David in NJ
Well-Known Member
A very beautiful and finely expressed Post - Thank YouThe Bible begins and ends with the Tree of Life and the purpose of everything in between is about how have eternal life. Eternal life is the experience of knowing God and Jesus (John 17:3) and the purpose of God's law is to teach us how to have that experience through acting in accordance with His character. The Hebrew word "yada" refers to intimate relational knowledge gained through experience, such as in Genesis 4:1, Adam knew (yada) Eve, she conceived, and gave brith to Cain. The Mosaic Covenant is often described in terms of being a marriage between God and Israel, such as with God saying that He was husband to her (Jeremiah 31:31), so the purpose of the Mosaic and New Covenants are to yada God.
In Exodus 33:13, Moses wanted God to be gracious to him by teaching him to walk in His way that he and Israel might know (yada) Him. In Jeremiah 9:3 and 9:6, they did not know (yada) God and refused to know Him because in 9:13, they had forsaken the Mosaic Law while in 9:24, those who know God know that He delights in practicing steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in all of the earth, so delighting in practicing those and other aspects of His character in obedience to the Mosaic Law is the way to know God, and the way know the Son, who is the exact image of God's character (Hebrews 1:3). In 1 John 2:4, those who say that they know Jesus, but don't obey his commands are liars, in 1 John 3:4-6, those who continue to practice sin in transgression of God's law have neither seen nor known Him, and in Matthew 7:23, Jesus said that he would tell those who are workers of lawlessness to depart from him because he never knew them. So knowing God and Jesus is the goal of the law, which is eternal life.
Have you ever considered that the whole purpose of the Law was that it speaks of MESSIAH and His Suffering unto Death for our sins?