For The Church

“The Coastlands Wait for His Law” (Isa 42:4)

The previous post provided two examples of how Moses’s law can apply to new-covenant members through Christ and for Christ. There, we saw that Christ’s work can maintain the law with or without extension. This post considers how Christ’s coming transforms or annuls old-covenant instruction.

Case Study #3: The Law Transformed

Considering the Sabbath command in Deuteronomy 5:12–15 will show us how important it is to consider Christ’s fulfillment, which in this instance fully transforms the law and guides those strong in faith in the path of love.

Table 1. Deuteronomy 5:12–15

1. Establish the Original Meaning and Application of Deuteronomy 5:12–15

In Deuteronomy’s version of the Ten Commandments (or Ten Words), discourse features create five groupings of long and short commands that highlight the centrality of the Sabbath within the old covenant:

Table 2. The Centrality of the Sabbath in the Decalogue

At the center of Israel’s identity was the Sabbath, which stood as the old covenant’s “sign” (Exod 31:13, 17). Michael Fox notes three functions of OT signs:

1. Proof signs demonstrated the truth of something.
2. Symbol signs represented a future reality by virtue of resemblance or association.
3. Cognition signs aroused knowledge of something by identifying or reminding.

The Sabbath served first as a cognition sign and then as a symbol sign, symbolically identifying Israel and reminding it of its calling as the agent through whom God’s sovereignty would be celebrated on a global scale (ultimately through its Messiah).

The entirety of the old covenant was symbolized in the Sabbath, and its importance is highlighted by the fact that breaking it was a criminal offense (Num 15:32–36). While Sabbath was part of criminal law, its symbolism (like that of the dietary laws addressed in the next case study) suggests that it was also ceremonial law.

2. Determine the Theological Importance of Deuteronomy 5:12–15

The Sabbath command teaches us many things about God: (1) Yahweh shows no partiality. (2) Yahweh gives his people opportunities to test their trust and to develop their dependence. (3) Yahweh is passionate to display right order in his world, wherein he is exalted as Sovereign over all things.

Considering how Christ fulfills the Sabbath, we recall that Jesus saw himself as the source of ultimate rest: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt 11:28). Directly after this assertion, Jesus allows his disciples to pluck grain on the Sabbath and then declares himself “lord of the Sabbath” (12:8). Jesus’s redeeming work fulfilled Israel’s global Sabbath mission and inaugurated the end-times Sabbath rest for the world.

The love principle standing behind Deuteronomy 5:12–15 is this: Loving God and neighbor required carrying out the 6 + 1 pattern of life as a witness to the kingdom hope of ultimate rest.

3. Summarize the Lasting Significance of Deuteronomy 5:12–15

Until the final judgment, God will retain his commitment to his people, even those the world considers “least.” As we look out for the marginalized among his people, we serve King Jesus (Matt 25:31–40). Furthermore, the Sabbath command reminds us of our own need to rest, by which God graciously counters workaholism and nurtures deeper levels of trust in him (Ps 127:2).

Additionally, we must maintain a pattern of corporate worship (Heb 10:25), and Sunday is a natural time for this (Acts 20:7; 1 Cor 16:2) due to its end-times significance as the day on which God ignited his new creation (Rom 6:4; 1 Cor 15:20; Rev 14:4). But corporate worship on another day of the week is not sin, nor is it wrong to weed your garden, study for an exam, or engage in sports on a Sunday—so long as you don’t replace grace (1 Cor 15:10; Phil 2:12–13; Col 3:17, 23). Through Christ, God has transformed the Sabbath in a way that believers now enjoy his sovereign rest seven days a week.

Case Study #4: The Law Annulled

This final illustration of applying OT law to Christians addresses a command that Christ’s coming annuls—yet in such a way that we can still benefit from it.

Table 3. Leviticus 20:25–26

1. Establish the Original Meaning and Application of Leviticus 20:25–26

Pre-fall, God’s prohibition of eating from a certain tree supplied a context for humankind to mature in wisdom (Gen 2:17; cf. 3:5). The first couple disobeyed, and the result was that God cursed the world and marked certain creatures as unclean (7:2–3). Originally, the clean-unclean distinction appears to have only guided sacrifices (8:20; 9:3–4). However, it eventually served to distinguish God’s people from the nations (Lev 20:25–26). Either way, it was vital within Israel’s religious life (10:10).

