The Law of Moses

Volume Three—Chapter Sixteen THE LAW OF MOSES

#Introduction

We LDS have distinctive views about the law of Moses that originate in the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price. In this chapter, I will try to present a simple version of this view.

The gospel of Jesus Christ was revealed in the beginning to Adam (Moses 5:7-9; 6:51-62) and was known and taught by prophets long before Christ’s coming (Helaman 8:13-20; e.g. John 8:56-59; Acts 3:21). The gospel of Jesus Christ is and always has been the only means of salvation for all humankind (2 Nephi 31:21; Mosiah 5:8). When Moses brought the Israelites out of Egypt, he sought to establish the gospel among them. But “they were a stiffnecked people, quick to do iniquity, and slow to remember the Lord their God” (Mosiah 13:29). The Lord could have left them bereft of his succor, but he was merciful. “Therefore there was a law given them, yea, a law of performances and of ordinances, a law which they were to observe strictly from day to day, to keep them in remembrance of God and their duty towards him” (Mosiah 13:30). The Lord gave them “the lesser portion of the word” (Alma 12:9-10; 29:8), the law of Moses, to be their standard. He withheld from them the Melchizedek Priesthood and its ordinances.

The law of Moses was the system of government, commandments, and rituals by which the Israelites were to live and worship. It would govern the house of Israel from the time of Moses until the atonement of Jesus Christ. But the Old Testament shows that many or most among the Israelites fell short of even the lesser law’s expectations.

#The Lesser Priesthood

The law of Moses was a lesser law with lesser knowledge, governed by the lesser priesthood, with its three hereditary offices. The lesser priesthood is simply a part of the higher or Melchizedek Priesthood. It has been referred to as the Levitical or Aaronic Priesthood. The latter name is appropriate today. The offices in the lesser priesthood of Moses’s day include:

1. The high priest. Aaron himself—and his firstborn after him, from generation to generation—was the presiding priest. In this capacity he carried the designation of high priest. He held the keys of the priesthood, the right to preside—the right to be the “president.” The high priest presided over the functions of the priesthood, including the temple and its sacrifices.

2. The priests. These were selected from Aaron’s other male descendants. They performed the sacrifices at the temple.

3. The Levites. Levi was a son of ancient Jacob (Israel). Moses and Aaron were, of course, descended from Levi. These were selected from males of the tribe of Levi who were not descended from Aaron. The offices they held are not named, although the duties assigned them are described. These duties were to assist Aaron’s sons (the priests) in transporting and caring for the tabernacle of the congregation and in various performances in the temple. Their services were comparable to those of deacons and teachers today. Our deacons and teachers, of course, cannot baptize or administer the sacrament. The Levites, although they did some menial work connected with sacrifices, such as preparing the altar and gathering the wood, did not perform the sacrifices themselves. We assume they did not baptize and that this ordinance was left for the priests only.

#Additions to the Law of Moses

In most general terms, we may view the law of Moses as consisting of:

1. The Ten Commandments—fundamental laws necessary to preserve a tranquil orderly society.

2. A collection of civil and religious laws that taught holiness, purity, justice, and order.

3. Sacrifices and related ordinances of purification. The sacrifices included: (1) Burnt offerings which were acts of worship. (2) Peace offerings. These were meant to keep peace with the Lord, and there were three types. There were offerings of thanksgiving; offerings to vow one’s willingness to sacrifice for the Lord; and the freewill offering, one’s commitment to use one’s free will to serve him. (3) Sin and trespass offerings. These were performed for the purpose of “atonement”—making reconciliation with God following a violation of a law.

Today it is difficult, of not impossible, to precisely identify the original law of Moses. A great deal of material, primarily Jewish scholarly rabbinic additions, refinements, and commentaries on the original Mosaic writings, have been added since Moses’s day.

An example of these additions may be seen in the fact that as early as the third century AD, the Jewish view ludicrously held that the commandments numbered 613. Rabbi Simlai reportedly stated that “613 commandments were revealed to Moses at Sinai, 365 being prohibitions equal in number to the solar days, and 248 being mandates corresponding in number to the limbs [bones??] of the human body” (Encyclopedia Judaica 5:760, quoting Talmud B. Makkot 23b). Some of these additions cover a variety of daily matters, including valuing houses and fields, laws of inheritance, paying wages, agriculture, animal husbandry, and forbidden foods.

