As I was writing the "The Sabbatarian Inner Conflict", I had a whole section on Genesis 26:5 written up. I figured that made the article too long, so it had to go. But I liked the topic, so it had to stay. My solution was to put it into its own post. This one.
Let's see that verse:
(GEN. 26:5) because Abraham obeyed My voice and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws.
The general claim among Sabbatarians goes like this:
"If Abraham kept the commandments, statutes, and laws, as it says in Genesis 26:5, then the Old Covenant law predated Israel. And if the law predated Israel, then it applies to everyone, not just Israel." You can see this claim in multiple different official Armstrongist church publications.
But is that so? Is that the right conclusion or just the desired conclusion? At least it's worth investigating.
We have a whole post that addresses this very idea in a broader way (see "Common Legalist Arguments - Part V"). But today's post is focused on Abraham.
TROUBLES
If we read Genesis 26:5 as being about the whole law, now we have a conflict with Moses:
(DEU. 5:3) The Lord did not make this covenant with our fathers, but with us, those who are here today, all of us who are alive.
Also, we have a conflict with Paul:
(GAL. 3: 16-17a) 16 Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, “And to seeds,” as of many, but as of one, “And to your Seed,” who is Christ. 17 And this I say, that the law, which was four hundred and thirty years later...
(ROM. 5:13-14) 13 For until the law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. 14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come.
Was Moses misinformed? Were these things given to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but Moses overstated his case? No, Moses knew and accurately spoke. He is the one who recorded the history of Abraham.
Maybe Moses only meant the Covenant was not made with Abraham, meaning the Covenant only, apart from the law? No. That isn't how covenants work. We cannot separate a covenant from its terms. The covenant is its terms, and the terms are the covenant. The Old Covenant was an agreement between parties - in this case God and Israel - and it included the laws, the promises, and the blessings and curses. So, we cannot separate the Covenant from the law.
And Paul said 'the law' did not exist until Moses.
Paul spoke about two covenants - the covenant made with Abraham and the covenant made with Israel. He explained how the covenant law given to Israel, that were 430 years after Abraham, cannot annul the unconditional promise given to Abraham. (For those with detail-oriented minds, you can glean quite a bit from this one small section from Paul. Things I don't want to get into here.)
Did Paul not read Genesis 26:5? We can be confident he read it. Could Paul not see these hints where the law is hidden in the time before Moses? Paul knew the Torah, he knew the history, and yet he said what he said. The difference is, Paul did not need to build a back story in order to justify his doctrines.
Maybe Paul only meant Abraham had the moral law while the ceremonial and national laws were added later? No. That's not how either covenant worked. The only "law" explicitly given to Abraham was circumcision (GEN. 17:9-14). Besides, the threefold moral/ceremonial/national division of law was not something the Jews recognized at that time. That came much later, well after Paul's time. If the law wasn't divided this way in Paul's time, then he couldn't have had that in mind.
I know someone will complain to me, "Are you telling me Abraham didn't know about 'you shall not steal, murder, or dishonor your parents'??" I believe he did! I absolutely believe Abraham had an upstanding moral character and concern for righteousness, and I believe it might even be fair to think of it as the 'spirit of the law'. But he did not have the written law.
He didn't get the Torah law from his culture, but he could have gotten certain moral codes and cultural expectations. Abraham is believed to have lived before Hammurabi, but Hammurabi's Code arose from a culture that had already produced several previous legal codes (e.g., Code of Urukagina and Code of Ur-Nammu). Many points from these codes are also in the Old Covenant law. It doesn't matter precisely which of those legal codes Abraham might have known. My point is that he came from a culture that was very interested in social order. And he could have picked up those basic things from his culture, like not not stealing and not murdering. I don't accept that one needs the written law to achieve this (ROM. 2:14).
This complaint comes from the false understanding that righteousness and sin come from the law. We have reviewed in the past many times how righteousness and sin do not come from the law (for more, see "The Road to Sabbatarianism - Part III").