Unclean creatures shared some commonality with the serpent’s curse or death-causing activities. Because Israel’s neighbors were the serpent’s offspring (see Gen 3:15), the meaning Israel associated with unclean animals paralleled God’s perspective of the nations. Accordingly, Yahweh’s prohibition against eating unclean animals symbolically distinguished Israel from its neighbors. It also allowed Israel to point the world to Yahweh as the only Savior who could overcome curse with blessing (Gen 12:3; 22:18).

2. Determine the Theological Importance of Leviticus 20:25–26

God is holy, and all should see and celebrate this. John Hartley notes that, within the old covenant, dietary restrictions “made the Israelites conscious at every meal that they were to order their lives to honor the holy God with whom they were in covenant.” So, for example, the prohibition against eating pork served to heighten the Israelites’ awe of Yahweh and to distinguish them from those outside the covenant.

With the progression of salvation history, however, Jesus has declared “all foods clean” (Mark 7:19). Accordingly, it is not what goes into peoples’ mouths but what comes out of their hearts that defiles them (7:18–23). Similarly, the Lord gave Peter a vision of unclean animals, commanded him to “kill and eat,” and then asserted, “What God has made clean, do not call common” (Acts 10:10–15). This instruction proved to Peter that God was now welcoming any from the nations who would fear and obey him (10:34–35).

Within the original OT context, then, loving one’s neighbor by not eating unclean food means that Israel was to display God’s holy animosity toward sin and the curse even in their diet.

3. Summarize the Lasting Significance of Leviticus 20:25–26

When considering how eating today relates to loving our neighbors, we must view it from two angles. First, love of neighbor means that those who are strong in faith and who feel free to eat anything must be careful not to cause those who are weaker in faith and who choose to abstain from certain foods to stumble. As Paul writes, “Food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. But take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak” (1 Cor 8:8–9; cf. Rom 14:2, 13–15).

Second, love of neighbor means that we will not stop proclaiming that Christ has triumphed on our behalf, opening the door for all peoples to stand reconciled to him. One way we can do this is by eating creatures God once prohibited. Whereas old-covenant believers abstained from these foods to proclaim and mirror God’s holiness, new-covenant believers today can partake of them for the same purposes (1 Cor 10:31). Within this framework, bacon is victory food!

A Note on the Hebrew Roots Movement

For centuries, many Jewish followers of Christ have chosen to follow Jewish customs like eating kosher food, worshiping on Saturday, and welcoming the Sabbath with a traditional ceremony and meal. They recognize this as a free choice, not as an obligation to Moses’s law or rabbinic tradition. And Paul would bless this practice, especially if the intent is to see more Jews saved (see 1 Cor 9:20).

However, there is a growing “Hebrew Roots” movement whose primarily Gentile devotees claim Jesus’s followers need to return to their Messiah’s roots by keeping as much of the OT law as possible without the temple. While they verbally affirm that justification before God is by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus alone, they teach that all believers are still bound to keep the Mosaic law.

Reflecting on this movement in light of Scripture, we can say that Hebrew Roots advocates are, at best, passing undue judgment on fellow believers (Rom 14:3) and, at worst, failing to appreciate the changes that Christ brought in salvation history (Gal 3:1–5). Whether dealing with food (2:11–14), holy days (4:10), or circumcision (5:2), all who require obedience to the law as if Christ has not come are seeking to “submit again to a yoke of slavery” (5:1). We cannot keep the whole law (5:3), so we must trust Christ, who has fulfilled the law for and through his elect as we live lives of love by the Spirit (Rom 5:18; 8:3–4; 13:8–10).

¹Michael V. Fox, “The Sign of the Covenant: Circumcision in the Light of Priestly ’ôt Etiologies, Revue biblique 81 (1974): 562–63.

