THE SIX FUNCTIONS OF GOD’S LAW

Understanding the Six Functions of God’s Law

by Traver Dougherty

Function 1: To Serve as a Bridge Pre-First Coming

Function 2: To Reveal Sin

Function 3: To Establish the Kingdom’s Narrative

Function 4: To Exalt Jesus as Firstfruit

Function 5: To Recognize the Good

Function 6: To Serve as a Bridge Pre-Second Coming

The Sinaitic Covenant serves as a bridge between YHWH’s promise to Abraham and Jesus’s permanent kingdom on earth. In theological schools, professors ask students to think deeply about the eschatological “now” and “not yet” — this age (aeon), as Lee Camp points out, and the age to come.^[1] The present aeon, of course, began when YHWH tabernacled among us in Jesus. Jesus’s first coming didn’t alleviate all that is broken in this world, but it certainly cemented an inevitable end: one day, “[Jesus] will wipe away every tear from [our] eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain” (Rev 21:4). And when will the inevitable outcome begin? No one knows for certain, but if YHWH’s consistent — and He always is — we now look toward the fall appointed times, beginning with the Day of Shouting (Yom Teruah).^[2]

“Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” — Our Messiah

[1] Camp, Mere Discipleship, 68.
[2] Also Feast of Trumpets. Chiastic structure suggests that Yom Teruah, the fourth of seven mikra-kodesh, is a focal point. Whereas Passover pointed to Jesus’s first coming, Yom Teruah may point to the second. Two reasons seem to stand out. First, Yom Teruah is associated with a king’s coronation (see Tadmor, “The Chronology of the First Temple Period,” 44–51). Second, because the start of Yom Teruah necessitated the citing of a new moon, no one knew the “day or the hour” or its appearing.