The nature of God
BY Argie Simonis
Let's take as an example the raising children. They have to be told the rules and, if they break them, be disciplined. They may not understand the concepts, but they can understand that if they repeat the action, they will be punished.
In a sense, that’s what the Lord did in the Old Testament. Before people were born again, they didn’t have the spiritual perception we have under the New Covenant, so He had to give laws and enforce them with punishment, sometimes even death, to turn them away from sin.
Because Satan was destroying people through sin, there had to be restraints placed on sin, and they had to be enforced. Although this left the false impression that God didn’t really love us because of our sin, that is not what the Word of God teaches.
Romans 5:13 says, "Until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed where there is no law." "Until the law" means until the days of Moses when God gave the Ten Commandments and other ceremonial laws that applied to the Jewish nation. Up until that time, sin was still in the world but wasn’t imputed. The word "impute" is a bookkeeping term. For example, you go to a store to buy something and then it is charged on your account and the purchase is imputed to you. If they failed to impute it, that means it wasn’t recorded and held against you.
This verse is saying that until the time the Ten Commandments came, sin was not being held against people. That’s an amazing statement!
Look at Genesis 3 and 4. Most people believe that when Adam and Eve sinned against God, because He was holy and man was now sinful, He could have nothing to do with sinful mankind. They think God drove man out of the Garden to remove him from His presence because a Holy God couldn’t have anything to do with unholy man. This is not Jesus message. In Genesis 4:9-15 you can see that God was still fellowshipping with man, still talking with Adam and Eve even after they sinned. In Genesis 3:22-23 we see that driving them out of the Garden of Eden was an act of mercy and not punishment. God didn't want man to live eternaly in sinful bodies subject to all emotions and diseases that sin brings.
Romans 5:8 says God commended His love toward you, and while you were yet a sinner, Christ died for you; so the New Testament teaches that God extended His love to you while you were living in sin, not after you have cleaned up your act. One of the great truths of the Gospel that will change your life is to understand that God loves you just like you are. He loves you so much that if you receive His love, you won’t want to stay as you are. You will change, but you’ll change as a byproduct of God’s love not in order to get His love. God talked with Cain and Abel, and when they came to offer sacrifices to Him, He spoke to them in an audible voice. By their reaction, we can see that they were used to hearing His voice, and it didn’t scare them. All this says is that God was still fellowshipping with mankind and had not broken fellowship, as is commonly believed. He was not imputing man’s sins to him. Around 2000 years have passed between the Fall and the giving of the Law. Abram was not killed for marrying Sarah, his half sister, nor killed for sleeping with her servant Agar. Jacob also was not killed for marrying his wife's sister. Does that mean that God approved their sins? No, that’s the reason He eventually gave the Law. God had to give the Law to bring man back to a proper standard. In Galatians 3:19, 23-24 we see that the Law was a temporary way of dealing with sin.
God had to show man that he needs a Savior and that he has to humble himself and receive forgiveness as a gift. Sadly, religion has manipulated and controlled these things to teach that the Law was given so you can keep it and thereby earn God’s forgiveness and acceptance. No! The purpose of Old Testament Law was to magnify your sin to such a degree that you would despair of ever saving yourself and say, "God, if this is your standard of holiness, I can’t do it. Forgive me, have mercy on me." The overall nature of God has always been love.
Amen!
