Just a sermon I love.
The issue: What law is the Christian under? Are Christians bound by Old Testament (OT) laws and commands? Obviously not all of them-any Christian would MBC - 2/18/2006 - Pastor Doug Thompson
“What Law is the Christian Under?”
(a footnote to Romans 7)
This morning we are continuing our study of Romans in ch.7, but we aren’t going to turn there, we are going to take a Sunday for an extended footnote on a question that comes up in Romans 7. But I want you to turn with me to-
Ø NUM 15:32 Now while the sons of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering wood on the sabbath day.
Ø NUM 15:33 Those who found him gathering wood brought him to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation;
Ø NUM 15:34 and they put him in custody because it had not been declared what should be done to him.
Ø NUM 15:35 Then the Lord said to Moses, "The man shall surely be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him with stones outside the camp."
Ø NUM 15:36 So all the congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him to death with stones, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.
Ø NUM 15:37 The Lord also spoke to Moses, saying,
Ø NUM 15:38 "Speak to the sons of Israel, and tell them that they shall make for themselves tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and that they shall put on the tassel of each corner a cord of blue.
Ø NUM 15:39 "It shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the commandments of the Lord, so as to do them and not follow after your own heart and your own eyes, after which you played the harlot,
Ø NUM 15:40 so that you may remember to do all My commandments and be holy to your God.
Ø NUM 15:41 "I am the Lord your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt to be your God; I am the Lord your God."
A man willfully disobeys God’s Sabbath law. The people wonder what they should do. They ask God. God says, “Do what I told you to do in the Law of Moses-stone him to death.”
Then God gives instructions for putting tassels on the corners of their garments which would swirl around as they walked to remind them at all times to obey His law-that and the newly dug grave outside the camp!
Ø Was it important to obey God’s commands? Yes. Is it still important to obey God’s commands? Yes.
Ø But the very next question has to be-which commands? Is it a sin, punishable by death, for you and I to gather firewood on Saturday-or is it Sunday now? Are you and I under the Sabbath law? Would stoning be prescribed for a Sunday Super Bowl party?
Ø Should you and I have tassels on the corners of our garments? Are we forbidden from eating pork or shrimp, should we celebrate the year of Jubilee? The very same Law also said no to stealing, lying, and adultery-and common sense seems to say that these are sins, so are we supposed to pick and choose-how do we decide?
We’ve been talking about the place of the law of God in the life of a Christian in our study of Romans 7 but a very good question has been asked, “What law are you talking about?”
Ø You can’t read your Bible without asking this question: “Are we still supposed to keep the 613 laws that God gave to Moses-or just the top 10? What law is the Christian under?”
And as basic as this question is, it is probably the most debated question in all of theology. Augustine struggled with it. Calvin and Luther and even Jonathan Edwards struggled with it. Doyle and Trenery struggle with it. But this morning, in about 45 minutes, I’m going to try and give you a solution to the question: “What law is the Christian under?”
I. Two covenants-two contracts.
Ø HEB 8:7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion sought for a second.
Ø HEB 8:8 For finding fault with them [notice: the problem was not with the covenant, or with God’s laws-the problem was with God’s people-they couldn’t keep them!], He says, "Behold, days are coming, says the Lord, When I will effect a new covenant With the house of Israel and with the house of Judah;
Ø HEB 8:9 Not like the covenant which I made with their fathers On the day when I took them by the hand To lead them out of the land of Egypt; For they did not continue in My covenant, And I did not care for them, says the Lord.
Ø HEB 8:10 "For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel After those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws into their minds, And I will write them on their hearts. And I will be their God, And they shall be My people.
Ø HEB 8:11 "And they shall not teach everyone his fellow citizen, And everyone his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' For all will know Me, From the least to the greatest of them.
Ø HEB 8:12 "For I will be merciful to their iniquities, And I will remember their sins no more."
Ø HEB 8:13 When He said, "A new covenant," He has made the first obsolete. But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear.
Now you notice here there are two covenants mentioned, and they are called the first and the second, and they are called the old and the new. And the new has taken the place of the old. It has replaced it. When did this happen?
Ø 1CO 11:25 In the same way He took the cup also, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me."
