Nielsen’s Nook

Question 1: What is meant by Book of the Law when Joshua is told, “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success”[1] ?

Answer: The first five books of the Old Testament otherwise known as Torah.

Question 2: What sort of literature is Torah?

Answer: Legal writing in the context of a narrative about the story of God’s historical work to redeem a people for himself.

Question 3: What is the purpose of the narrative in which the legal writing of Torah is contained?

Answer: The narrative tells the story of how in the beginning humanity was created as the image of God to demonstrate his likeness upon the earth in the context of intimate fellowship with him. When Adam sinned, he did precisely what was unlike God and destroyed fellowship with God for all humanity. Genesis 3 - Deuteronomy 32 is the beginning of the Redemptive Story, of how God sought to undo what Adam had done. He does this by making a covenant with the people Israel.

Question 4: To whom and for what purpose was Torah given?

Answer: Torah was given as a covenant to God’s people through a single mediator, Moses. He ascended Mt. Sinai at great peril to receive the Decalogue (Ten Commandments).

Question 5: What is a covenant?

Answer: A covenant is composed of four parts: 1) the Parties, 2) the Parameters, 3) the Promised Blessing for obedience, 4) the Penalties for disobedience.

The Ten Commandments, like the rest of the legal literature, are certainly imperatives, but they are primarily descriptions of the likeness of God (recall the image, likeness, fellowship triad above). Should Israel walk as the image of God in his likeness, they would enjoy the blessing of God’s fellowship with them. If they did not walk in the likeness of God, then his presence would be not a blessing but a curse, condemning them for their misrepresentation of God and themselves.

Question 6: Did Israel keep covenant or break covenant with God?

Answer: Yes. The story of Israel throughout the Old Testament is one of a cycle in which covenant is kept, then broken, the covenant is renewed with a remnant is raised up out of the midst of disobedient Israel. Ultimately, the Remnant is reduced to a single Israelite, Jesus of Nazareth who as the image of God, was the only human being to walk in the likeness of God (Jn 1:18) and so restore fellowship with God to the cosmos (Colossians 1:15-20).