Do you see what's happening here? I am purposefully grasping at things in hopes of finding a way - making a way - to explain the situation in a manner that is favorable to the Sabbath. But is that what I should be doing? Is forcing things to fit a predetermined conclusion the right way to find the truth?
We are blocked in. Both Moses and Paul said what they meant to say.
Perhaps Moses and Paul just needed a proper education from Herbert Armstrong.
Once again, the only reason we are reviewing this verse in the first place is because of the claim that string of words in Genesis 26:5 is said to indicate Abraham had the whole law. We can't dig ourselves into the "entire law" hole then get ourselves out again by switching to "only some of the law" or "spirit of the law".
TO GET WHAT WE WANT
We must be very cautious here or we run into circular reasoning. How so?
How do you know Abraham kept the law?
Because the law is eternal.
But how do you know the law is eternal?
Because Abraham kept it.
That is circular reasoning. That Abraham kept the law cannot be the conclusion and the evidence for the conclusion.
Sabbatarianism tends to start at the conclusion then works to evidence it out. In Armstrongism, we would create an explanation that sounded reasonable, then simply stop there. We would never test it out to see if the explanation works, or to see what other chaos that explanation causes elsewhere. Why would we, when we've got what we wanted? In this case, if we understand Genesis 26:5 as saying, "Abraham kept the Old Covenant law," because that reading looks like it supports a Sabbath-for-all, then we have what we want. There we would stop. We would never ask what that does to Deuteronomy 5 or Galatians 3. We should have! Abraham keeping the law is conflicting with Moses and Paul (and the letter of the law, and the nature of covenants, and history, and Jewish tradition, and...). We cannot ignore that and hope it simply goes away. We cannot cover it up by quickly dodging to some other topic, or hurling accusations. (For another example, see "We Were Right By Default".)
Since most Sabbatarians believe there is only one set of laws, eternal and perfect and unchanging, the natural inclination is to conclude this particular string of words in Genesis 26:5 always refer to the Old Covenant law. And perhaps we might turn to a verse like Deuteronomy 30:10 for support.
One big problem I have here is the immediate back away from that belief. How so?
As Sabbatarians say the law is eternal and perfect, they also say they do not need what is called "the law of Moses," which were any laws given through Moses other than the Ten Commandments (except certain ones, like tithing and meats and holy days). Adventists in particular are known for saying, "The law (the Ten Commandments)." So, is it all the law, or some of the law, or the Ten Commandments only? Is it eternal and perfect and unchanging, or "law buffet" if we skip out on circumcision?
So, two opposite and incompatible things are believed at the same time.
IN A WORD
Assuming that the words in Genesis 26:5 always refer to the Mosaic law gets one into trouble in other places as well.
For example, it is normal for Sabbatarians to interpret the English word 'commandments' as always referring to the Ten Commandments.
...except in verses that are harmful to the cause, like EPH. 2:15 or HEB. 7:18.
(EPH. 2:15) having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances
(HEB 7:18) For on the one hand there is an annulling of the former commandment because of its weakness and unprofitableness
It appears to get us what we want in John 14:15, but it gets the Ten Commandments annulled and abolished in other places. We went over this in "The Sabbath Rest of John 14".
Is it not obvious this assumption leads to a double standard? Oh how we love to quote, "if you love Me, keep My commandments.". That is one of the most popular proof-texts in all of Sabbatarianism! But now we must deny and obfuscate when a verse says, "there is an annulling of the former commandment." They both say "commandment". We cannot completely rely on it in one place and strongly deny it in another. If you're going to have a standard, then stick to it. This same thing affects Genesis 26:5. It is only being relied on because it says "commandments".
There is a term for this particular kind of double standard: Special Pleading.
There is no way to prove these words in Genesis 26:5 always refer to the same things - that "commandments" always refers to the same commandments and "statutes" always refers to the same statutes, etc - while there is quite a bit of reason to believe they do not. I won't go over all of the reasons here beyond Paul and Moses. We have other articles for that. My advice is to take each verse individually and prove what 'commandments' means there within that verse and its immediate context.
