For a while now I’ve wanted to write a bit about the law of Moses and address some confusions that are common in the church around what of the Old Testament should still be obeyed and what shouldn’t, or whether the whole thing has been done away with.
Theology defines how we see God and how we respond to Him. It will either bring us closer to God in our understanding and in experience, or it will keep us apart. Either it will lead us to rest and enjoy, or to strive and compete. For this reason having one’s mind renewed with sound theology is really important.
How Christians understand and relate to the Old Testament is particularly vital in how they understand law and grace, and God’s expectations towards them. If we hold onto any obligations to earn righteousness, we will frame our understanding of God along those lines. God is either a Father who gives His acceptance, salvation, provision and protection along grounds that are entirely unmerited or entirely merited. There is no middle ground – we don’t receive God’s acceptance in some things for free and in other things through achievement. He must be either completely accepting on the grounds of grace through the work of the Holy Spirit in us, or He must be completely demanding on the grounds of our own performance according to works that earn his acceptance.
The Old Testament as it was given in the form of Pentateuch, the poets, prophets and histories, is an agreement given specifically to the Jews, for a spicific time period and is completely based on mans attempt to earn acceptance and attain righteousness. It was not an ideal system, but rather one given as punishment. We will see that it was both a curse and an expression of God’s wrath on the Jews. It nullified faith by promoting obedience to works and was completely inadequate to perfect men, while being utterly bankrupt to help them attain salvation.
Of course there was always a remnant among Israel that attained to salvation through faith, but it was the minority. The great stumbling block of the Jews, righteousness by faith alone, kept and keeps many from entering in to God’s rest. My hope is that as I dissect the law here, it will help free others who might be caught up in obligation and self-effort, or those just generally confused about the law and grace and what we are expected to keep or not keep in the New Testament church.
NOTES ON THE LAW
It has three divisions with separate functions
1. The written law: The written commandments that comprise the Pentateuch. The Prophets being a further expression of the written law
2. The tabernacle: The physical meeting place of God and man. Later the temple.
3. The priesthood: The descendants of Levi who served as Priests and Levites at the tabernacle. Only those descended from Aaron could be Priests, all others served the priests as Levites or ‘temple assistants’.
The written law has three parts
1. Moral law: describing acceptable morality and punishments for transgression
2. Social Law: describing acceptable social behaviour and punishments for transgression
3. Ceremonial Law: describing acceptable ceremonial practices for the priests/Levites at the tabernacle and punishments for transgression.
The tabernacle has three parts
1. The most holy place: Where the Holy Spirit dwelt and only the High Priest could enter
2. The inner court: Where the ceremonial items were kept, accessed by priests
3. The outer court: Where sacrifices were made, accessed by Levites.
The priesthood has three divisions
1. The high priest
2. The priests
3. The Levites
The Law is also known in the New Testament as
1. Covenant of the letter (2 Cor 3:6)
2. Ministry of death (2 Cor 3:7)
3. Ministry of condemnation (2 Cor 3:9)
4. Law of sin and death (Rom 8:2)
Why was it given?
1. To punish on-going rebellion and hard heartedness of the Jews – it exists for rebellious lawbreakers, not the righteous.
Gal 3:19 Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions
Mar 10:5 “It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law,”
1Ti 1:9 We also know that the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels..
2. To identify sin and magnify it in men by arousing sinful passions
Rom 3:20b for through the law comes the knowledge of sin.
Rom 5:20 But law came in, with the result that the trespass multiplied…
Rom 7:5 the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in us, so that we bore fruit for death…
Rom 7:13 It was sin, working death in me through what is good (law), in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.
3. To make the Jews realise their own powerlessness to overcome sin in their flesh by their own effort
Rom 7:16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. 17 But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. Rom 7:19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.
Gal 3:12 But the law does not rest on faith; on the contrary, “Whoever does the works of the law will live by them.”
4. To thus show that righteousness cannot come through the law
Rom 3:20a For “no human being will be justified in his sight” by deeds prescribed by the law..
Rom 9:31 but Israel, who did strive for the righteousness that is based on the law, did not succeed in fulfilling that law.
Gal 2:16 yet we know that a person is justified not by the works of the law… Gal 3:21 (for) if a law had been given that could make alive, then righteousness would indeed come through the law.
5. To bring a curse upon all who attempted to find righteousness through works
Gal 3:10 For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who does not observe and obey all the things written in the book of the law.”