²J. E. Hartley, “Holy and Holiness, Clean and Unclean,” in Dictionary of the Old Testament: Pentateuch, ed. T. Desmond Alexander and David W. Baker (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2003), 429.

This blog series summarizes Jason S. DeRouchie’s forthcoming book, Delighting in the Old Testament: Through Christ and for Christ (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2024). You can pre-order your copy here.

“Keep All His Commandments” (Deut 30:8)

Having evaluated how the Bible relates OT law to Christians and having considered some of the errors and dangers in alternative approaches, the discussion below overviews a three-step process for applying OT law today. It then supplies two case studies on commands that Christ’s new-covenant law maintains with extension and without extension.

A Method for Applying OT Law

The following three-step process will help believers faithfully assess through Christ and for Christ the lasting significance of Moses’s law today.

1. Establish the Law’s Original Meaning and Application

a. Categorize the Type of Law:

What type or kind of command are you assessing—criminal, civil, family, cultic/ceremonial, or compassion law? At stake here is the law’s content, not form (e.g., apodictic vs. casuistic).

Table 1. Types of Laws by Content

b. Establish the Law’s Original Meaning and Significance:

Assess the makeup of the law in its original context. Clarify its social function and relative status. Is it central or peripheral to the dominant themes and objectives we find in the rest of the material? Is it a primary expression of Yahweh’s values and priorities, or is it more secondary, reinforcing and supplying an example of a more primary law?

c. Consider the Law’s Original Purpose:

What role did Yahweh intend the law to have in Israelite society? Ask the following: Who? What? When? Where? Why? How? How often? To what extent?

2. Determine the Law’s Theological Importance

a. Clarify What the Law Tells Us about God:

What does the law disclose about Yahweh’s character, desires, values, concerns, or standards? We learn about the unchanging God through his law, and meditating on Moses’s law should move us to worship the Lord and to recognize and grieve over lawlessness as a direct affront to his person. It should also move us to celebrate his provision of Christ as the perfect law keeper and righteousness supplier.

b. Evaluate How Christ Fulfills the Law and Consider Its Impact on Application:

Christ’s person, teaching, and work display the call to love God and neighbor, and Jesus fulfills the law not only in the way he perfectly obeyed it but also in the way that he is the substance of all old-covenant shadows (Col 2:16–17). As we consider how Moses’s law informs the law of Christ, some new-covenant instructions look identical to Moses’s teaching, whereas others are maintained with extension, transformed, or annulled. Because the various types of laws are mixed in the Torah, we must deal with each law on its own.

c. State the Love Principle behind the Law:

If indeed love is what God called the people to do and all the other commandments clarify how to do it (Matt 7:12; 22:37–40; Rom 13:8, 10; Gal 5:14), we should be able to boil down every law into a principle of love. In detail, complete the following statement for every law: The call to love God/neighbor means/implies/impacts/necessitates _______________.

3. Summarize the Law’s Lasting Significance

Here we preserve both the portrait of God and the love principle behind the law but change the context, all in view of Christ’s work. God’s nature is unchanging, but his purposes progress over time. Furthermore, a proper approach to OT law must account for the pattern Christ set for believers and the power he supplies through his victory and his Spirit.

Case Study #1: The Law Maintained with Extension

Our first example of applying Moses’s law is a “slow-pitch, easy-hitter.” It illustrates how some laws get extended into new spheres as times and cultures change.

Table 3. Deuteronomy 22:8

1. Establish the Original Meaning and Application of Deuteronomy 22:8

Flat roofs are common throughout the Middle East, as the roof supplies an extra living space. A parapet is the low wall that surrounds the roof and that protects people from falling off. Hence, a homeowner needs to build his house with a parapet to guard against another’s death. The law’s conditional nature suggests it stands as a secondary application of the more fundamental principle of compassion. Its main purpose was to prevent domestic casualties brought about by mishap or negligence.

2. Determine the Theological Importance of Deuteronomy 22:8

God treasures when humans display his image, and he calls his people to value those made in his image. In Deuteronomy 22:8, Yahweh graciously warns against dangers that could result in injury to others. Similarly, the “golden rule” that Christ advocated (Matt 7:12) is evident in our passage, and it requires that Christ’s followers today love others in the most practical of ways, including how we ready our living space for guests. Hence, the call to love others means we will remove potential dangers and make our living environment safe.