Some ordinances and sacrifices extant in Moses’s day actually seem to have predated the time of Moses. These are thought to have originated from the gospel of Jesus Christ as originally revealed to Adam, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and other prophets. The complexity of and occasional confusion over the development of the Mosaic code as presently taught poses challenges for the student of the Bible today. Elder Bruce R. McConkie outlined the dilemma this way:

We cannot always tell . . . whether specific sacrificial rites performed in Israel were part of the Mosaic system or whether they were the same ordinances performed by Adam and Abraham as part of the gospel law itself. Further, it appears that some of the ritualistic performances varied from time to time, according to the special needs of the people and the changing circumstances in which they found themselves. Even the Book of Mormon does not help us in these respects. We know the Nephites offered sacrifices and kept the law of Moses. Since they held the Melchizedek Priesthood and there were no Levites among them, we suppose their sacrifices were those that antedated the ministry of Moses (The Promised Messiah, 436).

#A Type of Christ

A “type,” or something that “typifies,” is a symbol, pattern, or representation of something else. We believe that one fundamental purpose of the law of Moses was to serve as a “type” of Jesus’s future coming. The law is literally replete with types, shadows, symbols, and prefigurations of him. Nephi wrote, “We did observe to keep the judgments, and the statutes, and the commandments of the Lord in all things, according to the law of Moses. . . . Behold, my soul delighteth in proving unto my people the truth of the coming of Christ; for, for this end hath the law of Moses been given; and all things which have been given of God from the beginning of the world, unto man, are the typifying of him” (2 Nephi 5:10; 11:4, italics added).

The Jews have obviously lost this perspective of their law. They have “looked beyond the mark” (Jacob 4:14). The word “mark” here means target or main objective, something to aim at. Christ is the mark. Jesus said of himself, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6).

Admittedly, the Book of Mormon people who observed the law of Moses had the added benefit of the specific revelations about Jesus Christ Lehi and other Book of Mormon prophets received. Lehi’s descendants were clearly aware the typology of Jesus Christ in the law of Moses. It appears they also had been made aware of how all things both in the heavens and on earth bore witness of Christ. The prophet Moses reported the words of Jehovah: “And behold, all things have their likeness, and all things are created and made to bear record of me, both things which are temporal, and things which are spiritual; things which are in the heavens above, and things which are on the earth, and things which are in the earth, and things which are under the earth, both above and beneath: all things bear record of me” (Moses 6:63).

Let us consider several aspects of the law of Moses that clearly prefigure the coming of Jesus Christ:

Moses himself. Like Isaac, Joseph, and so many others in the Old Testament, Moses was a prophetic symbol or type of the Christ who was to come. Jehovah said to him, speaking by the divine investiture of the Father’s authority, “I have a work for thee, Moses, my son; and thou art in the similitude of mine Only Begotten; and mine Only Begotten is and shall be the Savior, for he is full of grace and truth” (Moses 1:6).

As the children of Israel were fleeing Egypt and making their way to the promised land (note the Messianic prefiguration of delivering, saving, and rescuing a covenant people from the sins and evils of the unbelieving world), Moses told them: “The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet [note the upper case “P” referring to the Savior] from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me [Moses]; unto him ye shall hearken. . . . And the Lord said unto me [Moses], . . . I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him [the sinner]” (Deuteronomy 18:15, 18-19). What is meant by the phrase “I will require it of him”? Peter said that those who would not listen to “that prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people” (Acts 3:22-23). Moroni referred to the same prophecy when he appeared to Joseph Smith, saying that soon all who would not listen to Jesus “should be cut off from among the people” (JS-H 1:40).

This Prophet who would be raised up like unto Moses is, of course, Jesus Christ. As the footnotes in the LDS edition of the scriptures indicate, this passage from Deuteronomy is quoted, with some variation—twice in the New Testament, twice in the Book of Mormon, and once in the Pearl of Great Price. In every instance, those references make it clear that Christ is the future prophet to whom they refer. The earliest of those declarations came from Nephi, who said, “This prophet of whom Moses spake was the Holy One of Israel; wherefore, he shall execute judgment in righteousness” (1 Nephi 22:21). Not surprisingly, the most authoritative declaration of this truth also comes in the Book of Mormon from the lips of the resurrected Savior himself. To the Nephites gathered at his feet, Christ said, “Behold, I am he of whom Moses spake, saying: A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you. And it shall come to pass that every soul who will not hear that prophet shall be cut off from among the people” (3 Nephi 20:23).

Sacrifices and offerings. The law of Moses included a host of “performances and ordinances” such as sacrifices and offerings that were directly linked with the future atonement of Christ and were meant to be in every way “a similitude of him.” The sacrifices were performed in similitude of the coming sacrifice of their Messiah. The rituals out of which the Israelites gained forgiveness of sins were tokens of what was to be in the life of him whose atonement made forgiveness possible. Every commanded act of obedience, every ordinance, every performance pointed the hearts and minds of believing worshipers forward to Jesus Christ and him crucified. All this was understood by those among them who were faithful and true.

