Laws and Covenants
In response to a request this blog post will deal with the question of if we as Christians are required to keep the Old Testament laws.
This is an issue that has been fairly divisive (but then in the church today what issue isn't?). Generally you have two extreme views on this topic, and then a spectrum in between those two extremes. On the one hand you have the legalists who believe that we must keep the old testament laws in order to be righteous. I have rarely met anyone who believed that keeping the old testament laws was a prerequisit for salvation, but there are quite a few people around who believe that if you want to live a righteous life, you must adhere to the Law.
On the other hand there are quite a few people who believe that the grace of God has swept away the law and we are no longer bound by commandments and rules. I have heard some of the more extreme people on this side of things use phrases like "you're not free from sin, until you're free to sin" and things like that.
Then of course there are plenty of people who fall in between those two extremes, leaning towards one side or the other, or possibly right in the middle.
In order to understand this issue, we have to grasp that what we are talking about here are covenants. Throughout the history of God's interactions with man he has dealt with man in terms of covenants, or what we might more commonly call them today, contracts. There are seven different covenants spoken of in the bible (at least that I'm aware of). Each of these covenants was made for a specific reason, with a person, or a group of people. Each one contains specific promises from God to man, and specific requirements made upon man by God.
As a side note, you may notice some similarity in this idea to dispensationalism, which breaks of the history of God's interactions with man into "dispensations" rather than "covenants". There are a couple of important differences. Dispensationalism tends to suggest that each dispensation applies to all humanity, and each one ends when the next one begins. This is nice and neat, but it doesn't really fit with the bible. Some of the covenants God made were with limited groups of people, some were with all people. Most of them have terms on which they would be fulfilled, and come to an end, but in most cases, they have overlapped in terms of time.
The seven covenants generally recognized in scripture are; the Adamic covenant, the Noahide covenant, the Abrahamic covenant, the Mosaic covenant, the Aaronic covenant, the Davidic covenant, and the New Covenant.
Throughout the bible refrences to "The Law" refer to the Mosaic covenant in which God gave a specific legal code to the Israelites and established their religion and worship as an organized, codified practice. Before we get to this I'm going to back through the other covenants and give a brief over-view of them.
Adamic covenant - This covenant was made by God with Adam at the creation. In this covenant God granted man dominion over the earth, and tasked man to be fruitful, multiply, and subdue the earth. Also contained here is the establishment of the husband and wife relationship. It is commonly stated that God performed the first wedding here and in a sense thats true. However, marriage is a human legal contract which is seperate from the sacred relationship that exists between husband and wife. So technically marriage did not exist until human laws were first made. This covenant applies to all people because all are descended from Adam, and it will last as long as the earth does. This covenant is the foundation of both the right to own property, and the rights involved with family.
Noahide covenant - Prior to the flood the world had become filled with violence to the point at which the righteous could no longer survive. The result was the flood. This came about because there was not law. No human law. God had not given authority to man to make laws, or to punnish crimes etc, the result was that the wicked ran wild and the righteous were oppressed. Thus the major point of God's covenant with Noah after the flood was that God granted authority to mankind to punnish crimes up to and including the death penalty. The original intent was that man would be ruled by God directly. When man refused God's rule, God had to give authority to rule to other men in order to maintain law and order. All authority to make governments and laws derives from the Noahide covenant.
Also, in the Jewish view the Noahide covenant contained the basic requirements for gentiles to be 'good people'. Like the adamic covenant, the Noahide applies to all people, and it will endure at least until Jesus returns and we are returned to God's direct rule.
Abrahamic covenant - This is the covenant where God promises to make Abraham a great nation and promises to bless the entire world through Abraham's house. This is the covenant that establishes the Israelites as God's chosen people and the covenant which promises salvation for the whole world to come through Abraham's house. This is the first covenant of faith. This covenant has a definite fulfillment and is enfolded within the new covenant.
Aaronic covenant - this is the covenant where God promises the descendants of Aaron that they will be reserved as priests before him forever. He made this promise in response to the faithfullness of Aaron's descendants. It applies only to the descendants of Aaron.