3. Summarize the Lasting Significance of Deuteronomy 22:8

All homeowners bear the responsibility to care for their guests’ well-being. While many societies do not have houses with parapets, Deuteronomy 22:8 is naturally extended to include, say, building a fence around a pool, placing a protective gate above a stairwell, or salting a sidewalk after an ice storm. Love for neighbor is to impact even the littlest details of daily life.

Case Study #2: The Law Maintained without Extension

Much of the world is amid a gender-identity crisis, and the brokenness it is causing is tragic. When read through the lens of Jesus, Deuteronomy 22:5 speaks to this issue.

Table 4. Deuteronomy 22:5

1. Establish the Original Meaning and Application of Deuteronomy 22:5

We should note three features about this prohibition. First, given its use of géber (“man”) rather than ’îš (“man, husband”), the prohibition is not restricted to husbands and wives but includes the broader society. Second, certain articles of clothing, such as a man’s “garment” (ḵ^elî) and a woman’s “cloak” (śimlâ), distinguished men and women in Israelite culture. And third, the fact that cross-dressing is an “abomination” highlights the gravity of the offense and associates it with idolatry (Deut 13:14; 17:4), witchcraft (18:12), and dishonest gain (25:16), which could relate to criminal, civil, or family law.

In this light, Deuteronomy 22:5 appears less a core principle and more a secondary application of more fundamental truths—that there are two biological sexes (male and female) and that one’s biological sex should govern one’s gender identity and expression. As for the purpose of the law, it appears to maintain divinely created gender distinctions.

2. Determine the Theological Importance of Deuteronomy 22:5

Yahweh is passionate about displaying right order in his world. This is the essence of his righteousness, and maintaining gender distinctions is an important part of this order. Moreover, Christ and his apostles continued to distinguish men from women. Indeed, Jesus perfectly exemplified maleness in the way he deeply respected femaleness (see, e.g., Matt 5:27–32; Mark 5:25–43; Luke 7:36–8:3; John 7:53–8:11). In addition, gender distinctions will continue at least until the consummation (Eph 5:22–33; 1 Tim 3:4–5), and even if earthly marriage will end (Matt 22:30), there is no reason to think that gender distinctions will alter in the new heavens and new earth (cf. Rev 21:24).

According to Deuteronomy 22:5, then, loving others and God means that people will maintain a gender identity that aligns with their biological sex and that they will express their gender in a way that never leads to confusion.

3. Summarize the Lasting Significance of Deuteronomy 22:5

Deuteronomy 22:5 helps us recognize the appropriate path for gender expression and the sinfulness of gender confusion, which includes cross-dressing and transgender practice. Western culture still distinguishes men’s and women’s clothing, even if women can at times wear slacks, collars, and ties with no one questioning their femaleness. What was at stake in Moses’s law was gender confusion, and it is from this perspective that our outward apparel matters.

Because Deuteronomy 22:5 focuses on adults and addresses gender confusion, it would not directly dissuade a girl from sporting a mustache in a play or a boy putting on a girl’s dress at home. No viewer of this “child’s play” would be confused regarding the child’s gender. Nevertheless, we must be cautious, because we are always shaping our children, and we live in a society that acts as though gender is a matter of choice rather than providence. This perspective is abominable, and Deuteronomy 22:5 speaks directly against it.

In closing, I call the church to care deeply for the violators and the violated in the present gender-identity crisis. We need to help those struggling with identity to find a new identity in Christ, and we need to help those who have been hurt to find the healing that only Jesus brings. He alone is Savior. He alone is Healer.

¹What follows is abridged from Jason S. DeRouchie, “Confronting the Transgender Storm: New Covenant Reflections on Deuteronomy 22:5,” Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood 21, no. 1 (2016): 58–69.

This blog series summarizes Jason S. DeRouchie’s forthcoming book, Delighting in the Old Testament: Through Christ and for Christ (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2024). You can pre-order your copy here.