Therefore, I believe the cleanest path forward is to understand the string of words in Genesis 26:5 differently. We must rethink the notion that the only thing God could have been referring to when He said, "My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws," is the exact same set of things he commanded to Israel. I propose something far more individualized.
SECOND LOOK
Let's take a quick look at one way we might understand Genesis 26:5 from a different perspective.
When this list of words is strung together like we see in here, layered one after another, this is a way for God to say, "Abraham obeyed everything I required of him." It's individualized. It's idiomatic. It's almost poetry, somewhat like the comment, "I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after My own heart, who will do all My will," (ACT. 13:22). It isn't about Abraham doing every little thing perfectly, because, just like King David, he did not. And it isn't about God wanting everyone everywhere to do the same things. But what God asked of Abraham, he did. The question then becomes, what did God really want from Abraham?
Obviously, a large part of it was faith:
(GEN. 15:6) And he [Abram] believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness.
You can also read this in Romans 4:1-3, and Galatians 3:5-6, and James 2:21-24. Abraham believed God and his faith is what was counted as righteousness. Faith might be called "trust" or perhaps "believing loyalty". Not the acts, not some law, but belief in and loyalty to God was Abraham's righteousness.
That said, it isn't so simple as faith alone. His belief led him to act.
Abraham is praised for the combination of belief resulting in action. Which actions? Law? Wearing Tzitzit? No. Various acts are mentioned, including dedication to the true God, leaving his home, journeying to Haran, being circumcised, believing he would be given a son, and ultimately offering up that son.
What is missing from that list? The written law. How could it be referring to the written law which Paul said was 430 years later and which Moses said was not given to the Patriarchs?
One might believe we can piece the law together from clues, like pointing out that Abraham tithed. Let's take a sidebar look at that one briefly.
TITHE LAW
Yes, he gave 1/10th of war spoils to Melchizedek (GEN. 14:20). But then Abraham gave the rest of it away because he went into the battle already determined not to keep so much as a shoelace so the King of Sodom could not hold it over his head later on. So:
- Those weren't things he intended to keep to begin with,
- War spoils are not listed in the law among the tithable items,
- Melchizedek was not a Levite nor an Aaronic Priest, and thus was not eligible to receive tithes under the law.
I understand that Armstrongism, as a branch of Adventism, teaches that tithing is required, and therefore teaches a tithe can come from money and a tithe can be received by just about anyone. But that isn't what the law says. (For more, see "Tithing - You're Doing It Wrong".)
Abraham's tithe was a tenth, yes, but not as defined under the Old Covenant law.
Someone will ask, "If Abraham wasn't keeping the law, then why did he tithe?" The law isn't the only place we find a tithe. We can dig one up in history as well.
Remember how I mentioned Abraham's culture? There were ancient Sumerian and Akkadian words for tenth and temple tithe (also Ugaritic, which would be after Abraham but before Moses). To put that simply, the practice of giving a tenth as a religious tribute or as a tax already existed in the cultures of Abraham's time and place. The idea was hardly unique to Israel. It did not have to come from Israel's law. This helps to explain why Abraham gave a tenth, yet not in a way that was strictly in line with the Mosaic Law.
If you are interested in some references, see:
- University of Pennsylvania's Electronic Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary. Look for the word "Zagu [tithe]".
- A. Leo Oppenheim, “A Fiscal Practice of the Ancient Near East,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 6, no. 2 (1947), pp. 116–120.
- A. Martirossian, “Notes concerning the Economic Activities of the Babylonian Temple in the First Millennium B.C.”
I could go on to point out that tithing is not a moral law but qualifies as a ceremonial law, in what Sabbatarians call "the Law of Moses". Same as animal sacrifice, which we see Abraham doing. Therefore, according to their own teachings, Sabbatarians appeal to laws they themselves should not keep. Then why appeal to them? Understand the purpose behind insisting Abraham kept the Old Covenant law is to support the claim, "If the law was before Moses then it is binding on everyone, and everyone should go to church on Saturday".