Gal 3:13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us–for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”..
Paul indicates that the curse can be understood as a hardening of the Jews hearts and minds through the law towards salvation by faith rather than through pride and self-effort, which in turn leads to spiritual death.
2Co 3:14 But their minds (Jews) were hardened. Indeed, to this very day, when they hear the reading of the old covenant, that same veil is still there, since only in Christ is it set aside. 15 Indeed, to this very day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their minds…
2Co 4:3 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.
6. To bring judgement and justice (wrath)
Rom 4:14 For if those who depend on the law are heirs, faith means nothing and the promise is worthless, 15 for the law brings wrath.
The love of God dictates the justice of God which is ultimately expressed through judgement. This judgement is both past, present and future. The law then is a judgement, a curse and an expression of God’s past and present wrath on those who seek to fulfil it.
7. To hold the world accountable to a clearer revelation of God’s nature and character
Rom 3:19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced, and the whole world may be held accountable to God.
8. To hold the Jews in custody as a guardian or schoolmaster until Christ was revealed i.e. pointing them to God and instructing them in His ways. It also protected the faith of the remnant and the Jewish culture.
Gal 3:23 Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. 24 Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith.
Rom 2:20 having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth..
9. To be a shadow and type of good things to come
Heb 10:1 Since the law has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered year after year, make perfect those who approach.
Jer 31:31 The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 32 It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt–a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD. 33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 No longer shall they teach one another (to conform to a set of law), or say to each other, “Know the LORD,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.
New Testament writings on the Law
Jesus said of the law;
Luk 16:16 The Law and the Prophets were proclaimed until John. Since that time, the good news of the kingdom of God is being preached, and everyone is forcing their way into it.
Jesus being a Jew himself was subject to the law, and he obeyed it according to the spirit of the law rather than the letter (see Jer 31:31), while preaching the kingdom that had and was to come. In my opinion the Old Testament period or ‘dispensation’ ended on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit was poured out on the disciples. I say this because the law was given on the same day about one and a half thousand years before (Pentecost being the feast that commemorated the giving of the Pentateuch to Moses), and the whole symbolism of the Spirit being poured out on this day was to show the superiority of and replacement by the Spirit over the Law.
Much confusion has arisen regarding Jesus statement in Mat 5:17-18, “Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to abolish but to fulfil it. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.”
Many Christian’s use this as justification for keeping parts of the law. The Greek word here translated abolish is ‘kataluo’; to destroy, tear down or overthrow. Jesus is contrasting the pulling down of the law against fulfilling it, and he did indeed fulfill it completely through living a righteous, perfect life.
Use of the word abolish in Mat 5:18 isn’t really a good choice though (it is better translated destroy) because Paul uses a different Greek word ‘Katargeo’ at times translated abolished or set aside four times in regard to the law, once in regards to death (2 Tim 1:10) and once in regard to the offense of the cross (Gal 5:11). Naturally having Jesus say that he didn’t come to abolish the law and having Paul say that it has been, causes confusion.
Eph 2:15 He has abolished (katargeo) the law with its commandments and ordinances…
2Co 3:6 who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of letter but of spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. 7 Now if the ministry of death, chiselled in letters on stone tablets, came in glory so that the people of Israel could not gaze at Moses’ face because of the glory of his face, a glory now set aside (katargeo), 8 how much more will the ministry of the Spirit come in glory? 9 For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, much more does the ministry of justification abound in glory! 10 Indeed, what once had glory has lost its glory because of the greater glory; 11 for if what was set aside (katargeo) came through glory, much more has the permanent come in glory! 12 Since, then, we have such a hope, we act with great boldness, 13 not like Moses, who put a veil over his face to keep the people of Israel from gazing at the end of the glory that was being set aside (katargeo).
However if we understand that not only did Jesus fulfill the law, it is also fulfilled in each believer who lives by the spirit and loves others as himself (see below), then the law is indeed abolished and set aside as no longer necessary for us who are in Jesus.
Rom 8:2 through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
Mat 22:37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
Rom 13:8 Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law… 10 Love does no harm to a neighbour. Therefore love is the fulfilment of the law.
Two other interesting comments by Paul on the law ending for believers.
Rom 10:4 For Christ is the end of the law (conclusion/culmination) so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.