“We Uphold the Law” (Rom 3:31)

This post considers alternative proposals to how Moses’s law relates to Christians. It first tackles the common distinction between moral, civil, and ceremonial law, and then it confronts three dangerous approaches to the law that followers of Christ must avoid.

Assessing the Threefold Division of the Law

Historically, many evangelicals have identified three theological categories of laws when considering the contemporary importance of Moses’s instruction:

• Moral laws—ethical principles that are eternally applicable, regardless of covenant
• Civil laws—applications of the moral law to Israel’s political and social structures
• Ceremonial laws—symbolic requirements related to religious rituals and cult worship

Many covenant theologians believe that the moral laws remain binding on Christians today, whereas the civil and ceremonial laws are no longer applicable. In contrast, Christian reconstructionists assert that, because civil laws apply moral laws situationally, they too carry over through Christ and are to guide all nations and states (not just the church).

While these approaches helpfully celebrate Christ as the substance of all OT shadows (Col 2:16–17; Heb 8:5–7) and that his coming alters some laws more than others, neither model satisfies the biblical testimony concerning Moses’s law. Against both approaches, the previous post argued that none of the Mosaic covenant is directly binding on Christians today (Rom 10:4; 1 Cor 9:20–21; Gal 3:24–25) but that all of it is still significant as revelation, prophecy, and wisdom when mediated through Christ (Matt 5:17–19). Furthermore, Scripture views all the law as a single entity, all the law to be moral in nature, and all the law to have devotional benefit for believers.

The Law as a Singular Entity

The OT identifies types of laws based on content, but it never distinguishes laws in the way the threefold division proposes. Leviticus 19, for example, shows little distinction between laws, mixing calls to love one’s neighbor (vv. 11–12, 17–18) with various commands related to family (vv. 3a, 29), worship (vv. 3b–8, 26–28, 30–31), business (vv. 9–10, 13b, 19a, 23–25, 34b–36), care (vv. 9–10, 13–14, 33–34), disputes (vv. 15–16, 35a), and rituals (v. 19b).

Furthermore, the NT regularly speaks of the law as a unit. In Romans 13:9, for instance, the call to love one’s neighbor synthesizes not just a group of moral laws but every commandment, including the proposed civil and ceremonial legislation. Jesus and James, too, spoke broadly of the law (Matt 5:19; Jas 2:10). Paul stressed that the law brought curse to all (Gal 3:10), that we are no longer under the law-covenant in Christ (3:24–25), and that “every man who accepts circumcision … is obligated to keep the whole law” (5:3). 

The “Moral” Nature of All Laws

Christian reconstructionists are correct to note that the “civil” laws illustrate moral principles worked out in Israelite culture. To this we can add that the “ceremonial” laws demonstrate moral elements through symbolism and that even the Ten Commandments, often deemed the premier example of moral law, contain many culturally bound features:

• The prologue identifies Israel as a people redeemed from Egyptian slavery (Deut 5:6).
• The idolatry command assumes a religious system including carved images (5:8).
• The Sabbath command presumes ancient Near Eastern bond service, geographically limited animals, and cities with gates (5:14).

This list should caution those who want to distinguish civil or ceremonial laws from moral because of their temporal boundedness.

The Benefit of All OT Law

Most theologians espousing the threefold division of the law affirm the lasting value of all Scripture. However, this division has led many to see the Book of the Covenant (Exod 21–23) and Leviticus as having little lasting relevance. Yet Jesus and Paul affirmed Exodus’s prohibitions against reviling parents (Matt 15:4) and leaders (Acts 23:5), Paul drew pastoral insight from Leviticus’s instructions on temple service (1 Cor 9:13–14), and Peter called believers to holiness because God called for it in Leviticus (1 Pet 1:15–17). “All Scripture … is profitable” for Christians (2 Tim 3:16), and we align most closely with the Bible when we emphasize how the entire law still matters for Christians, though not all in the same way.

Dangerous Applications of OT Law

Before learning how to apply Moses’s law through Jesus and supplying some extended case studies (in future posts), we must consider three destructive approaches to OT law: (1) legalism, (2) antinomianism, and (3) anti-OT thought.

