As I stated in my last post, due to my schedule being extremely busy, I'm going to be posting some assignments I've had to do for a class I'm taking and hope that you guys enjoy reading what will be a little bit more 'scholarly' than my normal posts. Well, I hope it ends up being scholarly, but I've been wrong before...
Anyway, in this current assignment I was tasked with exploring what the Christian's obligation is to the "Old Testament Law" by focusing on the words of Jesus, and finding a bridge between the old and new covenant. Here ya go...
The New Testament believer has a simple and yet complicated relationship with the Old Testament and the Torah of the LORD. Jesus consistently validated the law and the prophets. During His sermon on the mount He clarifies his view of the law by stating that His kingdom purpose is not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. He goes on to say that the law will not be done away with until both heaven and earth pass away. He consistently refers (and defers) to the law and the prophets to make His points (Matt 5:17-20; 12:11-12; 15:3-6; 23:1-36; Mark 7:6-13; 12:29-34; Luk 10:25-28; etc.). He goes even further than this, though, by saying that anyone who teaches people to not pursue the righteous dictates of the Father will be least in the kingdom (Matt 5:19). Still in the kingdom, to be sure, but least of all those who have made it into the kingdom.
The Christian must wrestle with all of this. Even when we revisit the Old Testament Scripture which prophesies the New Covenant which Jesus inaugurated (Jer 31:31-35, Luk 22:20) we read that the Law (Torah) of the LORD will be written on the hearts of the covenant people. If Jeremiah 31 is talking about the same new covenant that we have entered into as Christians then we have to expect that, as the context of Jeremiah would suggest, the Torah would be even more a part of our lives than it was under the old covenant because it will be written on our hearts and not on tablets of stone (2 Cor 3:3). The point of contention to Jesus, it would seem, was that the Israel had moved away from seeing the Torah from a heart viewpoint – which is how they were supposed to look at it (Deut 8:2) – and were viewing it as a moral code to be followed in order to gain salvation. More to the point, Jesus was concerned that they had made an idol of the Torah and replaced their worship of the Father with worship of the Scriptures (John 5:39). This New Testament will take those instructions off the tablets of stone and engrave them on the hearts of the people of LORD.
What the Christian must struggle with, then, is how that Torah has been translated on their heart. Does this mean that the Christian is bound to the old covenant as part of the new covenant? One thing is for certain, when authors in the New Testament defer to the supremacy of Scripture, they are almost always talking about the Old Testament. When Paul commends the Bereans for searching the Scriptures to look into the good news that Paul had brought to them, they were looking into the Old Testament. When Paul tells Timothy that all Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for doctrine, he was talking about the Old Testament. There is every reason to believe that the Old Testament should play a pivotal role in the New Testament believer’s life and what may be needed is an adjusting of how we look at the law. Carmen Imes put it this way:
Many Christians assume that in the Old Testament era the Israelites had to earn salvation by following the Sinai law, while Jesus did away with that notion, making salvation available for free. This is a terribly unfortunate caricature of the Old Testament, but it is easily resolved by taking a close look at the story.[1]
She goes on to point out that the Israelites were given their salvation from their bondage to slavery in Egypt before they ever received the law. Observance of the law was not the reason they received their salvation, they sought to obey the law because they were granted their salvation. In Romans 6:15 Paul makes a statement which calls back to something he said in 3:31, “What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!” (ESV). Paul’s issue seems to be the same issue that Jesus had when he took aim at the Pharisees for their attempting to earn their salvation through obedience to Torah. It’s a matter of the heart. The Christian is under grace but that doesn’t mean that they should be continuing in sin. With their allegiance given over to the true king of the earth, their hearts should be being molded into His heart. The hope is that the Christian does not sin, “But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” (1 John 2:1, ESV).
There is, however, grace. Through the gracious gift of God, the Christian’s debt has been paid and he is no longer held captive to the discipline which was to ensue due to his lawlessness. While the Christian is now no longer under condemnation, his response to God’s grace should be to want to obey God, with thanksgiving. Moo cuts to the point as far as the Christian’s obligation to the old covenant when he says, “Like a person who is free from the law of the state of Indiana because she has moved to Illinois, so Christians are free from the law of the old covenant because we now belong to the new covenant.”[2] This doesn’t, however, speak to whether the law of the new covenant, which will be written on the heart of the believer (Jer 31:33) being a different set of instructions than was instructed in the old covenant. It holds true that if there is a law which will be written on your heart, your desire will be to follow those instructions out of love for you Savior.
[1] Carmen J. Imes. 2019. Bearing God’s Name: Why Sinai Still Matters. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic. 11.
[2] Douglas J. Moo. 2000. The NIV Application Commentary: Romans. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan. 223.