Paul named several of the Mosaic ordinances and performances and said they were a “shadow of heavenly things” (Hebrews 8:4-5). The “meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the time of reformation,” he said, were designed as “a figure [a symbol or type] for the time then present.” He spoke of the various formalities involved in sprinkling blood as “patterns” of things of a much higher nature. Perhaps Amulek’s statement is the clearest of them all. He said: “This is the whole meaning of the law, every whit pointing to that great and last sacrifice; and that great and last sacrifice will be the Son of God, yea, infinite and eternal” (Alma 34:14).

Animal sacrifice was a way of worship among the Lord’s people even prior to the time of Moses. The law of Moses required them to “offer the firstlings of their flocks” as sacrifices in “similitude of the sacrifice of the Only Begotten of the Father” (Moses 5:5- 8).

Feast of the Passover. At the time appointed for their deliverance from Egyptian bondage, the Lord commanded each family in Israel to sacrifice a lamb, to sprinkle its blood on their doorposts, and then to eat unleavened bread for seven more days. All of these were to symbolize the fact that the destroying angel would pass over the Israelites as he went forth slaying the firstborn in the families of all the Egyptians. The unleavened bread would emphasize that, in haste, Israel should go forth from slavery to freedom. There was not even time to allow the yeast to work and the bread to rise. As a pattern for all the Mosaic instructions yet to come, the details of the performances here involved were so arranged as to bear testimony both of Israel’s deliverance and of her Deliverer.

Among other procedures connected to the Feast of Passover, the Lord commanded, as found in Exodus 12:

1. “Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year,” signifying that the Lamb of God, pure and perfect, without spot or blemish, in the prime of his life, as the Paschal Lamb, would be slain for the sins of the world.

2. They were to take of the blood of the lamb and sprinkle it upon the doorposts of their houses, having this promise as a result: “And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you”—signifying that the blood of Christ, which should fall as drops in Gethsemane and flow in a stream from a pierced side as he hung on the cross, would cleanse and save the faithful. Just as those in Israel were saved temporally because the blood of a sacrificial lamb was sprinkled on the doorposts of their houses, so the faithful of all ages would wash their garments in the blood of the Eternal Lamb and from him receive an eternal salvation.

3. As to the sacrifice of the lamb, the decree was, “Neither shall ye break a bone thereof,” signifying that when the Lamb of God was sacrificed on the cross, though they broke the legs of the two thieves to induce death,1 yet they did not break the bones of the Redeemer, “that the scripture should be fulfilled, A bone of him shall not be broken” (John 19:31-36).

4. Referring to eating the flesh of the sacrificial lamb, the divine command was, “No uncircumcised person shall eat thereof.” This signified that the blessings of the gospel are reserved for those who come into the fold of Israel, who join the Church, who carry their part of the burden of the Lord’s kingdom.

5. As “the Lord smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt” because they believed not the word of the Lord delivered to them by Moses and Aaron, even so should the Firstborn of the Father, destroy worldly people at the last day just prior to his second coming.

Feast of Pentecost. Another of the three great feasts to which all the males of Israel must go each year was the Feast of Weeks, the Feast of Firstfruits, the Feast of the Harvest, or, as it is most commonly called, the Feast of Pentecost. It came fifty days after the beginning of the Feast of the Passover. The burnt offerings of Pentecost included a sin-offering and a peace-offering, indicating that the great purpose of the feast was to gain a remission of sins and obtain a reconciliation—to make peace—with God.

The Day of Atonement. The essence of the whole Mosaic structure is the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is what the law of Moses is all about. The law itself was given so that men might believe in Christ and know that salvation comes in and through his atoning sacrifice and in no other way. Every principle, every precept, every doctrinal teaching, every rite, ordinance, and performance, every word and act of the Mosaic law was designed and prepared to enable men to believe in Christ, to submit to his laws, and to gain the full blessings of his atonement.

On one day each year, the tenth day of the seventh month, Israel’s high priest of the Levitical order, the one who sat in Aaron’s seat, was privileged to enter the Holy of Holies in the house of the Lord. There, he entered, as it were, the presence of Jehovah and then was privileged to act on behalf of Jehovah. There he made an atonement for the sins of the people. In the course of much sacrificial symbolism, the high priest cleansed himself, the sanctuary itself, the priesthood bearers as a whole, and all of the people. Sacrificial animals were slain and their blood sprinkled on the mercy seat and before the altar. Incense was burned, and all of the imagery and symbolism of the ransoming ordinances was carried out.