But if the ceremonial law predates Moses, well now you've got a problem. Either everyone must observe the whole ceremonial law, or we have to ditch "before Moses, therefore binding on everyone" claim. (For more, see "Common Legalist Arguments - Part V".)
LEGAL BRIEF
I want to take a sidestep here and point out that I am not claiming, "Abraham did not keep the law because the Bible doesn't say he kept the law." That would be an argument from silence. However, the flip side of that is the baseless assertion. We must avoid both ditches. We do not need the Bible to absolutely spell everything out for us bluntly, but we certainly do need to build a good case to believe a thing. Proof-texting one verse and front-loading it with assumptions is not building a case. We need compelling reasons why Abraham could have known about and kept the whole Mosaic law as written. I don't see that anywhere.
The Sabbatarian claim seems to be built on these things:
- We need it to be true - I honestly don't put any stock in this.
- The words commandments, statutes, and laws always mean the same things - No. We went over that.
- The tithe - I disagree. We go over this here and elsewhere. (For more, see "Tithing - You're Doing It Wrong".)
- The Sabbath was from creation - I disagree. We go over this elsewhere. Either way, this only deals with the Sabbath, not everything in bullet #2. (For more, see "The Sabbath Rest of Genesis 2")
- Some ancillary items like animal sacrifice and Noah's clean animals - I disagree. We go over this elsewhere. (For more, see "Common Legalist Arguments - Part V" and "Clean/Unclean for Noah".) But one thing we can say here is, if you stand on the claim that, "it predated Moses, therefore it's binding on all mankind," then you better find a seller of turtledoves. You're going to need them.
In short, Abraham didn't need Torah to have a high standard of behavior, and we have not built any compelling case that he had the Torah to begin with.
CONCLUSION
We might have gone into Genesis 26:5 hoping to get law before Sinai and a universal Sabbath, but if we got our wish then we would come out with animal sacrifices. We've run into problems with Moses, Paul, circular logic, special pleading with the word 'commandment', and backing away from claims before we've finished making them. In the end, there is no way to demonstrate that Abraham kept the Old Covenant law as written; a law that Moses said was not given to the Patriarchs, and that Paul said came centuries after Abraham. As for the claim that Abraham had the entire written law centuries before certain points in that law were even possible (like Passover), well, you got some 'splainin' to do!
My proposed solution has two parts:
1) The words, "My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws," should be understood idiomatically. Taking them literally causes issues with Moses and Paul (and history, and Jewish tradition, and...).
2) They should be taken in an individualized way. Even though God no doubt wants certain things from us all, God can ask different things of different people depending on what God was working towards at the time. All that God asked of Abraham, he did.
And in the end, what the Bible unambiguously says is that Abraham's righteousness was imputed because of his faith, and his faith led to certain actions. The righteousness was from the faith, not the actions. The actions were the result. What it does not say is that those actions were specifically from the law.
Hopefully you saw how this struggle to make the words come to a certain predetermined conclusion causes all sorts of conflict in other areas. I encourage everyone to think all of their claims through to the very end and put the things we agree with to the same scrutiny as we do the things we disagree with.
Of all that I just said today, I ask you to keep this in mind: Abraham is counted as righteous for his believing loyalty to God, but he did not stop there; that belief bore fruit in acts of faith. That is the pattern Scripture actually gives us. And that is basically what God desires of us all.
My usual hidden theme is "Jesus is sufficient." It should be obvious how that is found in this post.
The Law Is Written On Our Hearts - Part I
Are The Ten Commandments Removed?
The Sabbath Rest of John 14
Review - Written By The Finger of God
Are the Ten Commandments Removed?
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It is important that you understand; Everything on this blog is based on the current understanding of each author. Never take anyone's word for it, always prove it for yourself, it is your responsibility. You cannot ride someone else's coattail into the Kingdom. ; )
Acts 17:11
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