Jesus’ death on the cross marked the beginning of a new relationship between God and His people-a new covenant that replaced the old. And to underline the fact that the OC was over and gone, God did something that is hinted at in v.13--
Ø I think that in v.13, the Holy Spirit is predicting the destruction of Jerusalem and the entire Jewish religion in 70 A.D.-the city and the Temple would be destroyed, burned and leveled, just 4-5 years from when this was written! I.e., The bridge to the past was soon to be burned and completely gone! And the message of the book of Hebrews is: “Don’t try to go back over that burned out bridge to the OC days! That is going backwards! It’s like Lot’s wife looking back over her shoulder as Sodom is burning-it’s like the Israelites wanting to go back into the slavery of Egypt.”
The OC is over, Jesus has brought in a brand new relationship with God called the NC.
If you look at your Bible, it is divided into the OT and NT, but that literally means OC and NC. So the old Covenant is basically everything in your Bible between Ex.20 and the end of Malachi-i.e., the OT!. The Old Covenant is Judaism. The Old Covenant is Moses and the Law. And it’s over! The old is gone, the new has come. As Christians we are not under the old, we are under the new, and the new is new! In some ways, it’s the same as the Old because God is still God and people are still people, but in other ways, it is radically different from the old.
Ø Just one example of the radical difference between the new and the old: Heb.10:19 says that we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus. You and I can enter God’s throneroom sitting in a comfortable chair in our living room! If we had tried that under the OC, we would have been instantly killed, either by the other priests, or probably by God Himself! (cf.Jn.4)
Let’s go to Galatians, where Paul gives an analogy to show us how things have changed--
Ø GAL 3:23 But before faith came, we were kept in custody under the law, being shut up to the faith which was later to be revealed.
Ø GAL 3:24 Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith.
Ø GAL 3:25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.
Ø GAL 3:26 For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.
The word "Tutor" is the Gk. word paidagogos, and it doesn't mean a tutor or teacher as much as the slave that was put in charge of a Jewish boy between the ages of 6 and 16. This slave would lead the boy to school each day and make sure he did his homework. The paidagogos was a strict disciplinarian, and those Jewish boys longed for the day when they would be free of them! Paul says, that is the OT Law!
How did the OT law lead the Jews to Christ to be justified by faith? The answer is that it showed them that they were helpless, hopeless sinners who could never keep it! Just what we have been looking at for the last two weeks: It wasn’t a ladder to climb to heaven-it was only a mirror to show them that they could never make it!
Ø But Jesus fulfilled the Law, He kept it, perfectly--in our place; and then-in our place--He paid the penalty for all the laws we have broken! So we are through with Moses. We are justified-made right with God-by trusting in Jesus Christ.
“And now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor-we aren’t slaves, we are sons!” Let that sink in. Christian, the Old Testament Laws are not your laws! You are not under those laws--including the 10 commandments as such--anymore than you are under the laws of Sweden. That is exactly what Paul is saying in--
Ø ROM 6:14 For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.
Ø ROM 7:4 Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, that we might bear fruit for God.
Ø ROM 7:6 But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter.
Imagine the OC and the NC as two different contracts that God's people have been under in history. The old Covenant was given by Moses, the New Covenant was given by Christ. Now the requirement on the part of God's people was the same under both contracts: "Be ye holy as I am holy!" But what it meant to be holy is not exactly the same under each contract.
Ø There is a connection between the two contracts! The old looked forward to the new; it pointed to a new contract that would come one day that would be everything it wanted to be but couldn't be. The OC was written on stone, with no power to obey it. The NC is written on our hearts, and it comes with the HS to move in our hearts to obey God.
Ø But the two contracts are absolutely separate! In Acts 15, this was exactly the question that was brought before the Apostles and Elders in Jerusalem: “Are Gentile Christians under the Law of Moses?” The answer was a clear, resounding, “No.” The issue was settled once and for all. Christians are not under the old contract at all. It has been replaced by the new.
Now some folks would object to this scheme that I have just explained. They would say, "No, some parts of the old contract have been nullified--the ceremonial parts--but the moral laws have been retained. Christians are under the new contract, plus the moral laws of the old contract." So how do you decide which is which? This means that you and I are supposed to read the 600+ laws we find in Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, and figure out which ones still apply and which ones don't.
Let me tell you why I don’t think this works.
II. Out with the old, in with the new.
1.) There is no dividing the law.
