the law didn't even show the people that they need mercy because there was no mercy. Everybody who broke it was directly killed.

 

[Scarlett O.]

I listened to Andrew Wommack and he said that God dealt with humanity with grace for the first 2000 years before he gave them the law and became really harsh on sin. For example he protected Cain from being murdered by others. Even though Cain was a murderer he protected him. Or Jacob for example married two sisters. Something which was also forbidden under the law and which is an abomination to God. This means that under the law Jacob would have been killed.

I've never heard of Andrew Wommack, but if you are indeed quoting him correctly, then he is wrong.

The law was not God "becoming harsh on sin." God has been harsh on sin from the moment that Adam and Eve rebelled against him in the garden. He punished mankind with the death penalty. Had Adam and Eve not sinned, they would have never died and neither would any other people that God created.

Death penalty....that's sounds pretty harsh to me.

Yet what of Andrew Wommack's two examples?

There are things worse than death, you know. And God knew that when punished Cain. God has already cursed the ground for Adam's sake and he cursed it again, specifically, just for Cain.

Because Cain would no longer be able to feed his family by his own agricultural skills, he would have to be nomadic. Constantly wandering the earth.......Cain and his wife and children were exiles from God and exiles from Godly people.

They were fugitives with each passing generation becoming deeper and deeper into moral decay until the Great Flood.

Cain was petrified that someone would take revenge on him for Abel's death and kill him, themselves.

He got angry with God, claiming that his punishment was too much and he found fault with God by saying, in essence,...."Well, gee God!! If you are going to punish me, then nobody is going to like me and someone will probably try to kill me for it!"

No where in the bible does it say that Cain was repentant for what he did. In fact, it says in Gen. 4:16 that Cain "left the presence of God".

God placing a mark on Cain was not a soft expression of mercy for Cain. It was to keep him alive........so that he could bear his punishment. And whatever that mark was....the bible doesn't say.....when people saw it, they understood that it meant that Cain could not be assassinated by them. It apparently told them that God wasn't playing around with sin and that God had Cain under control.

I see NO evidence of God's Grace being extended to Cain. I see no evidence of Cain desiring the Grace of God in the first place. He never repented. He was never remorseful for killing his brother.

He smarted off to God when God asked him about Abel's whereabouts and he found fault with God when God punished him for murder.

As for Jacob marrying two sisters....the law does not say that polygamy was forbidden. The sexual sins that are outlined as unlawful deal with adultry, incest, and beastiality. The law does state that kings were not to form political unions with other nations by signing the deal in multiple marriages to women. That would bring in foreign religions and idolatry and would turn the king's heart away from God.

This does not mean that God was pleased with Jacob having two wives. And I believe that there is the implication that polygamy was frowned upon by God from the Genesis. It didn't take the law to do that.

In fact, remember how Jacob showed favortism? He loved Rachel and hated Leah. And because he loved Rachel, he made her son, Joseph, even though he wasn't the first born....in fact he was one of the younger sons, he made Joseph the first born in his own eyes and treated him so.

God, in the law (Deut. 21:15-17) says this: "When a man has two wives, one loved and the other hated, and they both give him sons, but the firstborn is from the hated wife, at the time he divides the inheritance with his sons he must not treat the sons of the loved wife as the firstborn, cutting out the son of the hated wife, who is the actual firstborn. No, he must acknowledge, the inheritance rights of the real firstborn, the son of the hated wife, by giving him a double share of the inheritance; that son is the first proof of his virility, the rights of the firstborn belongs to him."

We could get into a huge discussion about how Middle Eastern culture in those times were different and how women were viewed differently in those times, but I would be digressing.

This Andrew Wommack person that you have read is wrong about Cain and he is wrong about polygamy being banned in the law.

 

[billwald]

Israel had no history of self government and had been slaves for several hundred years. What legal system should they have adopted when they went into the land? Egyptian law? The Mosiac Covenant was strictly a social contract for living in the Land. There isn't a single verse in Exo thru Deut that applies to one's status in the next life or to gentiles in Hoboken.

 

[BobRyan]

I listened to Andrew Wommack and he said that God dealt with humanity with grace for the first 2000 years before he gave them the law and became really harsh on sin. For example he protected Cain from being murdered by others.

In the 17th century after the creation of Adam - God destroyed the ENTIRE WORLD -- every last man woman and child AND every last air breathing mammal except those who were spared in the ark... BECAUSE of sin!!

He has YET to visit such a harsh penalty on the entire planet -- but of course "he will" in Rev 19 (second coming) and Rev 20/21 (post Millennium lake of fire).

To argue that the slaughter of sinful planet, sinful cities (Sodom and Gomorrah) and sinful nations (Israel's neighbors) was not harsh and hard on sin is to miss the entire scope..

God said in Malachi 4 "I do not change therefore you are not destroyed".

In Christ,

Bob