What is the Divine Court? Part 1

The Divine Court is both earthly and heavenly at the same time, yet the earliest decision (against Adam and Eve) was rendered from heaven alone in Genesis 3:17-19. We see the decision from heaven again when God covenanted with Noah (Genesis 9:9). This decision, based purely upon the promise of God, was a provision of the New Covenant. The same can be said of the promise to Abraham in Genesis 17:2-4,

² I will establish My covenant between Me and you, and I will multiply you exceedingly. ³ Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying, ⁴ As for Me, behold, My covenant is with you, and you will be the father of a multitude of nations.

Whenever God gives His word, it is written in the official records of the Divine Court, making it a certainty, because it does not depend upon the will of man.

The Earthly Courts

It seems that the Divine Court was brought to the earth in the time of Moses. This was done through the counsel of Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, who noticed that judging disputes was overwhelming Moses. We read in Exodus 18:21-24,

²¹ Furthermore, you shall select out of all the people able men who fear God, men of truth, those who hate dishonest gain; and you shall place these over them as leaders of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens. ²² Let them judge the people at all times; and let it be that every major dispute they will bring to you, but every minor dispute they themselves will judge. So it will be easier for you, and they will bear the burden with you… ²⁴ So Moses listened to his father-in-law and did all that he had said.

We see, then, how Moses himself was the first judge in the first Divine Court judging the disputes among the Israelites. This was too impractical for such a large body of people, so he created four lower courts and judges over tens, fifties, hundreds, and thousands. This was in addition to the so-called “avenger of blood” (kinsman redeemer) who was responsible to resolve disputes within each family.

Years later, this layered arrangement was replaced by the Sanhedrin, a group of 70 rabbis who served collectively in the place of Moses (Matthew 23:2).

Moses himself served as an earthly type of Supreme Court Justice until he was replaced by the Messiah Himself. John 5:27 says,

²⁷ and He [God] gave Him [Jesus] authority to execute judgment, because He is the Son of Man.

By this arrangement, lower court judges could appeal to the court above them if they did not know the law of God well enough to judge a case properly. Such appeals might go all the way to Moses, who too had the right to ask God for a ruling from heaven, such as we see in the case of the Second Passover in Numbers 9:8,

⁸ Moses therefore said to them, “Wait, and I will listen to what the Lord will command concerning you.”

This was how God established the Divine Court on earth as it is in heaven. This also shows how important it was for Christ to come to earth and be born as the Son of Man. Being both the Son of God and the Son of Man essentially merged heaven and earth. At the close of Jesus’ ministry, He said in Matthew 28:18, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.”

He set the pattern for all of the sons of God who were to come after Him. Essentially, the sons of God were to function as judges under Christ, even as judges were appointed by Moses. Hence, Paul asked in 1 Corinthians 6:2, “Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world?” Paul expected the Corinthian church to have qualified judges in their midst to judge disputes among the believers. In other words, these saints should not have to wait until the second coming of Christ to begin their practice of law.

It seems that the early churches did not comprehend the laws of God well enough to develop a biblical court system. When they finally did so some centuries later, most of the leaders had little revelation of the laws of God. As the church grew more powerful, it became more and more corrupt, and when the bishop of Rome claimed to sit in Moses’ seat to judge the people, it hardly resembled the Divine Court in Moses’ day—or even as it should have developed under Christ.

In fact, the Roman bishop claimed only spiritual (heavenly) authority to determine who was a true believer and who was a “heretic.” The earthly authority was left to the Roman emperors, who were responsible mainly to threaten “heretics” into accepting the creeds established by the Church Councils and to execute them if necessary.

Beliefs are matters of the heart and can be judged by God alone. Earthly courts are designed to judge sin. Hence, if an earthly court finds that someone has a wrong belief, that case should be considered to be too difficult for an earthly court to judge, and it ought to be referred to the Supreme Court (originally to Moses, now to Christ). But to burn so-called heretics at the stake is not only excessive punishment, it also oversteps the boundaries of earthly judges.

This brings us to another question. What would God do when there is a breakdown of the divine order?

More Courts

The original Supreme Court, where Moses inquired of God, was in the tabernacle where God sat upon the mercy seat of the Ark of the Covenant. (See Exodus 33:8-11.) Hebrews 4:16 refers to the mercy seat as “the throne of grace.” When the Israelites worshiped the golden calf in Exodus 32, Moses was led to move the tent with the Ark and set up the Divine Court outside the camp. Exodus 33:7 says,

⁷ Now Moses used to take [laqah] the tent and pitch it outside the camp, and he called it the tent of meeting. And everyone who sought the Lord would go out to the tent of meeting which was outside the camp.

This strange practice came with no explanation, other than it occurred after the golden calf incident. The NASB (above) translates laqah as “used to take,” implying that Moses had done so from the beginning, but the KJV more accurately renders it “Moses took the tabernacle and pitched it without the camp.” I can find no justification for the NASB’s “used to take.”

Hence, I believe the KJV is correct and that after the golden calf incident, Moses took the Divine Court outside the camp. The reason for this is seen more clearly in the New Testament, where we read in Hebrews 13:10-14,

¹⁰ We have an altar from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat. ¹¹ For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy place by the high priest as an offering for sin, are burned outside the camp. ¹² Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people through His own blood, suffered outside the gate. ¹³ So, let us go out to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach. ¹⁴ For here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come.

The author of Hebrews was referring primarily to the requirement in Exodus 29:14,

¹⁴ But the flesh of the bull and its hide and its refuse, you shall burn with fire outside the camp; it is a sin offering.

This prophesied of the location where Jesus, our great Sin Offering, was to be crucified—burned, as it were, by the fiery law, “outside the camp” (i.e., outside the gates of Jerusalem). The prophetic significance of this, as we are told, was that we too must “go out to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach.” This appeal is the main theme of the book of Hebrews, telling us that we must leave Judaism and its Old Covenant practices, because “here” in Jerusalem, “we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come.”

In other words, the earthly Jerusalem had become corrupt, worshiping the golden calf once again, so we are to seek God outside the camp, even as Moses set up the tabernacle outside the camp in order to seek the will of God. To do so, of course, would surely bring “reproach” to the people of God, for most of their friends and relatives thought that this new practice was heretical. Should they not continue to worship God within the camp at the temple? Most people assumed that God’s presence and throne was in the Most Holy Place of the temple, and that there was no other place where men should or could approach God.

But seeking God outside the camp was fully established even in the days of Moses. And when the church too became corrupt, the same principle applied equally to the church. In order to seek God, many have had to go outside their denominational camps in order to find God.