Legalism

Legalism is operative when people trust in their own doing to enjoy right standing with God (Luke 18:9; Gal 3:3). Foundational to the very nature of the old-covenant law was Yahweh’s claim, “If a person does them [i.e., my statutes and rules], he shall live by them” (Lev 18:5). Because God gave the law to a mostly unregenerate people, their pursuit of righteousness by works and not by faith resulted in their ruin (Rom 7:10; 9:30–32).

Foundational to all Reformation doctrine is that justification before God comes by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. And we become legalists if we ever ground our justification in anything other than Christ’s perfect obedience alone. “Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous” (5:18–19).

Antinomianism

In the NT, nomos is the Greek term for “law,” so antinomian means “no law.” Antinomians, then, are those who claim that God’s rules need not influence Christians’ daily ethics. In contrast, Paul stressed that he was not “outside the law of God but under the law of Christ” (1 Cor 9:21) and that what counts is neither circumcision nor uncircumcision but “keeping the commandments of God” (7:19).

Long ago, the Westminster theologians highlighted, “Faith, thus receiving and resting on Christ and his righteousness, is the alone instrument of justification: yet it is not alone in the person justified, but is ever accompanied with all other saving graces, is no dead faith, but worketh by love.” It is from this framework that, after forgiving the sin of the woman caught in adultery, Jesus commanded, “Go, and from now on sin no more” (John 8:11). Similarly, Peter urged, “As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy’” (1 Pet 1:14–16). Clearly, antinomianism is not an option for Christians.

Anti-OT Thought

In his book Irresistible, Andy Stanley claims that one of the church’s greatest problems today is “our incessant habit of reaching back into the old covenant concepts, teachings, sayings, and narratives.” He stresses that we should call the OT the “Hebrew Bible” and the NT the “Christian Bible,” even warning against too quickly finding Christ in the OT, lest we be among those who have “hijacked” the Jewish Scriptures by “ignoring the original context” and by “retrofitting them as Christian Scripture.” Stanley also assumes that none of Moses’s law matters today: “Thou shalt not obey the Ten Commandments,” he says.

Stanley rightly affirms that Christians are part of the new covenant, not the old, and that Christ stands as the end of old-covenant worship laws. Nevertheless, he overlooks the fact that Jesus maintains some laws and transforms others. Stanley also overlooks the facts that Jesus and Paul’s only Bible was what we call the OT, that they saw it pointing to the Messiah and his work (Luke 24:44–47; Acts 26:22–23), and that they recognized the whole OT to be Christian Scripture (Rom 15:4; 1 Cor 10:11; 1 Pet 1:12). Stanley treats the OT as if Jesus came to “abolish” rather than “fulfill” it (Matt 5:17), and he fails to help people understand how the initial three-fourths of Christian Scripture is “profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Tim 3:16).

Summary

Many Christians distinguish between moral, civil, and ceremonial laws and then view only the moral or only the moral and civil as applying to Christians. Both approaches miss that no old-covenant legislation directly binds believers today, that all of Moses’s law still serves Christians through Jesus, but only in so far as he maintains, transforms, or annuls the various laws. While principles of love and justice in Moses’s law also carry over into governments today, Christ’s law binds the church and not the state. Finally, legalism, antinomianism, and the view that the OT no longer applies to Christians are all dangerous teachings, for they compromise Christ’s saving work.

¹David A. Dorsey, “The Law of Moses and the Christian: A Compromise,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 34 (1991): 330.

²Westminster Confession of Faith 11.2.

₃Andy Stanley, Irresistible: Reclaiming the New That Jesus Unleashed for the World (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2018), 90.

₄Stanley, Irresistible, 280.

⁵Stanley, Irresistible, 156.

₆Stanley, Irresistible, 136.

This blog series summarizes Jason S. DeRouchie’s forthcoming book, Delighting in the Old Testament: Through Christ and for Christ (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2024). You can pre-order your copy here.