A few years ago a Christian friend was struggling because her son had drifted away from Christ, and one evidence of this was the fact that he had gone out and gotten a big old tattoo! She said, "He knows that the Bible teaches that getting a tattoo is sin!" Where? Leviticus 19-right in the heart of Moses country. Is that true-is that still a biblical prohibition for a Christian?
Well, we get ourselves into an awful pickle if we go to a chapter like that and try to figure out which of the can be tossed, and which ones are moral and must be obeyed--
Ø LEV 19:1 Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying:
Ø LEV 19:2 "Speak to all the congregation of the sons of Israel and say to them, 'You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy. [now what follows is the definition of what it meant to be holy for the nation of Israel]
Ø LEV 19:3 'Every one of you shall reverence his mother and his father, [#5 commandment] and you shall keep My sabbaths; [#4 commandment] I am the Lord your God.
Ø LEV 19:4 'Do not turn to idols or make for yourselves molten gods; [#1&2] I am the Lord your God. [but look what comes next]
Ø LEV 19:5 'Now when you offer a sacrifice of peace offerings to the Lord, you shall offer it so that you may be accepted.
So do we keep vv.3,4, and throw out v.5? Jump down to:
Ø LEV 19:18 'You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord.
Ø LEV 19:19 'You are to keep My statutes. You shall not breed together two kinds of your cattle; you shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed, nor wear a garment upon you of two kinds of material mixed together.
Now stop right there. Did v.18 sound familiar? Jesus said that to love your neighbor as yourself was the second greatest commandment in the whole law! But would any Israelite have known that? No. The fact is, it was just as important for a Jew to plant his garden correctly or to wear the kind of clothing as it was to love his neighbor. All of those laws were equally binding on the Jewish person. Let's read on--
Ø LEV 19:26 'You shall not eat anything with the blood, nor practice divination or soothsaying.
Ø LEV 19:27 'You shall not round off the side-growth of your heads nor harm the edges of your beard.
Ø LEV 19:28 'You shall not make any cuts in your body for the dead nor make any tattoo marks on yourselves: I am the Lord.
Ø LEV 19:29 'Do not profane your daughter by making her a harlot, so that the land will not fall to harlotry and the land become full of lewdness.
Ø LEV 19:30 'You shall keep My sabbaths and revere My sanctuary; I am the Lord.
Now let me ask you, is it possible, let alone biblical to arbitrarily divide these laws into lists of moral and ceremonial laws? No! Moses never did it. Jesus certainly didn’t do it, and neither should we.
The fact is, the commandment, "Be ye holy as I am holy," is exactly the same for God's people under the old Mosaic Covenant, and the New Covenant under Christ. But our duty to God is defined by the laws of the covenant under which we live. Christians are not under the Old Covenant, and we don’t need to go to the Old Covenant to define our moral absolutes anymore than we would go to Leviticus to define our diet or our worship!
2.) There is no separating the Law from its penalties.
Now some folks would like to say this: "Christians are still obligated to keep the moral laws of Moses, but if they blow it and disobey, they are under grace and so it's not a big deal, God forgives." In other words, they separate the Law from its penalties--Christians are under one but not under the other. I.e., for a Christian, the 10 Commandments are transformed into the 10 Suggestions! “Keep the Sabbath, but you can change the day to Sunday, and well, you can work if your job depends on it, and well, you can watch football, but just make sure you pray during half-time.”
That doesn't hold water. The Law is a whole, and the penalties are inseparable from the commands--
Ø DEU 27:26 'Cursed is he who does not confirm the words of this law by doing them.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'
And that hasn't changed--
Ø GAL 3:10 For as many as are of the works of the Law are under a curse; for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law, to perform them."
Paul is saying, "If you insist on being under the old contract, in any way, shape or form, you are under the penalties of the Law too, and that means that you are under a curse because you can't keep it perfectly." Now follow me here: One clear reason that we know that a Christian cannot be under the Law of Moses is that it would also put a Christian under the condemnation of the Law for breaking those commandments, and the good news of the Gospel of grace is this--
Ø ROM 8:1 Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
If Christians are not under the condemnation of the law, then that must mean that they are not under the Law!--Do you see that? You can't separate the Law from its penalties, to be under one is to be under the other, and Christians are under neither! We are free from the Law, and we are free from its curse.