One thing applicable to this day only is significant. Two goats were selected, lots were cast, and the name of Jehovah was placed upon one goat. The other was called

Azazel, the scapegoat. The Lord’s goat was then sacrificed as the Great Jehovah would be in due course, but upon the scapegoat were placed all of the sins of the people. The scapegoat then carried away this burden into the wilderness. The high priest, as the law required, “lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat” and confessed “over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat.” The goat then bore upon him “all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited,” even as the Promised Messiah should bear the sins of many. “For on that day shall the priest make an atonement for you, to cleanse you,” Moses said, “that ye may be clean from all your sins before the Lord” (Leviticus 16).

The symbolism and meaning of the ordinances and ceremonies performed on the Day of Atonement are set forth by Paul in his Epistle to the Hebrews (Hebrews 9 and 10). He calls the tabernacle-temple of the Mosaic law era “a worldly sanctuary,” wherein sacrificial ordinances were performed each year by Levitical priests to atone for the sins of men and prepare them to enter the Holy of Holies (the presence of God). These ordinances were to remain “until the time of reformation” (Hebrews 9:10) when Christ should come as a high priest of “a greater and more perfect tabernacle” (Hebrews 9:11) to prepare himself and all men, by the shedding of his own blood, to obtain “eternal redemption” (Hebrews 9:12) in the heavenly tabernacle. The old covenant was but “a shadow of good things to come” (Hebrews 10:1).

Feast of Tabernacles. The annual attendance of all male Israelites was compulsory at the Feast of Tabernacles. Coming five days after the Day of Atonement, it was thus celebrated when the sins of the chosen people had been removed and when their special covenant relation to Jehovah had been renewed and restored. Above all other occasions it was one for rejoicing, bearing testimony, and praising the Lord. In the full sense, it is the Feast of Jehovah, the one Mosaic celebration which, as part of the restitution of all things, shall be restored when Jehovah comes to reign personally upon the earth for a thousand years. Even now, we perform one of its chief rituals in our solemn assemblies, the giving of the Hosanna Shout, and the worshipers of Jehovah shall yet be privileged to exult in other of its sacred rituals.

Also known as the Feast of Booths, because Israel dwelt in booths while in the wilderness, and as the Feast of Ingathering, because it came after the completion of the full harvest, it was a time of gladsome rejoicing and the extensive offering of sacrifices. More sacrifices were offered during the Feast of the Passover than at any other time because a lamb was slain for and eaten by each family or group, but at the Feast of Tabernacles more sacrifices of bullocks, rams, lambs, and goats were offered by the priests for the nation as a whole than at all the other Israelite feasts combined. The fact that it celebrated the completion of the full harvest symbolizes the gospel reality that it is the mission of the house of Israel to gather all nations to Jehovah, a process that is now going forward, but will not be completed until that millennial day when “the Lord shall be king over all the earth,” and shall reign personally thereon. Then shall be fulfilled that which is written: “And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations . . . shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles. And it shall be, that whoso will not come up of all the families of the earth unto Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, even upon them shall be no rain” (Zechariah 14:9-21). That will be the day when the law shall go forth from Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

#Justice and Mercy and the Law of Moses

The law of Moses taught justice and mercy. Its strict laws, rituals, and penalties taught justice. For every violation there must be accountability and punishment. But the sacrifices taught mercy. Mercy came by means of vicarious redemption, when an unblemished, innocent creature was sacrificed to receive the punishment that the worshipper deserved, dying in his or her behalf. Thus the law’s sacrificial ordinances prefigured the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, who suffered and died in place of others to remove their sins. When the ordinance of animal sacrifice was revealed at the beginning of human history, Adam was taught, “This thing is a similitude of the sacrifice of the Only Begotten of the Father, which is full of grace [that aspect of God’s love that inclines him to give blessings that are not deserved] and truth. Wherefore, thou shalt do all that thou doest in the name of the Son” (Moses 5:7-8). We thus see that animal sacrifice was a part of the gospel of Jesus Christ prior to Christ’s atonement, crucifixion, and resurrection. To reiterate, some of the animal sacrifice practiced in the law of Moses actually predated the law of Moses and was not unique to that law. Rather, it was part of the fulness of Christ’s gospel revealed previously to several prophets.

#The Law of Moses and the Book of Mormon

As mentioned previously, in the early pages of the Book of Mormon, knowledge of Christ and the fulness of the gospel were revealed to Lehi and his sons. This was knowledge that their fellow Judahites apparently did not have. The Nephites, beginning with Lehi and his family, were blessed with the higher priesthood and, while they lived the law of Moses, they administered the gospel through the Melchizedek Priesthood (2 Nephi 6:2; Alma 6:1, 8). Because they knew the gospel and looked forward to Jesus’s coming, they viewed their adherence to the law of Moses as a temporary legal requirement until it would be fulfilled (see Alma 25:15).

