The First Law
by
Justin Mangonel
Tabernacle Theology Series
We are all familiar with the Ten Commandments or at least some of them. We hear "thou shalt not kill" from our earliest childhood. We are told that it is wrong to worship idols or to steal. Moreover, if you are a Christian, you most likely know about additional Old Testament laws such as keeping the Sabbath or the feast of Passover. These types of statutes come from the ancient Hebraic laws that Moses gave to the children of Israel when he came down from the mountain after receiving commandments carved by the finger of God into two tables of stone. Some have said that there are 660 separate laws that were given to the children of Israel. There are laws on inheritance and laws on how to worship God through sacrifices. There is even a law that states that you were not to round the corners of your beard! By the time of Christ the Pharisees even added to these laws by introducing their own traditions, i.e. little rules that were meant to aid you to keep the Law of Moses. The religious leaders of Israel thought that by adding man made boundaries to already established laws they could provide additional levels of protection from sin.
In fact, by the time Christ came to his own, the Israelites had laws and traditions for almost everything. So much so that it became too hard for the common people to keep all these rules and many stopped coming to the synagogue altogether and became known as non-religious Jews.
I am going to tell you about a revelation that God gave me a few months ago and this revelation has revolutionized my understanding of scripture and of our savior Jesus Christ. God revealed to me the truth about the first law. There is a law that is above every other law in importance. This law is preeminent to other laws because it was the first law given to Adam even before sin entered into the world. In fact, the first law was the only law given to mankind before the fall.
The First Law is,
“And the Lord God Commanded the man, saying, From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day you eat from it you shall surely die.”
Genesis 2:16,17 (NAS)
The commandment not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was the First law. The first law was a commandment from God and because we as mankind broke that law we incurred a punishment just as all those who break laws do to this present day.
This Law is the original law and thus is above and is of more importance than any other law that came after it. Specifically, this first law is of greater authority than any of the Ten Commandments, any of the other Mosaic laws, or traditions of the Jews. This original law is the Father of all laws and so stands head and shoulders above all other laws that have been given since.
Let us examine what the first law is so that we can understand more about the greatest of all laws. The first law states that from any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat. The first law mandated one thing and one thing only: that we not partake of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. What was this knowledge? Why did God want mankind not to partake of this knowledge of good and evil?
The Serpent, or Satan, told Eve,
“And the serpent said to the woman, You surely shall not die. For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and your will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
Genesis 3: 4,5
The greatest of all laws was meant to prevent the human race from deciding for themselves what was good and what was evil. God wanted to keep that knowledge to himself. God knew that Adam, finite as he was, could never manage this knowledge correctly and would ultimately fall prey to Sin. By breaking the first law Adam chooses, in effect, to become his own small god deciding what was right and wrong for himself. In doing so, he rejected the headship and authority of his heavenly Father.
Therefore, in the beginning before Adam and Eve tasted the forbidden fruit it was Gods will that mankind live by revelation alone. Indeed, Adam lived by every word that proceeded out of the mouth of God. If Adam did not know something or needed to make a decision he did not try to figure out what was right or what was wrong, he simply asked God and whatever God said to him was accepted by faith. This was the intended result of keeping the first law, that we should forever live by faith accepting whatever God said without question. We were never meant to live according to what seemed right to us in our own eyes.
Here is a truth:
“The first law was designed to keep mankind in constant and intimate communion with God. This was the only law that God declared that mankind need follow.”
A direct benefit of keeping the first law was immortality. If you kept the first law you were allowed to live in paradise where you did not have to work to eat or have pain in childbirth. If you kept the first law then you remained in perfect communion before God.
So what happened? Eve and then Adam partook of the forbidden fruit and broke the first law. As a consequence of disobedience for breaking the supreme law sin entered the world and all mankind was cursed. Adam and Eve were driven from the garden and denied immortality. No longer would the Earth yield its strength but now man would have to eat his bread by the sweat of his brow. Now Eve and all women after her would have pain in childbirth and greatly multiplied conception. Eve's desire would be towards the man so that he would rule over her...not as a tyrant but as a protective covering because she, not Adam, was the one deceived by the serpent. In 1 Timothy we read,
“And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.”
I Tim 2:14
Mankind had broken the first and greatest law and so when God started to deal with the human race once again He gave another law, the Mosaic Law, infinitely inferior and more complex than the first law to the nation of Israel. No longer could men live by one law, our hearts and thus our minds had become hardened and dimmed, so God gave the Israelites the commandments which spelled out in detail what man should and should not do. One supreme law now had become many individual laws and statutes, which eventually degenerated in to countless traditions of men. In fact, the further mankind drifted away from the presence of God the more laws multiplied around them.
In the Garden there was complete freedom under the first and greatest law. There was no pain or suffering or aging or anything that we equate with everyday life now. However, the more mankind strayed from the first law the more hardened their hearts became. Note: being close to God meant only one law while being far away from God meant thousands of laws. The Pharisees, who stood for the epitome of the law, were in fact the farthest away from God of all. When God came to the Pharisees...they did not even recognize Him and missed the time of their visitation preferring a murderer be released to them rather than spare their Messiah.
The Apostle Paul talks about freedom from the Mosaic Law in the book of Romans,
“For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death.”
Romans 8:2
What is the law of sin and death? The Law of sin and death is the Law of Moses that only points out what is sin and demands that something or someone die for breaking that law. When you went to the temple what you saw was essentially a huge slaughterhouse where hundreds and thousands of animals were killed daily in place of those who broke that law of sin and death. Paul declares that we are free from this law through a new and greater law of the Spirit of Life in Christ. But wait...is this law of the Spirit of life in Christ truly new...or is it simply a return to the first and the greatest law?
I submit to you that Christ did not live according to the Mosaic Law but according to the original law...the law of the Spirit of Life. The Spirit of Life is simply the Holy Spirit which is just another name for God our Father. I declare to you that Christ lived by revelation just as his brother Adam used too. It is written,
“The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God”
Mark 1:1
And,“Which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God.”
Luke 3:38
Jesus is described as the “Last Adam.”,
“And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.”
1 Corinthians 15:45
Whereas the first Adam failed to live strictly by revelations the last Adam, Jesus Christ, succeeded. Jesus lived by every word that proceeded out of the mouth of God and did not partake of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The last Adam lived as the first Adam was commanded to live, without the knowledge of good and evil and thus lived by the first law.
The Pharisees did not understand Jesus because he did not live by the Mosaic Law or by the traditions of men. Jesus lived simply by revelation and direct communion with God and His perfect life was a natural consequence of keeping the first law. By keeping the first law Jesus naturally fulfilled all of the other laws although not in the way that the Pharisees thought He should. God wishes for us to live like his son Jesus Christ and keep only the first law. If you live by the first law then you will have no need to keep any of the other laws for you will naturally do what is contained in all the laws through revelation and communion.
”For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit."
Roman 8:3,4
And in the book of Galatians Paul states,
“This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.”
Galatians 5:16
In summation, we are all on a journey "Back to the Garden" or back to the pre-fallen, sinless state that was Adam's. Nothing from this present world will be saved except those souls who accept the Lord Jesus Christ as their savior and "by faith" believes what God says. To have the mind of Christ is to know nothing except what your Father speaks and to absolutely believe what He says simply because He is your Father and you trust Him.