Davidic covenant - this is the covenant where God promised David that one of his descendants would sit on the throne of Israel forever. This was and is always seen by both Christians and Jews alike as a messianic covenant. The messiah is the heir of David who will sit on the throne of Israel forever. This is why the messiah is called "son of David" because he is the heir of this promise. This applies only to the messiah, and has no end.
New covenant - of course this the covenant that Jesus made with us through his broken body and shed blood. This covenant is both the fulfillment of, and the continuation of the Abrahamic covenant. In both people are made God's people, God's chosen through faith. This covenant is eternal and like the Abrahamic covenant is extended to those who enter by faith.
That brings us to the Mosaic covenant. The one around which all the questions revolve. Like all the other covenants this covenant was made with a specific purpose. When that purpose is fulfilled, so is the covenant. In this covenant God gives a bunch of laws (about 613) to the Jews, and the authority to enforce those laws. The pay off (so to speak) is that the Israelites will build a house for God, and God's visible, special presense, will dwell among them. In addition to that, if they keep the laws, they are promised immense blessing in health, wealth, and general well being.
There are actually two primary purposes in the Mosaic covenant.
#1. To enable God to dwell "physically" among his people. God can not be in the presense of sin, thus in order for his special presence to dwell visibly among the Israelites sin had to be purged or hidden. This is why the laws imposed by the mosaic covenant were so strict. No visible sin could be tolerated. This also is at the focus of the ceremonial law and the sacrificial system and the temple worship.
#2. As Paul points out, the Mosaic covenant was given for the purpose of instructing humanity. The Law served as a teacher and it points us to Christ. Also, again as Paul points out, the Law reveals the sinful condition of the human heart. Sin was in the world since Adam, and with sin came death. Before the law came, however, sin was not counted, it was invisible. There was no standard by which sin could be revealed.
There are also other benefits to the laws given in the covenant of Moses. For example there are many health benefits that the Israelites would have gained from keeping the law. It would reduce the instance of disease due to eating high risk foods, through limiting contact with dead bodies, and through increasing general cleanliness due to frequent ceremonial bathing.
Now, the question asked by so many is, Does this covenant still apply? are we required to live by it? Are the laws of Moses necessary for righteous living?
The short answer is No. I'll explain why.
The covenant of Moses was given for two purposes. Both of those purposes are fulfilled and thus the stipulations of the covenant are no longer in effect.
The first purpose for the harsh laws of the mosaic covenant was to remove sin from visibility before God's presense. This was accomplished in a far better and more thurough way through the ministry of Jesus Christ. Under the Mosaic law sin was not forgiven, it was hidden, or passed on to another. No one has ever been saved by keeping the law because law does not forgive, it is only capable of condemning.
The stipulations of the mosaic covenant are no longer necessary for hidding sin because the Blood of Christ removes our sins.
The second purpose of the law was to be a teacher. All of the law is allegory and example to teach us the principles of truth. Now, however, we who are in Christ have the Holy Spirit who convicts our hearts of truth and He engraves the truth upon our hearts. Thus we no longer have need of the law to force lessons upon us.
Both of the purposes of the covenant have been fulfilled, this means that the stipulations of the covenant cease to be enforced.
One example of this scripturally comes from the example of the woman caught in adultery. According to the Mosaic law, the Jews were REQUIRED to stone that woman to death. Under the Mosaic covenant it would have been a violation of the Law, a sin, for the Jews not to stone her. Yet Jesus stopped them from doing so. Most people see this as an example of God's forgiveness... but they miss the significance that this has for the covenant. In this act Jesus was essentially telling the Jews that they no longer had the authority given under the mosaic covenant to punnish sin with death.
The right to punnish murder with death was given to all men under the Noahide covenant, but in the mosaic covenant the Jews were also given the right to punnish homosexuality, witchcraft, adultery, rebeliousness and disrespect to parents, etc all with death.
