God Loves Sex! What the Bible Says about Sex | Faith By Reason

The law basically served three purposes.

The first purpose of the law was to define sin.

to give a comprehensive definition for what sin is.

There was no definition before this, and all the other dispensations from Adam all the way up to the Exodus, God did not give people a definitive list of what he considers sin.

I won't say they're on their own, but they, of course, in each dispensation, God deals with man differently.

And everyone knows right and wrong.

We have a conscience.

But God gave man sort of a free hand to answer those open-ended questions that formed each dispensation and how we reacted and related to each other.

And of course, in every dispensation, man got worse and worse without any guidance.

So it would only be right for God to start giving guidance.

And so that was the first purpose of the law was to give that guidance.

Here is definitively what the sin is in God's eyes.

So now you have no excuse.

If you do right, then God is pleased.

If you do wrong, he's not pleased in your sinning.

So that was purpose number one.

The second purpose was to sanctify Israel as God's ambassadors, as his chosen nation.

So God gave laws that were personal and communal.

The personal laws were things like the kosher laws, clean and unclean food, so that the people would be healthy, talking about how to deal with diseases and diseases.

How to manage times when we would be more subject to diseases so that to keep the people personally healthy and keep them sanctified in that sense.

And also there were communal and civic laws, laws about inheritance and marriage, which we'll talk about later.

and how to manage land, how to deal with each other in a productive manner.

And again, those laws were meant to set Israel apart as a healthy and productive and prosperous nation.

Right.

Right.