Why did God give men an imperfect law as stated in Hebrews, that is, the Old Law, when God is all perfect?<\/p>\n\t
The Law given to Moses was a good law. “So then, the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good<\/em>” (Romans 7:12). But there was a flaw in the Law: it depends on imperfect men to carry it out. “For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion sought for a second. For finding fault\u00a0with them<\/strong>, …<\/em>” (Hebrews 8:7-8).<\/p>\n The Law of Moses also could not make flawed humans perfect before God. “For, on the one hand, there is a setting aside of a former commandment because of its weakness and uselessness (for the Law made nothing perfect)<\/em>” (Hebrews 7:18-19). It could only look forward to a day when God would solve the problem of sin through the Messiah.<\/p>\n Now that Jesus came and died for mankind’s sins, the weaker law was able to be replaced with a perfect law. “But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does<\/em>” (James 1:25).<\/p>\n\t Thanks very much for your prompt response. My follow-up question is whether God knew this flaw in the Law, and why He did give it to Moses knowing it had a flaw?<\/p>\n\t Often when a large task needs to be accomplished, we establish interim tasks that progress to the goal but are not adequate by themselves. For example, when a carpenter is raising a house, temporary boards are used to hold up walls, but those boards will be removed before the house is completed. God’s goal was to save the world and that could only be done through His Son. However, the world needed to be prepared before Christ could accomplish the work of God. The Old Law, though it wasn’t kept, did prepare people for the concept of righteousness and faith. It was a teacher. “Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith<\/em>” (Galatians 3:24). The Old Law also proved to mankind that they could not save themselves, even when told exactly what they needed to do. “But the Scripture has shut up everyone under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe<\/em>” (Galatians 3:22).<\/p>\n But now that the Law served its purpose, the scaffolding, which was the Law, has been removed. “But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor<\/em>” (Galatians 3:25).<\/p>\n\t Thank you. It is perfectly understood. I can now teach others about this topic.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Question: Why did God give men an imperfect law as stated in Hebrews, that is, the Old Law, when God is all perfect? Answer: The Law given to Moses was a good law. “So then, the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good” (Romans 7:12). But there was a flaw…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[793,177,56],"class_list":["post-51422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-apparent-contradictions","tag-law","tag-perfection"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":47794,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-law-is-perfect-but-the-covenant-was-faulty-so-they-cannot-be-the-same\/","url_meta":{"origin":51422,"position":0},"title":"The law is perfect, but the covenant was faulty, so they cannot be the same","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 31, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: A quick question on your article\u00a0Is the covenant different from the Law? If, as Psalm 19 says, \"the law of the Lord is perfect,\" and the law mentioned there is the same as the covenant mentioned in Hebrews, then why wouldn't the covenant be faultless (i.e. \"perfect\") as opposed\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":24873,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/what-was-the-flaw-in-the-old-covenant\/","url_meta":{"origin":51422,"position":1},"title":"What was the flaw in the Old Covenant?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"October 30, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Is the flaw of the Old Covenant (Hebrews 8:7) that there was no way for sins to be completely forgiven (Hebrews 10:1-10)? Or was the law impossible to completely follow as well? If it was possible to completely follow, then what is Peter talking about in Acts 15:10 and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":28835,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/did-the-levitical-priesthood-replace-the-priesthood-of-melchizedek\/","url_meta":{"origin":51422,"position":2},"title":"Did the Levitical priesthood replace the priesthood of Melchizedek?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 5, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: \"For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law\" (Hebrews 7:12). Did the Levitical priesthood replace the priesthood of Melchizedek? Answer: Under the Old Law of Moses, priests came from the tribe of Levi and, starting with David, kings came from the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":29113,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-law-and-the-gospel\/","url_meta":{"origin":51422,"position":3},"title":"The Law and the Gospel (Kiser)","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"December 28, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by M. W. Kiser via, The Sower, Vol. 53, No. 5, Sept\/Oct. 2008. \"Now the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith, from which some, having strayed, have turned aside to idle talk, desiring to be teachers of the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1177,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-the-covenant-different-from-the-law\/","url_meta":{"origin":51422,"position":4},"title":"Is the covenant different from the Law?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 29, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I have just read your article on the Old Testament versus the New Testament. I find two major difficulties in your argument: You confuse a covenant with the Law. This is a major mistake. The Law is God's legislation for all of creation. It was given to the children\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10417,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/if-the-law-was-abolished-what-is-written-in-our-hearts\/","url_meta":{"origin":51422,"position":5},"title":"If the Law was abolished, what is written in our hearts?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 23, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Good sir, Please, just for clarification, I want to ask:\u00a0If the law has been abolished, what laws did God promised beforehand that He will write in our hearts? Paul gave us the reason why the law (the Ten Commandments) was weak. He said, \"the law was weak in that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51422\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Question:<\/h2>\n
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