All of that ceased to be in effect when Jesus came. Many would answer with "but Jesus said that he came not to destroy the law, but to fulfill the law." The issue there is not that the law continues to be in effect, the issue is that Jesus was not the enemy of the law, he was the point of the law. Further Jesus makes the statement that not one bit of the written law will pass away. This is also true, however, it does not mean that the covenant is still in effect. In law, when a contract or covenant is fulfilled and ceases to function it is still kept on record as a witness.
Lastly there are those who argue that even though the covenant is no longer in effect, we still must live by the law in order to be righteous. The assumption here is that the laws given were for the purpose of making the people behave righteously.. thus we should obey them as well.
However, this is plainly shown not to be the case biblically in several cases. The easiest cases are circumcision, and the food laws. In the new testament both are plainly stated to be of no moral value in an of themselves. Why is this?
These things were given as object lessons. To focus on the object is often to miss the point of the lesson. God knew that we in our fallen state have trouble with understanding and percieving spiritual things. The result is that he had to give us physical lessons to teach us spiritual truths. In the case of circumcision the point was not that you must remove physical skin in order to be righteous. The point was that we must circumcise our hearts. We must cut away the flesh (ie the soulish, natural will) from our hearts in order to be set apart to God. The point of the food laws was not that you sin when you eat bacon. The point was that there are many things that are spiritually unclean and we simply can not partake of them and remain clean ourselves. Things like adultery, hate, jealousy, lust.. The same thing with all the ceremonial bathing etc.. its not that your body must be clean in order to be righteous.. the point is that when you partake of that which is unclean, you are tainted by it and you must become clean again by being bathed. Compare this with what Jesus said to Peter when he washed the disciple's feet and Peter refused at first.
A great deal of the ceremonial law in the mosaic covenant has no value whatsoever for making a person righteous. It was given to serve as an object lesson of spiritual truths. This is why Paul goes so far as to say that a christian who gets circumcised(for religious purposes) is going against faith. Such a person is missing the entire point of circumcision and thus it is useless to them.
One issue that can be confusing in this is the fact that there are laws like "thou shalt not commit murder" and "thou shalt not steal" which are obviously moral codes. This is simply the fact that the covenant over-laps and includes the same laws which were given to all mankind. Paul talks about how the gentiles are a law unto themselves etc, The Jews have always recognized a 'lesser' more basic moral code which is applied to the gentiles etc.. the bible is clear that these basic laws have been revealed to everyone and are not specific to any covenant. The fact that they were included in the Mosaic covenant as well does not mean that they ceased to be with that covenant.
The final word on this I will refrence from Hebrews 8:13 referring to how Christ affected the covenant of Moses.
"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."
This is an issue that has been fairly divisive (but then in the church today what issue isn't?). Generally you have two extreme views on this topic, and then a spectrum in between those two extremes. On the one hand you have the legalists who believe that we must keep the old testament laws in order to be righteous. I have rarely met anyone who believed that keeping the old testament laws was a prerequisit for salvation, but there are quite a few people around who believe that if you want to live a righteous life, you must adhere to the Law.
On the other hand there are quite a few people who believe that the grace of God has swept away the law and we are no longer bound by commandments and rules. I have heard some of the more extreme people on this side of things use phrases like "you're not free from sin, until you're free to sin" and things like that.
Then of course there are plenty of people who fall in between those two extremes, leaning towards one side or the other, or possibly right in the middle.
In order to understand this issue, we have to grasp that what we are talking about here are covenants. Throughout the history of God's interactions with man he has dealt with man in terms of covenants, or what we might more commonly call them today, contracts. There are seven different covenants spoken of in the bible (at least that I'm aware of). Each of these covenants was made for a specific reason, with a person, or a group of people. Each one contains specific promises from God to man, and specific requirements made upon man by God.
As a side note, you may notice some similarity in this idea to dispensationalism, which breaks of the history of God's interactions with man into "dispensations" rather than "covenants". There are a couple of important differences. Dispensationalism tends to suggest that each dispensation applies to all humanity, and each one ends when the next one begins. This is nice and neat, but it doesn't really fit with the bible. Some of the covenants God made were with limited groups of people, some were with all people. Most of them have terms on which they would be fulfilled, and come to an end, but in most cases, they have overlapped in terms of time.
