The great general principles of the Law were not transitory but abiding, and reappear under the gospel dispensation. Otherwise, however, i.e. in those particulars, whether ceremonial or civil, in which it was adapted to merely passing needs, the Law passed away when Christ came. It is not always realized that already before Christ came it had begun to pass away. The following are illustrations:
(1) The whole rationale of the Levitical worship consisted in its being based upon the covenant made at Sinai, and the symbol of the Covenant was the ark containing the tables of the Law and surmounted by the mercy-seat. Therefore one of its most significant acts was the sprinkling of the blood of sin offering within the veil upon the mercy-seat, or without the veil, but yet before the mercy-seat. But this most significant act could no longer be performed when, after the Babylonian captivity, there was no longer either ark or mercy-seat.
(2) The law that tithe should be paid to the Levites, a tithe only of it being paid by them to "Aaron the priest" (Nu 18:1-32), was practicable so long as the priests were a small portion only of the whole Levitical body, as they appear in the history down to the middle period of the monarchy. But by the time of the exile they disappeared from history except as actual temple ministrants, and, after the return from the exile, even these were in number a mere handful compared with the priests (Ezr 2:36-42; 8:15-20,24-30; Ne 11:10-19). The attempt to revive the old law (Ne 10:38-39) was well-intentioned but impracticable: it was evidently soon abandoned (Ne 13:10-13; Mal 3:8-10). We learn from Josephus that tithes were regarded later as due to the priests, not to the Levites (Josephus, Ant, XX, viii, 8; ix, 2).
(3) That the Mosaic law as to divorce was to give place to one more stringent appears not only from our Lord's words in Mt 19:7-9, but from Mal 2:16.
(4) It is probable that some of the supplementary rules in Nu may have been designed for temporary use only, and may have passed away before the close of the Old Testament. It may have been so, e.g., with the law of Nu 5:11-31, a law probably most useful in the circumstances of the Mosaic age, and perhaps itself an endorsement of a pre-Mosaic custom.
LITERATURE.
Driver, Driver, Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament, with which should be read Moller, Are the Critics Right? and Orr, Orr, The Problem of the Old Testament; A.B. Davidson, Theology of the Old Testament; J.B. Mozley, Ruling Ideas in Early Ages; Rule, Old Testament Institutions, Their Origin and Development; Kurtz, Sacrificial Worship of the Old Testament; Hoonacker, Le sacerdoce levitique; Edouard Naville,
La decouverte de la loi sous le roi Josias; H. Clay Trumbull, The Blood Covenant; Milligan, Resurrection of our Lord (274 ff, on "blood-offering").
Ulric Z. Rule