Aren't you glad? The Law that the Jews lived under was a harsh taskmaster! The Law gave no strength or power to obey. It gave no hope and it gave no help. It only blessed complete perfection and cursed the slightest infraction. There was no grace at all in the Law of Moses. It's purpose was not to give man grace, but to show man his need of grace!
Ø In John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, a man named Faithful was being beaten to death by a man representing Moses! When Faithful pleaded for mercy, Moses responded, "I do not know how to show mercy," and kept beating him! Only the Man with the nail-scarred hands could stop the beating!
3.) The Law comes to its telos in Christ.
Ø ROM 10:4 For Christ is the end of the law for [or, "resulting in"] righteousness to everyone who believes.
The word "end" is the Gk. word telos, and it means end, but it also means "goal, culmination, fulfillment." Jesus is both. He is the goal toward which the Law pointed, and having fulfilled the Law, He is its end.
Ø When I used to run track, there would be a ribbon at the end of the race course. That ribbon was the telos--it was the goal toward which I was running, but it was also the end of the race.
Why aren't Christians under the Law of Moses? That old race is over! Everyone who trusts in Christ receives His victor's crown--and receives a new contract.
You see, the Law of Moses was never meant to be the eternal, unchanging law for God’s people for all time. It was temporary, it has fulfilled its purpose, and it is null and void--
Ø GAL 3:19 Why the Law then? It was added because of transgressions, having been ordained through angels by the agency of a mediator, until the seed would come to whom the promise had been made.
The Law had a built-in expiration date-Calvary: GAL 3:25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.
III. What is the new contract for God's people?
So what are we under now? A new contract called the New Covenant. When Jesus shed His blood on Calvary, He put Aaron out of a job, didn't He? No more animal sacrifices--the Lamb of God had taken away the sins of His people--it is finished! But He also put Moses out of a job!
Ø HEB 7:12 For when the priesthood is changed, of necessity there takes place a change of law also.
God's people have a new High Priest, and they have a new Lawgiver and new laws! Listen to Paul, a former Jew, in--
Ø 1CO 7:19 Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but what matters is the keeping of the commandments of God.
Now any Jew listening to Paul would have accused him of blasphemy and insanity! "Paul, you are out of your mind! You are speaking in contradictions! You say that what matters is keeping God's commandments, and then you say that circumcision is nothing! Paul, circumcision is the commandment of God!"
We see two things here: First, the old contract--the Mosaic Law--is null and void. Circumcision was the very mark of the old contract. For Paul to say that circumcision is nothing is saying that the old contract is gone. *(And no, he didn’t say that infant baptism has replaced circumcision.)
But there is a second truth here: Christians are still obligated to keep "the commandments of God!" Now are you asking the same question I am asking? "If the commandments of God are not the Law of Moses, then what are they? A couple of chapters later, Paul gives a clue--
Ø 1CO 9:20 And to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews; to those who are under the Law, as under the Law, though not being myself under the Law, that I might win those who are under the Law;
Ø 1CO 9:21 to those who are without law, as without law, though not being without the law of God but under the law of Christ,
So where do we find this law of Christ?
In Ephesians, Paul is talking about the Church as a the new people of God. It is made up of Jew and Gentile, bought by the blood of Christ, and we are one new body, one new man, and one new living and holy temple in the Lord. And we have a new constitution--
Ø EPH 2:20 --having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone,
Now don't miss this: Paul is speaking of those men who received New Covenant revelation from the Lord Jesus through the Holy Spirit. I.e., He is saying that the New Testament is the foundational document for the Church's life and worship. This is the new contract, the new constitution, for the new covenant people of God.
Ø The American colonies were under the constitution and laws of England up until July 4th, 1776. On that date, we declared ourselves to be no longer under those laws. We drew up a new constitution and they became the new laws for the USA. The laws of England no longer had any legal authority over any American--they were null and void. The laws of England could not be appealed to as the final authority on any matter whatsoever. America was under a new document or covenant--the Constitution of the United States of America.
Ø But having said that, it's obvious that the men who drafted our Constitution, gave careful consideration to the old laws of England. They kept many, changed some, and threw others out. But regardless of how many were new or the same, there was a complete change between being under the old laws of England and the new laws of the USA. I suppose there isn't a whole lot of difference today between living in America and living in England--but they are under completely separate and different laws, no matter how similar they are!
