Q 8: Are these civil laws still valid today?

A 8: The civil laws of Israel are still valid in principle. Under the teaching of the Holy Spirit, and in the grace of the Gospel, the redeemed must labor to understand how the civil laws apply in our day. (1 Cor. 5; 1 Cor. 9.3-12; Jms. 5.1-4)

The civil laws, as we find them in Exodus-Deuteronomy, were given for a particular people in a particular place and time. They encode principles of justice – neighbor love – which, in their original form, were entirely in line with contemporary practice and geared to meet the needs and conditions of a people who did not have a heart for God.

We should expect the principles embedded in those civil statutes, principles of justice and neighbor love, to have abiding validity, given that they come from the unchanging God. However, the specific application of those laws, as Paul demonstrates in 1 Corinthians 9.3-12, will change to meet the changing needs and situations of the times. Thus, Paul felt no hesitation to apply to himself, as a laborer in the Lord’s vineyard, a principle of justice originally given to protect the wellbeing of animals.

The duty of those who handle the Word of God is thus to think deeply into the spirit of the civil statutes, and not to become deterred by the sometimes harsh original applications of them, in order to discern the Lord’s will for the practice of justice and neighbor love in our day.

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