“Not under Law” (Rom 6:14):

How does the OT law apply to Christians when so much has changed with Christ’s coming, not least of which is that we are part of the new covenant and not the old? With a simple alliteration, Brian Rosner has captured well three principles that clarify the Christian’s relationship to the Mosaic law. The biblical authors repudiate the old Mosaic law-covenant, replace Moses’s law with the law of Christ, and then reappropriate the law of Moses through Christ.

1. Biblical Authors Repudiate the Mosaic Law-Covenant

By God’s purposes, the Mosaic law multiplied transgression (Rom 5:20; Gal 3:19), exposed sin (Rom 3:20), and brought wrath (4:15) to show that “one is justified by faith apart from works of the law” (3:28). Christians repudiate the Mosaic law-covenant, “for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes” (10:4). “The law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian” (Gal 3:24–25). Thus, as the author of Hebrews declared: “In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away” (Heb 8:13). “The law made nothing perfect” (7:19), but in Christ we find a “better hope” (7:19), a “better covenant” (7:22), “better promises” (8:6), “better sacrifices” (9:23), “better possession” (10:34), a “better country” (11:16), a “better life” (11:35), and a “better word” (12:24).

2. Biblical Authors Replace Moses’s Law with the Law of Christ

Moses knew that Israel’s system of worship was merely symbolic, suggesting that it would become obsolete when shadow moved to substance (Exod 25:9, 40; Zech 3:8–9; 6:12–13). Moses also affirmed the need for a better covenant––one in which Yahweh would accomplish for Israel what he did not accomplish with Moses (Deut 29:4; 30:6, 8). Furthermore, the prophets longed for the day when God would teach every member of the blood-bought community (Isa 54:13), write his law on their hearts (Jer 31:33), and cause them to walk in his statutes (Ezek 36:27). All these hopes have been realized through Christ’s person and work (John 6:44–45; Rom 2:14–15; 8:3–4; Col 2:16–17).

As Christians, our “release from the law” (Rom 7:6; cf. 6:14) in part means that the Mosaic law is no longer the direct authority and immediate judge of the conduct of God’s people. The age of the Mosaic law-covenant has come to an end in Christ (10:4), so the law itself has ceased from having a central and determinative role among God’s people (2 Cor 3:4–18; Gal 3:15–4:7). As a written legal code, not one of the 613 stipulations in the Mosaic law-covenant is directly binding on Christians. Instead, we are bound by the law of Christ (1 Cor 9:20–21; Gal 6:2), which is summarized in the call to love our neighbor and which James refers to as the perfect law (Jas 1:25).

3. Biblical Authors Reappropriate Moses’s Law through Christ

While the NT authors highlight the Mosaic law’s condemning nature and stress that believers are now under the law of Christ, they also apply OT laws to Christians based on Christ’s justifying and sanctifying work (e.g., Eph 6:2–3; 1 Tim 5:17–18; 1 Pet 1:15–16). As an illustration, in Romans 13:8–10, Paul urges believers, in view of God’s mercies shown in Christ (Rom 12:1; cf. chaps. 1–11), to fulfill the law by loving others. In this passage, Paul cites four commands associated with the Ten Commandments that focus directly on valuing God’s image in others. Yet by adding “any other commandment,” he shows that love fulfills all Moses’s directives, even those beyond the Decalogue.

Although Moses’s law does not directly bind Christians legally, we do not throw out the law itself. As Moses himself foresaw, God’s people would turn and “obey the voice of the Lord and keep all his commandments” in the day of heart circumcision (Deut 30:8). Along with repudiating the old covenant and replacing its law with the law of Christ, then, Christians must reappropriate Moses’s instruction (1) as a testimony to God’s character and values, (2) as prophecy that anticipates the gospel of Jesus, and (3) as wisdom intended to guide new-covenant saints in our pursuit of God.

Moses’s Law Reveals God’s Character and Values

The Mosaic law expresses God’s character. Yahweh asserted, “You shall … be holy, for I am holy” (Lev 19:2), and the way Israel would fulfill this charge was by heeding God’s words (Exod 19:5–6; Num 15:40). Paul stressed that the law is “the embodiment of knowledge and truth” (Rom 2:20) and that “the commandment is holy, righteous, and good” (7:12). Peter, too, asserted, “As he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy’” (1 Pet 1:15–16). Moses’s law signals what Yahweh values and hates, what he delights in and detests. Christians learn about the character of God through Moses’s law, and this in turn can clarify what it means to image him faithfully (Gen 1:26–28).