Rom 3:21 But now, apart from law (separate to), the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the law and the prophets…
Other conundrums around the law
Paul uses the same word Katargeo at one point to say something apparently contradictory to all his previous statements;
Rom 3:31 Do we, then, abolish the law by this faith? Of course not! Instead, we uphold the law.
Before this Paul writes..
Rom 3:28 we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works prescribed by the law. 29 Is God the God of the Jews only? Is he not the God of the gentiles, too? Yes, of the gentiles, too, 30 since there is only one God who will justify the circumcised on the basis of faith (alone) and the uncircumcised by that same faith.
Here Paul is arguing that the law is upheld because it has a purpose, namely pointing the Jews to faith in Jesus through the frustration and hardship that it brings on those seeking to fulfil it. It is a school master that still has work to do until all attain to faith in Jesus, or he returns. One can thus say that it remains in place for those still under it, but it is not only fulfilled in us who have the better promises, it has been abolished and set aside.
Another confusing scripture is Jesus statement that;
Mat 5:20 For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.
Jesus is not here teaching a prescription to works. That we have to labour until we are shown to be more righteous in acts than the Pharisees. Rather he is saying that we need a righteousness that is greater than anything established though human effort. We need a righteousness that is indeed not of human origin, but of God himself.
2Co 5:21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
An analogy on the law and life
Imagine a sealed container filled with water. The Jews rejected access to the living water directly, so God gave them a structure to contain his presence. Only as punishment they had limited access to the water they had so often discarded. It would at times be poured out lavishly on prophets and kings, but the common folk had to wait once a year in hope of drinking any. While the water was right there, the container could not be opened by human strength. In fact the more one tried, the more it hurt and the more frustrated one got and the more inclined people became to simply possess control over others access to the container. When Jesus came the water was poured out upon those who received it by faith alone, so much so that it was as if each believer became a vessel that filled to overflowing with the living water. Having been poured out, the container was no longer necessary to those who were now themselves vessels of the presence. For them it could be set aside or discarded because it had no more use. It had become an ‘old wineskin’.
Mat 9:17 Nor do people pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will spill out, and the skins will be ruined. Instead, they pour new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved.”
Should Christians then read the law at all and should we take anything from it?
As we have discussed faith does not nullify the law, rather it establishes it as true and perfect for its purpose which was and is the revealing of faith for salvation through the person of Jesus Christ to those under it. Also we have already noted that it is a shadow and type of what has come and so there is much in it of value to learn from, the key is not using it prescriptively as a manual requiring our obedience.
Spiritual and moral principles do indeed continue from the OT into the NT, but not as law. In the same way as a man might change citizenship from one country to another, he will still find similar underlying principles from his previous state in the new one, but he is entirely free and without obligation to his previous government.
The old is passed and the new has come. Jesus fulfilled the heart of the law and abolished the letter. Where the church still mixes law and grace the only result will be legalism. Fusion always leads to confusion.
The clear mechanism of the law is this; God expects me to be good in thought and actions and worthy through obiedience. If I am good and worthy He will accept me. If not He will punish/abondon me. I will thus work for His acceptance and live in the fear of falling short of His judgement. The good news of the Kingdom is that there is no scale that will one day balance our good and bad deeds at judgement. Grace accepts that we do not merit God’s love though our actions, nor can we be good enough to win God’s acceptance. It accepts our spiritual bankrupcy as the starting point, our absolute need for God to justify and cleanse us, and rests completely on God’s unmerited favour to love us anyway despite our failings. As we draw near to Him, so He transforms us with His love to become more like Him in nature and character. The foundation of grace is always intimacy, acceptance and love.
Where ever the church puts in place obligations that are not spiritual but worldly – that is to do with building the church and not releasing the kingdom – that is having to do ‘good’ things for God/the church/man because it is required, then the law of religion is in place and this inevitably results in conformity, hypocrisy, hurt and many times rebellion. Only actions that arise out of our own hearts desire to please God for loves sake, will bring true life.
I’ve seen all of these reactions to religion in my time as a Christian serving in different churches and as a pastor. I always fought to keep people free and hearing God for themselves. The law is based on obedience, grace only on love. If Christians focused on becoming intimate with Jesus and leaders encouraged their people to hear the voice of God for themselves, the need for obligation and law would be utterly done away with.
We respond to love and are designed for sincere relationships, not rules and cold conformity. Churches that want growth in numbers for the sake of finance and pristeige will typically lean on impersonal systems and events to manage members. Churches that want growth in the spiritual lives of their people will lean on giving people space to hear God and respond out of love, never compulsion or obligation, even if the result might not be in the best interest of the church organisation. Whenever the organisation becomes more important than the individual, we have lost touch with the Kingdom and God’s Father heart.
