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Much of Torah portion מִּשְׁפָּטִים Mishpatim (Exodus 21–24) consists of civic laws, which are very few compared to the 6 million-plus civil laws in force in the United States. In the West, we tend to have a “wall of separation” between our religious laws and our civic laws, but that is not the care in the Torah. God doesn’t have separate religious and civil laws. There are many reasons why this is the case.
For example, the Third Commandment is “Do not take God’s name in vain” (Ex. 20:7; Deut. 6:13). When we interact with our neighbors, they may know that we worship HaShem1Hebrew: “The Name,” a respectful circumlocution for YHWH, but we interact with them in the civil realm. If we openly tell them that we follow God, they will see our civil observance but they may not see our religious observance.
However, if they see us violating basic civil laws, such as stealing, and do not obey the civil laws well, they will impugn the God we claim to follow. This is why both religious law and civil laws reflect God’s holiness and if we violate civil laws, we are damaging not just our own reputation but God’s reputation too.
Messiah explained this in a couple of different ways, but when Yeshua tells us to “Love God with our heart, soul, strength and mind” and to “love our neighbor as ourselves” (Matt. 22:37–40; Deut. 6:5; Lev. 19:18), He is telling us that religious laws (loving God) and civil laws (loving our neighbor) are equally important.
The civil laws in the Torah are ones who were given by God but man has added many civil laws on top of the civil laws established by God.
Why does the Bible have laws on slavery?
We have laws for everything, but let’s look at one civil law in depth, which is the law regarding slavery, or indentured servitude. In the west, slavery has been banned, so but there are many areas of the world where slavery is still legal.
Jeremiah 34:8–32 records where the nation of Judah had officially outlawed slavery of fellow Israelites altogether, although on a temporary basis. When they outlawed slavery, they were not nullifying the Torah, but it simply states that a law that used to apply doesn’t apply anymore. Jeremiah said it was a good thing to outlaw slavery, but to backtrack on their outlawing slavery was a worse situation than if they had never outlawed it in the first place.
Ending slavery was good because it gave freedom to people who did not have freedom before, but when they re-established slavery, they returned to oppression, for which God rebuked them.
On the other hand, there are many civil laws in our country that men have written that contradict God’s civil law, to our detriment, particularly laws that legalize various forms of sexual immorality. There are also man-made civil laws that criminalize Torah civil laws, such as what the Greeks did when they criminalized celebrating God’s holy days and circumcising their sons. People in every generation had to face the question of whether to follow man’s civil law or to follow God’s law. What risks are we willing to take to follow God’s laws rather than man’s law where there’s a conflict of loyalty?
For example, the Greeks criminalized the reading of the Torah in public, so the Jews skirted around it by creating and developing the haftarah system to balance obeying the civil authority vs. obeying God. But when the Greeks criminalized circumcision, there was not a simple compromise because when women went into hiding and gave birth to sons, circumcised them, hiding them as long as possible, they could not hide them forever, and when they were found, the mothers and the infant sons died martyr’s deaths. This evil is what sparked the Maccabean revolt.
Just because slavery is illegal, does that mean we are free? No, because we are still slaves, according to Apostle Paul:
What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be! Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness? But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.
For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. Therefore what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the outcome of those things is death. But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life.
Romans 6:15–22 NASB
We are still slaves, not to human beings, but we are still slaves to either sin or to righteousness. If we are slaves to sin, this results in death. If we are slaves to righteousness, this results in eternal life. Just because the civil law has been re-written, the principle hasn’t changed. In other words, the Torah laws regarding slavery still have value and application, even in places where the civil law criminalizes slavery.
Yeshua stated this more succinctly in John 8.
So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” They answered Him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never yet been enslaved to anyone; how is it that You say, ‘You will become free’?”
Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son does remain forever. “So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.”
John 8:31–36 NASB
You can’t just make an animal sacrifice to atone for serious iniquities such as murder. The Torah penalty for murder is life for life. Whose life?
None of us are able to offer our lives as an acceptable offering for sin, regardless of the severity of that sin, but Yeshua can be that offering, in our place. He is the only one who can be that offering in that place. That is why Yeshua’s sacrifice is so important.
Deeper lesson of the law of a slave with a family
There’s this strange scenario in Mishpatim when a single man comes into a household as an indentured servant/slave (Ex. 21:2–6). The Torah says he can only be bound for six years. For whatever reason, the master of the house gives the slave a wife and the wife gives him children. The Torah tells us that at the end of the indentured-servant contract, he is free to leave but the wife and children are not. This seems to our modern sensibilities quite unjust to separate a family like this but there’s a deep spiritual lesson buried in the text.
There’s one fundamental truth that underlies all the Scriptures and that is we are all slaves to something, either to God or to sin. There is no neutral ground in this spiritual battle, so let’s think about this on a more spiritual plane. When a man becomes a servant of God and a slave to righteousness, it is God who gives the man a wife and gives him children from that union, but after a time, if the man decides to leave righteousness and become a slave to sin instead, God says that the wife and children still belong to Him.
Let’s look at the other side of the coin. What if the man was a slave to sin when he married and had children when he was still a slave to sin, but repents and because a slave to God, the wife and children still are slaves to sin because that is what they know.
Fortunately, God had a plan to fix this, recorded in Mark 10:17–31 with parallels in Matthew and Luke. Messiah’s point is that when a man repents and decides to walk in righteousness rather than walking in death, if his wife and children still want to walk in sin and death, Messiah says that he will receive them and even more. Because as the wife and children watch husband and father walk in righteousness, they will have the freedom to also transition from death to life. This can only happen with God’s help.
There are also ample opportunities for those who are under the thumb of an unjust master to be set free.
Psalm 115 shows us that God is real and is the only one with real power. Demons are real but they do not have any power or authority over us, unless we submit to their authority and give them power.
Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
Romans 12:1–2 NASB
God taught the Hebrews how to change their allegiance from sin to righteousness and because they kept the Torah and preserved it, so that the Gentiles also learned how to change their allegiance from sin to righteousness.
“Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the benefit of circumcision? Great in every respect. First of all, that they were entrusted with the oracles of God. What then? If some did not believe, their unbelief will not nullify the faithfulness of God, will it?
May it never be! Rather, let God be found true, though every man be found a liar, as it is written, “THAT YOU MAY BE JUSTIFIED IN YOUR WORDS, AND PREVAIL WHEN YOU ARE JUDGED.”
Romans 3:1–4 NASB
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