The seven covenants generally recognized in scripture are; the Adamic covenant, the Noahide covenant, the Abrahamic covenant, the Mosaic covenant, the Aaronic covenant, the Davidic covenant, and the New Covenant.
Throughout the bible refrences to "The Law" refer to the Mosaic covenant in which God gave a specific legal code to the Israelites and established their religion and worship as an organized, codified practice. Before we get to this I'm going to back through the other covenants and give a brief over-view of them.
Adamic covenant - This covenant was made by God with Adam at the creation. In this covenant God granted man dominion over the earth, and tasked man to be fruitful, multiply, and subdue the earth. Also contained here is the establishment of the husband and wife relationship. It is commonly stated that God performed the first wedding here and in a sense thats true. However, marriage is a human legal contract which is seperate from the sacred relationship that exists between husband and wife. So technically marriage did not exist until human laws were first made. This covenant applies to all people because all are descended from Adam, and it will last as long as the earth does. This covenant is the foundation of both the right to own property, and the rights involved with family.
Noahide covenant - Prior to the flood the world had become filled with violence to the point at which the righteous could no longer survive. The result was the flood. This came about because there was not law. No human law. God had not given authority to man to make laws, or to punnish crimes etc, the result was that the wicked ran wild and the righteous were oppressed. Thus the major point of God's covenant with Noah after the flood was that God granted authority to mankind to punnish crimes up to and including the death penalty. The original intent was that man would be ruled by God directly. When man refused God's rule, God had to give authority to rule to other men in order to maintain law and order. All authority to make governments and laws derives from the Noahide covenant.
Also, in the Jewish view the Noahide covenant contained the basic requirements for gentiles to be 'good people'. Like the adamic covenant, the Noahide applies to all people, and it will endure at least until Jesus returns and we are returned to God's direct rule.
Abrahamic covenant - This is the covenant where God promises to make Abraham a great nation and promises to bless the entire world through Abraham's house. This is the covenant that establishes the Israelites as God's chosen people and the covenant which promises salvation for the whole world to come through Abraham's house. This is the first covenant of faith. This covenant has a definite fulfillment and is enfolded within the new covenant.
Aaronic covenant - this is the covenant where God promises the descendants of Aaron that they will be reserved as priests before him forever. He made this promise in response to the faithfullness of Aaron's descendants. It applies only to the descendants of Aaron.
Davidic covenant - this is the covenant where God promised David that one of his descendants would sit on the throne of Israel forever. This was and is always seen by both Christians and Jews alike as a messianic covenant. The messiah is the heir of David who will sit on the throne of Israel forever. This is why the messiah is called "son of David" because he is the heir of this promise. This applies only to the messiah, and has no end.
New covenant - of course this the covenant that Jesus made with us through his broken body and shed blood. This covenant is both the fulfillment of, and the continuation of the Abrahamic covenant. In both people are made God's people, God's chosen through faith. This covenant is eternal and like the Abrahamic covenant is extended to those who enter by faith.
That brings us to the Mosaic covenant. The one around which all the questions revolve. Like all the other covenants this covenant was made with a specific purpose. When that purpose is fulfilled, so is the covenant. In this covenant God gives a bunch of laws (about 613) to the Jews, and the authority to enforce those laws. The pay off (so to speak) is that the Israelites will build a house for God, and God's visible, special presense, will dwell among them. In addition to that, if they keep the laws, they are promised immense blessing in health, wealth, and general well being.
There are actually two primary purposes in the Mosaic covenant.
#1. To enable God to dwell "physically" among his people. God can not be in the presense of sin, thus in order for his special presence to dwell visibly among the Israelites sin had to be purged or hidden. This is why the laws imposed by the mosaic covenant were so strict. No visible sin could be tolerated. This also is at the focus of the ceremonial law and the sacrificial system and the temple worship.
#2. As Paul points out, the Mosaic covenant was given for the purpose of instructing humanity. The Law served as a teacher and it points us to Christ. Also, again as Paul points out, the Law reveals the sinful condition of the human heart. Sin was in the world since Adam, and with sin came death. Before the law came, however, sin was not counted, it was invisible. There was no standard by which sin could be revealed.