What about the Tithe?
The tithe is a Hebrew origin word which literally means ‘a tenth’. It was only ever referred to by Jesus in regard to those under the law, but never taught as a principle by him to his disciples, or ever mentioned by the Apostles in teaching, or ever seen in practice by the early church.
Rather both Jesus and the Apostles focused on the concept of giving with a generous heart, way and beyond the limiting tenth prescribed by the law. The New Testament is all about the heart – and a generous heart, free of the control of mammon, will always seek to give more than a tenth to the things of the kingdom. There are some who give most of their salary to kingdom activities, none more so than missionaries who commonly give all of their income to sustain the proclamation and demonstration of the kingdom, and often their health, freedom and even their lives too.
It saddens me when I hear Malachi 3 taught in churches. A scripture that blatantly proclaims the law, putting believers into a mind-set that not tithing is stealing from God, that He in turn will not bless us or protect us and be forced to keep us under a curse for our disobedience. What a bankrupt view of God’s love and father heart.
The other common argument I hear when I bring up the issue of tithing is that it pre dates the law. In particular it is first seen when Abraham tithes a tenth of his plunder to Melkizedek the priest of Salem (Gen 14:20). Yes this was before the law was given to Moses. But no it doesn’t mean that we must do likewise, as if this is a pattern we must now follow. Indeed the entire symbolism of this act seems to be misunderstood by the church.
Abraham is the ultimate head of the Levitical priesthood as Levi was Abraham’s descendant. Hebrews 7 establishes; 1. Jesus was not of the line of Levi and thus not eligible to be a Priest (Heb 7:14) 2. He was however a priest of the line of Melkizedek (Heb 7:17) 3. Melkizedek was greater than Abraham (Heb 7:7) 4. Levi tithed to Melkizedek through Abraham (Heb 7:9) 5. The livitical priesthood was powerless to make men perfect and needed to be superseded (Heb 7:11).
The whole incident of Abraham tithing to Melkizedek, rather than being a type for Christians to follow, is in fact a demonstration of the supremacy of Melkizedek’s priesthood (which was to come through Jesus) over the Levitical priesthood (which was to come through Abraham’s offspring). Melkizedek was tithed to, he himself did not tithe.
Christians are of the priesthood of Melkizedek of whom Jesus is the High Priest. We have nothing to do with the Levitical priesthood or its obligations. We have an entirely new priesthood and entirely new law – namely the law of the Spirit and Life (Rom 8:2).
Heb 7:12 For when there is a change in the priesthood, there is necessarily a change in the law as well.
Heb 8:6 But Jesus has now obtained a more excellent ministry, and to that degree he is the mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted through better promises.
Abraham set an example for the priesthood that literally followed from his loins. We are not connected to that priesthood or called to be part of those ‘mortal men who collect the tithe’ (Heb 7:8).
New Testament Christians then are under no obligation to tithe, nor is there justification to teach tithing in the New Testament context. To take any parts of the Old Testament and make them prescriptive, no matter how popular they may be in modern culture, be it tithing, the sabath or Jewish feasts for example, is to put ourselves back under bondage.
Paul addressed a very similar issue in regard to circumcision during the first century. His argument was that partaking in a part of the law obligates one to partake in the whole (salvation is either by works or faith), and further more it disqualifies us from the whole of that which is new.
Gal 5:1 For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.2 Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. 3 I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law.
Jesus’ illustration of the cloth is apt here;
Mat 9:16 No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch tears away from the garment, and a worse tear is made.
Partaking in any old testament law; moral, social or ceremonial is as indefensible in the New Testament context as holding onto every law, whether it’s stoning adulterers, or not wearing garments of mixed materials. To justify one and reject others is a logical error. Either we must reject all old testament law or accept all old testament law.
In conclusion I believe that tithing is still so popular today because churches need finance to function, and putting an obligation on church members to tithe ensures money comes in to pay the bills. If churches taught that God’s protection and blessing is not dependent on mans obedience to give a 10th of his money, it will set people free to know that God is not after their money, but their hearts.
Like the apostles did, let us leave old testament prescriptions behind us and teach generosity and obedience that arises from a man’s heart, out of love, and never from obedience to the law.