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A Unique System of Laws
Israel’s system of government, including its judiciary, was unique in the ancient world, purposely so. It was meant to cause God’s chosen people to stand out. It was the ideal system, meant to demonstrate how wise God’s people were, not in themselves, but in the law they had. “Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.” Deuteronomy 4:6. However, more importantly, it was also the society and system of government into which the Messiah was to be born and live. How much more should it have been the ideal and model for the world of what God wants?
This is contrary to much thinking and arguing today, which claims that because Israel’s system was unique, then it doesn’t apply to any nation now, including ours. This is strange thinking. We’re given the system of law described as that of the Creator God and which was intended to show how wise and understanding God’s special people were and which was the system of laws into which His own Son was to be born, yet we’re to understand it was only for them and for their time, not ours. God authored a system of law that was preeminent and represented what He cared about for a society, yet he doesn’t want us to use it?!
Prophets like Isaiah used God’s law to rebuke other nations, as well as His own. “Stand now with thine enchantments, and with the multitude of thy sorceries, wherein thou hast laboured from thy youth; if so be thou shalt be able to profit, if so be thou mayest prevail. Thou art wearied in the multitude of thy counsels. Let now the astrologers, the stargazers, the monthly prognosticators, stand up, and save thee from these things that shall come upon thee.” Isa. 47:12-13. God’s law forbade sorcery, and God prophesied disaster to Babylon for all of its forsaking of God and cruelty toward His people, even though God had commanded Babylon to take His people captive. Jonah prophesied to the people of Nineveh that they faced destruction, yet they repented before the God of Israel and thereby avoided destruction. “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me.” Jonah 1:2. See also chapter 3 for their repentance.
So God’s law applied to all nations then, and because He’s the unchanging God, it applies to all nations now.