Because of continuing apostasy, the Israelites in the Holy Land generally lost whatever knowledge they had of the real intent of the law of Moses. But Lehi and his righteous descendants were taught the true meaning of the law (2 Nephi 2:5-8; 11:4; 25:27; Jacob 4:5; Alma 25:15-16)—that it had been given to point them to Christ, with its precepts and sacrifices typifying his atonement.

The Book of Mormon speaks of the law of Moses in doctrinal terms but reveals very little about how Lehi’s descendants practiced it. However it is clear that “they were strict in observing the ordinances of God, according to the law of Moses” (Alma 30:3; cf. 2 Nephi 5:10; Helaman 13:1; 15:5). They had the ten commandments (see Mosiah 12:33-36), but it is not certain that they had the same collection of Mosaic laws and rituals that is in the Bible today, including all the Aaronic temple ordinances of Exodus and Leviticus. Temples are mentioned in the Book of Mormon (e.g., 2 Nephi 5:16; Mosiah 1:18; 11:10; 3 Nephi 11:1), but their function is not explained. There were sacrifices, but without priests of Aaronic lineage. They must have been done by holders of the Melchizedek Priesthood and perhaps not according to the Aaronic rules of the Bible. The only sacrifices mentioned by name are burnt offerings (Mosiah 2:3; 3 Nephi 9:19), which had been performed by Melchizedek Priesthood holders since Adam. Though none of the annual feasts of the law of Moses are specifically mentioned, it seems likely they were observed.

One of the exciting developments in Book of Mormon research in the past few years has been the discovery of evidence of the ancient Israelite pilgrimage festivals in the Book of Mormon. No single Book of Mormon source has been more fertile for these discoveries than King Benjamin’s sermon (Welch, John W. “King Benjamin’s Speech in the Context of Ancient Israelite Festivals,” a FARMS reprint, 1985). There is good reason to believe that the events recorded in Mosiah 2-6 took place during a Nephite observance of the Israelite Feast of Tabernacles also called the Feast of Booths. The pilgrimage of whole families to the temple site, the sacrifice of animals, and the people’s dwelling in tents are among the features of the account that are so typical of the Israelite Feast of Tabernacles that they strongly suggest that the events recorded in these chapters took place during a Nephite observance of that festival. The mention made of the Feast of Tabernacles in the Old Testament suggests that its purpose was to enable the Israelites to renew their covenant with God, and that appears to be what the Nephites were doing as they assembled at their temple (Mosiah 5:5; 6:1).

The Book of Mormon leaves many questions unanswered concerning how Book of Mormon people lived the law of Moses. With their knowledge of the gospel and with the higher priesthood, it may be that the Lord required a different observance from Nephite and Lamanite Christians than was required in the society from which Lehi came. Mormon, the book’s author/compiler, never lived under the law of Moses himself, and he knew that his latter-day readers would not live under it either. Perhaps he felt it unnecessary to discuss it in his record.

The Book of Mormon teaches that the law would be fulfilled when Christ’s final sacrifice, to which it pointed, would take place (Alma 34:10, 12-15). When Jesus came to Lehi’s descendants in America, he announced that in him the law of Moses was fulfilled. It had served its purpose as a “schoolmaster until Christ” (JST Galatians 3:24), but now worshippers would be privileged to live a higher law (3 Nephi 9:17, 19-21; 3 Nephi 15:4-5).

Distinctive views concerning the Law of Moses and its relationship to Christ and to the attainment of individual salvation are set forth in the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches that this law was given by God to Moses, that it formed part of a peculiar covenant of obedience and blessings between God and his people, that it symbolized and foreshadowed things to come, and that it was fulfilled in the atonement of Jesus Christ.

#The Law of Moses and Salvation

The sacrifices of the law of Moses could not remove sin and could not save anyone. In reality, the law could only teach. In ancient Israel, “many signs, and wonders, and types, and shadows showed he unto them, concerning his coming . . . and yet they hardened their hearts, and understood not that the law of Moses availeth nothing except it were through the atonement of his blood” (Mosiah 3:15; 13:28, 31-32). It does seem clear that those humble and righteous souls who kept the law of Moses with all diligence and righteous intention will one day be judged worthy of exaltation by an all-knowing Lord (D&C 137:5-9).

1 See a discussion of the role of breaking the bones of the legs during crucifixion in “The Physiology of Crucifixion” in volume 2, chapter 14, Crucifixion.