Question: From how many standpoints does the Bible present God’s law?

Answer: The number of Divine completeness is seven, therefore, we might expect that the Bible would present God’s law from seven different standpoints; and this is indeed the case. The Bible refers to God’s law from the following seven standpoints:

(1.) God’s moral law, which He wrote into man’s nature when He created him in His own image. Vestiges of it are still to be found in mankind’s nature, in spite of their fallen condition, for they still “shew the work of the law written in their hearts” (Romans 2: 14, 15).

(2.) The Decalog, the Ten Commandments engraved on stone, summarized by Jesus when He said, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength;” and “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Mark 12: 28-33) (Matthew 22: 36-39).

(3.) The Law Covenant, which God made with Fleshly Israel, beginning when He gave them the Passover in Egypt and ending with the ministry of Moses, when he went up to Mount Pisgah and died there, thus including everything in the last four books of Moses, except a portion in the beginning of Exodus.

(4.) The Torah (the Pentateuch, or five books of Moses taken collectively), as distinct from the Nebiim (Prophets) and the Kethubim (writings of men not of the Prophet order), is by God called the Law in the name that He gave it in the Hebrew Bible.

(5.) The entire Old Testament. Thus John 10: 34 and 15: 25 ascribe to the “law” statements found only in the Psalms; and 1 Corinthians 14: 21 ascribes to the “law” a statement found only in Isaiah. Thus here, as well as elsewhere, the term “law” is applied to the Old Testament as a whole.

(6.) The Law of Love. This law of duty love and disinterested love governs God’s consecrated children, who thereby have righteousness of the Law Covenant fulfilled in them (Romans 8: 1-4). Thus Jesus told His disciples, “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you [with disinterested love], that ye also love one another” (John 13: 34).

(7.) The contents of the whole Bible, “the law of the LORD,” including both the Old and the New Testaments (Psalm 1: 2; 19: 7; 119: 97, 165).