There are also other benefits to the laws given in the covenant of Moses. For example there are many health benefits that the Israelites would have gained from keeping the law. It would reduce the instance of disease due to eating high risk foods, through limiting contact with dead bodies, and through increasing general cleanliness due to frequent ceremonial bathing.
Now, the question asked by so many is, Does this covenant still apply? are we required to live by it? Are the laws of Moses necessary for righteous living?
The short answer is No. I'll explain why.
The covenant of Moses was given for two purposes. Both of those purposes are fulfilled and thus the stipulations of the covenant are no longer in effect.
The first purpose for the harsh laws of the mosaic covenant was to remove sin from visibility before God's presense. This was accomplished in a far better and more thurough way through the ministry of Jesus Christ. Under the Mosaic law sin was not forgiven, it was hidden, or passed on to another. No one has ever been saved by keeping the law because law does not forgive, it is only capable of condemning.
The stipulations of the mosaic covenant are no longer necessary for hidding sin because the Blood of Christ removes our sins.
The second purpose of the law was to be a teacher. All of the law is allegory and example to teach us the principles of truth. Now, however, we who are in Christ have the Holy Spirit who convicts our hearts of truth and He engraves the truth upon our hearts. Thus we no longer have need of the law to force lessons upon us.
Both of the purposes of the covenant have been fulfilled, this means that the stipulations of the covenant cease to be enforced.
One example of this scripturally comes from the example of the woman caught in adultery. According to the Mosaic law, the Jews were REQUIRED to stone that woman to death. Under the Mosaic covenant it would have been a violation of the Law, a sin, for the Jews not to stone her. Yet Jesus stopped them from doing so. Most people see this as an example of God's forgiveness... but they miss the significance that this has for the covenant. In this act Jesus was essentially telling the Jews that they no longer had the authority given under the mosaic covenant to punnish sin with death.
The right to punnish murder with death was given to all men under the Noahide covenant, but in the mosaic covenant the Jews were also given the right to punnish homosexuality, witchcraft, adultery, rebeliousness and disrespect to parents, etc all with death.
All of that ceased to be in effect when Jesus came. Many would answer with "but Jesus said that he came not to destroy the law, but to fulfill the law." The issue there is not that the law continues to be in effect, the issue is that Jesus was not the enemy of the law, he was the point of the law. Further Jesus makes the statement that not one bit of the written law will pass away. This is also true, however, it does not mean that the covenant is still in effect. In law, when a contract or covenant is fulfilled and ceases to function it is still kept on record as a witness.
Lastly there are those who argue that even though the covenant is no longer in effect, we still must live by the law in order to be righteous. The assumption here is that the laws given were for the purpose of making the people behave righteously.. thus we should obey them as well.
However, this is plainly shown not to be the case biblically in several cases. The easiest cases are circumcision, and the food laws. In the new testament both are plainly stated to be of no moral value in an of themselves. Why is this?
These things were given as object lessons. To focus on the object is often to miss the point of the lesson. God knew that we in our fallen state have trouble with understanding and percieving spiritual things. The result is that he had to give us physical lessons to teach us spiritual truths. In the case of circumcision the point was not that you must remove physical skin in order to be righteous. The point was that we must circumcise our hearts. We must cut away the flesh (ie the soulish, natural will) from our hearts in order to be set apart to God. The point of the food laws was not that you sin when you eat bacon. The point was that there are many things that are spiritually unclean and we simply can not partake of them and remain clean ourselves. Things like adultery, hate, jealousy, lust.. The same thing with all the ceremonial bathing etc.. its not that your body must be clean in order to be righteous.. the point is that when you partake of that which is unclean, you are tainted by it and you must become clean again by being bathed. Compare this with what Jesus said to Peter when he washed the disciple's feet and Peter refused at first.
