Anthony Pritchard
Member
God as the First and Final Lawgiver
The Scriptures begin not with man seeking law but with God speaking. Law is not the product of human society. It is the expression of divine character. The very first command ever given was spoken by God in Genesis 2:16 to 17. “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it. For in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”
This is the first law. It is not negotiated. It is not voted on. It is not the result of social contract. It is the Creator instructing the creature.
The pattern never changes. God speaks. Man receives. Law flows downward, never upward.
Isaiah 33:22 gathers the entire structure of authority into one verse. “For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our king. He will save us.”
Judge, lawgiver, king. Judicial, legislative, executive. All three are rooted in God. Human government is derivative. It is never original.
The Moral Law: Written on Stone and Written on the Heart
When God gave the Ten Commandments, He was not introducing new morality. He was revealing eternal morality. The commandments are not arbitrary rules. They are reflections of God’s own nature. God is truthful, therefore lying is sin. God is faithful, therefore adultery is sin. God is life, therefore murder is sin. God is holy, therefore idolatry is sin.
Romans 2:14 to 15 explains that even those who never received the written law still know the moral law. “For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves. Which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness.”
This is the doctrine of natural law. It is not a philosophical invention. It is a biblical fact. God wrote His law into the human conscience.
This is why every civilization on earth, even pagan ones, has laws against murder, theft, perjury, and injustice. They did not invent these laws. They recieved them.
The Delegation of Authority: Human Law as Stewardship
Romans 13:1 says, “For there is no power but of God. The powers that be are ordained of God.”
This means that human rulers do not possess authority by right of force or by right of election. They possess authority by right of delegation. They are stewards, not sovereigns.
A steward is accountable to the one who appointed him. When rulers govern according to God’s moral order, they act as ministers of God for good. When they depart from that order, they cease to act as ministers of God and become rebels against the very authority they claim to wield.
This is why Acts 5:29 stands as a permanent boundary. “We ought to obey God rather than men.” When human law contradicts divine law, obedience to God is not rebellion. It is fidelity.
The Testimony of the Scholars: Law as Participation in the Divine Order
Across the centuries, the greatest legal minds have agreed with Scripture.
Aquinas taught that human law is only law when it participates in the eternal law of God. If it contradicts God, it is not law but violence.
Blackstone wrote that the law of nature is “dictated by God himself” and that no human law is valid if it contradicts the divine law. This became the backbone of Anglo American jurisprudence.
Calvin taught that civil rulers are ministers of God and that their legitimacy depends on their conformity to God’s moral law.
The rabbis taught that the Torah is the blueprint of creation. God did not give the law after creation. He created the world according to the law.
Even Cicero, a pagan, said that true law is “right reason in agreement with nature” and that it is eternal and unchanging.
The consensus is overwhelming. Law is not invented. Law is received. Law is rooted in the character of God.
The Modern Crisis: The Rise of Law Without God
The modern world has embraced legal positivism, the belief that law is whatever the state declares it to be. This is the first major civilization in history to attempt law without God, without nature, without moral order.
Under positivism, rights are not endowed by the Creator. They are granted by the state.
Under positivism, justice is not objective. It is whatever the majority or the court says it is.
Under positivism, law is not received. It is manufactured.
This is why modern law feels unstable. It has been severed from its root.
A tree cut from its root does not die immediately. It dies slowly, quietly, inevitably.
The Consequence: When Man’s Law Breaks from God’s Law
When human law departs from divine law, several things happen.
First, justice becomes inconsistent. What is legal today becomes illegal tomorrow. What is moral today becomes immoral tomorrow. The standard shifts because it is no longer anchored.
Second, authority becomes arbitrary. If law is whatever the state says, then the state is god.
Third, conscience becomes confused. People begin to believe that legality is morality. They forget that the two are not the same.
Fourth, society becomes fragile. When law loses its divine foundation, it loses its legitimacy. When legitimacy collapses, coercion replaces consent.
This is why the prophets cried out against unjust rulers. They were not political activists. They were defenders of the divine order.
The Conclusion: All True Law Still Stems from the Great Lawgiver
This conviction is not only biblical. It is the historic position of the church, the synagogue, the Reformers, the founders, and the greatest legal minds of the Western world.
All law that is truly law flows from the Great Lawgiver.
All justice that is truly justice reflects His character.
All authority that is truly authority is delegated by Him.
All human law stands or falls by its conformity to His eternal law.
The modern world has forgotten this. But forgetting does not change reality.
God is still judge.
God is still lawgiver.
God is still king.
And He will save us.
Colophon
This chapter was written with the settled conviction that law does not begin in the mind of man but in the character of God. I have watched the drift of law in my own lifetime, and I have seen how quickly a people forget the One who first spoke. What is written here is offered as a reminder that justice is not ours to redefine and that authority is not ours to invent. The Scriptures remain the measure, and the conscience still bears witness. If anything in these pages is true, it is because the Lawgiver Himself has spoken.
Lex Dei manet in aeternum - The law of God remains forever.
~Tony
© A.K. Pritchard 1979 –
Free to use with proper attribution.