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One Father created us all. He Who lovingly grants us life and free will also blesses us with the gift of guiding law. Every person of every nation is bound by Divine law. Following the Biblical "Testimonies": the Jewish people (also called the Children of Israel - Israel, meaning "to Struggle with God"; a force in history, a sacred society, and a unique nation consisting of people descended or converted from every nation) are called to live by the Covenant of Sinai - including the Ten Commandments and the entire Law of Sinai, the Torah. The vast majority of humankind, Noahides or non-Jews, are blessed with an older covenant, older even than Abraham and Moses, which applies to everybody, including Israel. Do you remember Noah and the Flood in the Bible? Remember Noah when the Flood ends, and the rainbow after the Flood? That's where "covenant" comes in. In the Book of Genesis, Chapter Nine, the Bible speaks of the covenant - the word "covenant" comes up seven times - that God formalizes after the Flood, between God and "all the Earth." That's the Noahide Covenant. The rainbow, Genesis teaches, is the eternal symbol of that covenant, the Universal Covenant. The first covenant mentioned in the Bible, the Rainbow Covenant consists of seven holy commandments, or "connections" with God. From the beginning, from Noah and the descendants of Noah through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, through Moses, through the Biblical prophets and kings and priests of Israel, and from the People of Israel of every generation, the People of Israel have kept this knowledge alive.
These seven commandments are the heart of the Bible. They are the bedrock of civilization. The Seven Commandments don't include the entire Law that God commanded Israel at Sinai. They don't include the people of Israel's unique religious "statutes," such as the Torah statutes regarding Israel's special religious rituals, or not eating pork or shellfish, say, because those statutes directly command only Israel. They are not legally binding on all humankind. Unlike the Seven Laws, they don't apply to every human being at all times, in all places, forever.
The Seven Noahide Laws do include, in outline, every single precept, law and commandment in the Bible that's logical. That is, all the Noahide laws make sense on their own; they are, at least once you've learned them, obvious; they would make sense and appeal to human logic even if they had never been revealed at Sinai. They are different from the Torah's statutes in that, unlike Israel's national laws against eating pork, say, or keeping the seventh day of the week - the Sabbath - holy, human beings have the ability to recognize them as true even if the Bible didn't say so. Because they cherished the Seven Commandments as God's Way, only the People of Israel kept this ancient body of knowledge intact - by saving it as part of the Torah, the Biblical Tradition.
We state the Seven Commandments below as they have come down to us, phrased in negative terms - as "thou shall nots." We need to see them for what they really are, however. They are positive principles. They remove the darkness from life and replace it with light. They give us a platform, a vantage point, from which we can clearly see what is sacred, sane, true and wise and godly. In essence, these Seven Laws give us the secret of existence. Go to our newsletter, Covenant Connection, (particularly, volume 3, issue 4, Saints and Sinners, the July 2008 issue, and then issue 4, Revolutionary Doctrine, the September issue) and to our book, Rainbow Covenant, to get more than the summary, cursory description below of this incredibly beautiful body of wisdom. Also, go to the newsletter and the book to get a fuller sense of the real meaning and context of all this Divine legislation and knowledge. Taking the Seven Noahide Laws from the seemingly narrowest and most mundane to the broadest and most spiritual — the order in which they are discussed in Rainbow Covenant — they are: 1. Dietary Morality
Every creature eats. This eternal, universal principle requires us, the creatures whom God made His stewards over the Earth, to treat the animals that we eat (and ultimately, every creature subject to human control) with self-control, self-respect, and a decent regard for other life. God Who gave humankind dominion over the Earth despises cruelty, indecency and savagery. He calls on us to conduct ourselves better than mere animals - as piggish animals. He didn't create us in His image to waste His Earth's resources or mistreat our fellow creatures. To treat animals cruelly is wrong. To eat, as animals eat, disgusting things, is wrong. To combine the two wrongs, to be so heedless of one's fellow creature's suffering as to eat its flesh before it's even dead, violates this Universal Law. 2. Against Larceny
3. Against Sexual Immorality 4. Against Murder One must study this Principle to understand the implications of matters including suicide, self-defense and the defense of others, "mercy killing" and physician-assisted suicide, war, capital punishment and abortion. 5. Against Lawlessness This principle functions as a positive principle - not merely a negative injunction, prohibiting injustice — to establish a fair, just system of police and laws and courts. 6. Against Sacrilege However we think of God - whether as "Hairy Thunderer" or "Cosmic Muffin," as distant spirit or immanent and physical, as a Being with associates or partners or as absolutely and uniquely One - we need to remember that the things we do in His Name reflect back on Him. 7. Laws against Idolatry This law and the law against sacrilege work together like the legs of a person walking.
These are the Seven Universal Moral Principles - in outline. But the outline is just the beginning of knowledge. . . .
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