A great deal of the ceremonial law in the mosaic covenant has no value whatsoever for making a person righteous. It was given to serve as an object lesson of spiritual truths. This is why Paul goes so far as to say that a christian who gets circumcised(for religious purposes) is going against faith. Such a person is missing the entire point of circumcision and thus it is useless to them.
One issue that can be confusing in this is the fact that there are laws like "thou shalt not commit murder" and "thou shalt not steal" which are obviously moral codes. This is simply the fact that the covenant over-laps and includes the same laws which were given to all mankind. Paul talks about how the gentiles are a law unto themselves etc, The Jews have always recognized a 'lesser' more basic moral code which is applied to the gentiles etc.. the bible is clear that these basic laws have been revealed to everyone and are not specific to any covenant. The fact that they were included in the Mosaic covenant as well does not mean that they ceased to be with that covenant.
The final word on this I will refrence from Hebrews 8:13 referring to how Christ affected the covenant of Moses.
"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."
posted by Simon Templar | 1:15 AM
8 Comments:
Thank you Simon that was very clear.There are , however, many health benifits to be gained by following the Old Testament law. There is even a health benifit in curcumcision.The only part I have never heard of was the paragraph following.
"As a side note, you may notice some similarity in this idea to dispensationalism, which breaks of the history of God's interactions with man into "dispensations" rather than "covenants". There are a couple of important differences. Dispensationalism tends to suggest that each dispensation applies to all humanity, and each one ends when the next one begins. This is nice and neat, but it doesn't really fit with the bible. Some of the covenants God made were with limited groups of people, some were with all people. Most of them have terms on which they would be fulfilled, and come to an end, but in most cases, they have overlapped in terms of time."
So what is a "dispensationalism"?
I agree that their are health benefits in the Mosaic law. I have no doubt that God structured it that way on purpose.
Those benefits were even more pronounced in the past, however. For example, eating pork now may be unhealthy due to high fat content. Then, however, it could be down right deadly due to diseases such as Trichinosis (sp) which are high risk from Pork when its not properly stored.
the primary benefit of circumcision is that its much easier to keep clean. Today this isn't that much of a problem. However back in those days there was very little clean water and thus bathing etc was a rarity. Bathing was often more of a risk than a benefit because of water born bacterias etc. Thus circumcision then provided a huge benefit, whereas today it isn't that important.
Incidentally bad water is why everyone drank wine and beer all the time. Water supplies had to be spiked with alcohol to kill the bacteria etc and make it safe to drink. They probably didn't know about bacteria, but they figured out that when you put wine in water, you didn't sick from drinking it.
The correct word for the OT is the Tenach and it is not the old covenant it is the Jewish covenant. Everyone else is still to be judged under the noahide covenant as there is no new covenant. Also salvation is a myth as there was no original sin, you cannot be damned to hell forever as such a concept renders God unjust which cannot be. Christianity is a distortion. I am not trying to be offensive, only helpful.
Shawn,
You are of course welcome to your view point, but don't assume that because I don't share it, I therefore don't understand it or am ignorant of it.
I am a christian, as are the people who posed the questions I was referring to. Therefore the conversation is going to be framed in christian terms and the vocabulary common to christians.
while I did make refrence to a Jewish view point (specificly that the noahide laws were a more general code of moral laws to which gentiles must adhere in order to be 'good people' more or less), That was only tangential to the post as a whole, which was not intended to express a Jewish understanding of the Law and Covenant, but rather a christian one.
As for the comments on Christianity as a distortion, and the idea of hell making God unjust.. as one of my friends would say "You're entitled to your opinion, just so you know you're wrong."
thank you so much for posting this...I have just found it and have been looking for something to explain it just the way that you did! Scott Hahn almost did but was a bit too scholarly--you did a beautiful job!
I'm glad you found it helpful :) If you have any other issues your looking for information on, feel free to post questions etc.
Lev 23:1-5
v2 The Lord said even these are my designated times.
Lev 27-35
Jesus is the Lamb we are longer required to sacrifice animals as an offering but are required to bring are bodys as a living sacrifice onto God (Romans 12:1-3)
The Gathering:
Zechariah 14:1-16
v16 And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all nations which came against Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles.
Gods word never changes!
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