Outline and discuss the
leading themes in the Old Testament’s ethical teaching.
Creation
l Creation is taken as a source of
Christian moral principles.
n In Genesis 1-2, everything was
still in good order.
n Natural law is a morality based on the nature
of things or on the nature of people. God has made the world and us
in it so that some things are good and right for us and other things are
harmful and wrong. What is bad tends to harm us, while what is good helps us
to flourish.
n In the beginning is a perfect
Garden of Eden where harmony reigned. The harmony between man and woman,
man and nature, man and the animal creation, and within man himself all stemmed
from a proper relationship to God.
n Natural law is God’s law expressed
in us and in the world around us.
l Creation implies humanity’s derived
existence and therefore its obligation to live faithfully to its creator.
l The abundance of life and its
fruitfulness in Genesis 1 implies that all creation is good and God loves
life.
l Creation implies that God is
lord of all the earth, not just Israel.
l Humans are made in the image of
God. Humans are therefore different from the rest of the created order. Humans
bear a resemblance to God like a child bearing a resemblance to their parents.
The image of God includes the moral aspects of the image. We are to be
morally responsible before God. This implies that humans are not free to live
in any way he/she sees fit. Some have pointed to conscience as the mark
of God’s image: the void of God within us that gives us an intuitive awareness
of right and wrong. Clifford[1] points out, outside
of our rejection of God the greatest sin of humanity is to treat others as
nonpersons! In fact, the biblical sign that we are right with God is that
we love our neighbour as ourselves (Luke 10:25-37)!
Sin
l Genesis 6:6 shows the grief of
God when humanity turns away.
l The fall in Genesis 3 describes
the disruption of relationships that occurred: between humanity and God,
man and woman, creation itself (the cursed land and serpent), woman and child,
man and environment and work and finally humanity’s own being in death.
l It can be said that the whole
OT story describes God’s actions consequent to sin.
l The Fall spoils everything,
so that it is no longer clear what the original natural law was, or the
essential image of God in man. Our consciences are twisted, and creation
ordinances are impossible to keep in a fallen world because of our fallen
human nature.
Covenant
l With the collapse of the
original harmony between God and man, there is a loss of the immediate awareness
of good and evil and of the ability to obey God’s commands.
l God enters into covenants
with Noah (Genesis 6-9), Abraham (Genesis 12), the people of Israel at Sinai
(Exodus 19-31), and David (2 Samuel 7).
l God promises a new covenant
(Jeremiah 31:31) that is fulfilled in Jesus (Hebrews 8:1-13).
l Covenant (Hebrew berit) occurs 290 times in the
OT, most often in relationship to God’s dealings with his people.
l God initiates all covenants with people, and unilaterally
undertakes to do certain things for them.
l In the Mosaic covenant
particularly, certain obligations are laid upon the people as their dutiful
response to God’s call. God is also committed in this covenant to care for
his people. Another word, God promises to bless the people of Israel, if they
will keep his commandments and honour him.
l Covenant finds expression in
law. The best known set of laws is the Ten Commandments.
l Some have summed up the essence of
law in shortened form expressed by the lawyer who tried to trap Jesus in the
parable of the Good Samaritan: “love the Lord your God…. Your
neighbour as yourself” Luke 10:27.
l Law may be a curse rather
than a blessing showing how far short we fall.
Community
l God called a people (Israel)
to bear his word, which implies the importance of human community.
l Humanity is not constituted
by individuals who voluntarily agree to associate for common goals, such
as a football club.
l God’s dealing with the corporate
people of Israel bears witness to the intrinsically communal aspect of
humanity.
l Earth is constituted by families,
not just individuals or nations. OT ethics are social, each person
belonging to a web of relationships that support them and in which they
function as responsible beings.
Worship
l Temple worship was important in Israel’s life.
l Blood sacrifices were God’s provision for Israel
to express and maintain the covenant relationship (Leviticus 17:11).
This cultic worship recognised moral failures and the need for forgiveness.
l Three major festivals: Passover, Weeks, and
Tabernacles. Highlights enslavement, redemption and freewill offering of
wealth.
l Festive days: Sabbath, New Moon, Day of
Atonement. Highlights rest and work, and confession and cleansing from sin.
l Sabbath and Jubilee Year: rested the land from work and
released mortgaged property and Israel slaves.
l Israel’s worship reveals no sharp
distinction between ethics and religious beliefs and practices.
l In concerning itself with right
conduct it does not distinguish between right moral conduct and right religious
conduct.
Wisdom
l Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes and
the Song of Solomon
constitute the Wisdom literature, “laws from heaven for life on earth”.
l This type of wisdom is practical
and down to earth.
l Wisdom literature offers moral
guidance and was presumably the “textbook” for the instruction of the youth
of the court.
l The wise are those who fear the
Lord (Proverbs 1:7).
l Wisdom is moral skill (Proverbs
1:5) in areas of righteousness, justice, equity, shrewdness, knowledge and
prudence.
l Much proverbial wisdom is
expressed in opposites. Perhaps the key distinction is between the wise
and the fool. The wise fear God and hear their teachers. The fools
refuse both.
l Wisdom ethics is rooted in daily
life. Eg. Trust in a faithless friend is like a bad tooth or lame foot
(Proverbs 25:19).
l Many Psalms contain wisdom
elements.
l Ecclesiastes confirms the modern philosophical
statement: when man “kills off God”, then he also dies.
Prophecy
l The prophets from Amos to Malachi
contain, broadly, two elements.
n Impending judgment due to Israel’s sin and
the prophet’s call to repentance.
n Future hope of Israel. Especially is Isaiah
61.
l The aim of the prophets was to restore
the true morality as taught in the law and implicit in the covenant
relationship.
l Deuteronomy 30:11-20 summarises
two ways open to Israel: Obedience brings blessing whilst disobedience
brings cursing and judgment.
l God’s judgment and punishment were
designed to bring restoration, repentance and hence forgiveness.
The Ten Commandments
l Sinai covenant states that God
will provide for and protect his people, whilst they are to obey him. (Exodus
20:1-17, Deuteronomy 5:6-21)
l The commandments are Israel’s
covenantal responses to God and her redeemer; they are the structural form of
her place in the covenant.
l The commandments deal with
relationships: with God or with neighbour.
l Whilst the commandments are given
in negative form, this form of moral instruction allows a large place for
freedom. Outside the prohibitions, freedom is recognised.
l For Israel, law structured
national social and moral life.
l National law: purposes include
prohibitive, corrective, protective, and educative.
l The Ten Commandments was the heart
of Israel’s national law as a theocratic state.
l In a theocracy, sins are often
also crimes. Whereas in Australia, lying under oath is both a sin and crime,
whilst lying to your neighbour over the fence is only sin. For this reason, any
attempt to arbitrarily apply the Ten Commandments to modern states is wrong.
l The Ten Commandments reflect God’s
character
n The commandments fit life’s
design: they affirm a stable and abiding order of life.
n The commandments tell us all what
God expects us to do: God gave specific, clear and definite commands.
n The commandments tell us what we
already know we should do: For example, “you shall not steal” should not come
as a surprise to any Israelite or modern person. They match the law written on
our hearts (Romans 2:14-16).
n The commandments are the way of
life in Christ.
l Law expresses the lawgiver’s
beliefs or characters. So the Law is a reflection of God’s character.
Resources:
Clifford, Ross and
Philip Johnson. The Cross is Not Enough:
Living as Witnesses to the Resurrection. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2012.
Cook, David. The
Moral Maze: A Way of Exploring Christian Ethics. London: The Society for
Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1983.