Moses’s Law Anticipates the Gospel concerning Christ

Jesus stressed that he came not “to abolish the Law and the Prophets” but “to fulfill them” (Matt 5:17). By “fulfill,” he meant in part that he supplies the end-times actualization of all the OT predicted. Thus, “all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John” (Matt 11:13), and the very “gospel of God … concerning his Son” was “promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures” (Rom 1:1–3). Jesus stood as the goal and end of the OT’s hopes, pictures, and patterns.

As the last Adam (1 Cor 15:45), the representative of Israel (Isa 49:1–6; Matt 21:9; Luke 1:32–33), the true Passover lamb (John 1:29; 1 Cor 5:7), and the true temple (John 2:21), Christ is the substance of all old-covenant shadows (Col 1:16–17; Heb 8:5; 10:1). His role as teacher and covenant mediator also fulfills Moses’s own hopes for a covenant-mediating “prophet” like him––one who would know God face to face, who would perform great wonders, and to whom people would listen (Deut 18:15–19; 34:10–12; cf. Luke 7:16; Acts 3:22–26).

Moses’s Law Guides Christians in Love and Wise Living

The “law of Christ” that we live out (Isa 42:4; 1 Cor 9:21) is the law of love as fulfilled and taught by Jesus, which is the end-times realization of Moses’s law. Jesus said that “all the Law and the Prophets” depend on the commands to love God and neighbor (Matt 22:37–40). Paul added that “the whole law is fulfilled in one word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Gal 5:14). Significantly, every commandment, not just a “moral” subset of the law, is fulfilled in the call to love (Rom 13:8–10).

In both the old and new covenants, then, love is what God’s people are to do. All the other commandments simply clarify how to do it. From this perspective, while the Mosaic law does not directly or immediately guide Christians, it does show us how deeply and pervasively we should love God and neighbor.

Four Ways Christ Fulfills Moses’s Law

As discussed in the previous post, Jesus is the lens that clarifies how to rightly appropriate the law of Moses, and he alone supplies the power to obey it. When Moses’s instruction is viewed through this lens (see fig. 1), some laws appear unchanged, whereas others hit the lens and get “bent” in various ways. Jesus’s coming maintains (with and without extension), transforms, and annuls various laws.

Figure 1. The Law’s Fulfillment through the Lens of Christ

Another way to grasp how Christians should relate to OT law is to visualize two riverbanks separated at varying distances by water (see fig. 2). The two sides symbolize the old- and new-covenant laws, and Jesus is the “bridge” over which we must move from one side to the other. Our distance from the Mosaic legislation changes depending on the nature of the law in question. Thus, some laws (e.g., prohibitions against murder and adultery) are so similar that the distance seems almost nonexistent, but other laws (e.g., relating to food laws and the Sabbath) disclose substantial distance.

Figure 2. The Law’s Fulfillment over the Bridge of Christ

Summary

Jesus and the NT authors repudiate the Mosaic law-covenant, replace Moses’s law with the law of Christ, and reappropriate Moses’s law through Christ. They do this to give us glimpses of God’s character and to guide believers in wisdom and love. None of Moses’s law is directly binding on God’s people today in a legal or regulatory way (Rom 7:4; Gal 3:24–25), but it continues to impact us through Christ in both revelatory and pedagogical ways. Christ is like a lens, and through him (and his NT revelation) we can discern whether he maintains, transforms, or annuls any given law.

 ¹Brian S. Rosner, Paul and the Law: Keeping the Commandments of God, NSBT 31 (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2013), 208–9, 217–22.

 ²Tom Wells and Fred G. Zaspel, New Covenant Theology: Description, Definition, Defense (Frederick, MD: New Covenant Media, 2002), 115. 

This blog series summarizes Jason S. DeRouchie’s forthcoming book, Delighting in the Old Testament: Through Christ and for Christ (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2024). You can pre-order your copy here.