Ø This is an exact parallel between the Tablets of Stone given to Israel and the New Covenant given to the Church--The New Testament is a completely new constitution for God's people--similar perhaps, but different, new-and much, much better!
IV. Three bottom line principles:
1.) The NT is your contract with God, not the OT.
Because God is unchanging, the ethics of the NT are basically the same as those of the OT, and those we are responsible to obey are repeated in the NT. I.e. There is nothing God requires of a Christian that can’t be found in the NT.
(Some specific commands from the OT are not repeated in the NT, such as the prohibition against bestiality-but this is assumed in the NT prohibition against fornication, which is any sexual impurity.)
2.) The NT commands are higher and more demanding because the NC people of God have the NC Scriptures, the Word of God written on their hearts, and the HS to help them to carry out that Word. I.e. God expects more from you and I than He did from David.
--But the NT commands are fewer and less specific-not because God’s morals have changed-but because under the NC, the emphasis is upon the Christian freely responding to the grace of God by obeying from the heart. Duty under the OC is replaced with desire and delight under the NC.
--E.g. The OC believer had the two great commandments, love God and love your neighbor, but still needed over 611 more laws. The NC believer should be able to function by seeking to fulfill these two from the heart-
Ø ROM 13:8 Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law.
Ø ROM 13:9 For this, "You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet," and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."
Ø GAL 5:14 For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."
Ø GAL 6:2 Bear one another's burdens, and thus fulfill the law of Christ.
3.) The OT is still the eternal, living Word of God, for all of God’s people! It still reveals the unchanging character of God, and God still speaks to His people through this Word. It is indispensable for understanding the NT, but the OT must always be read through the lens of the NC. I.e., When in doubt about how an OT passage applies to you, ask Jesus, not Moses.
Ø MAT 7:24 "Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine, and acts upon them, may be compared to a wise man, who built his house upon the rock.
“What Law is the Christian Under?”
(a footnote to Romans 7)
This morning we are continuing our study of Romans in ch.7, but we aren’t going to turn there, we are going to take a Sunday for an extended footnote on a question that comes up in Romans 7. But I want you to turn with me to-
Ø NUM 15:32 Now while the sons of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering wood on the sabbath day.
Ø NUM 15:33 Those who found him gathering wood brought him to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation;
Ø NUM 15:34 and they put him in custody because it had not been declared what should be done to him.
Ø NUM 15:35 Then the Lord said to Moses, "The man shall surely be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him with stones outside the camp."
Ø NUM 15:36 So all the congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him to death with stones, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.
Ø NUM 15:37 The Lord also spoke to Moses, saying,
Ø NUM 15:38 "Speak to the sons of Israel, and tell them that they shall make for themselves tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and that they shall put on the tassel of each corner a cord of blue.
Ø NUM 15:39 "It shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the commandments of the Lord, so as to do them and not follow after your own heart and your own eyes, after which you played the harlot,
Ø NUM 15:40 so that you may remember to do all My commandments and be holy to your God.
Ø NUM 15:41 "I am the Lord your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt to be your God; I am the Lord your God."
A man willfully disobeys God’s Sabbath law. The people wonder what they should do. They ask God. God says, “Do what I told you to do in the Law of Moses-stone him to death.”
Then God gives instructions for putting tassels on the corners of their garments which would swirl around as they walked to remind them at all times to obey His law-that and the newly dug grave outside the camp!
Ø Was it important to obey God’s commands? Yes. Is it still important to obey God’s commands? Yes.
Ø But the very next question has to be-which commands? Is it a sin, punishable by death, for you and I to gather firewood on Saturday-or is it Sunday now? Are you and I under the Sabbath law? Would stoning be prescribed for a Sunday Super Bowl party?
Ø Should you and I have tassels on the corners of our garments? Are we forbidden from eating pork or shrimp, should we celebrate the year of Jubilee? The very same Law also said no to stealing, lying, and adultery-and common sense seems to say that these are sins, so are we supposed to pick and choose-how do we decide?
We’ve been talking about the place of the law of God in the life of a Christian in our study of Romans 7 but a very good question has been asked, “What law are you talking about?”
Ø You can’t read your Bible without asking this question: “Are we still supposed to keep the 613 laws that God gave to Moses-or just the top 10? What law is the Christian under?”
And as basic as this question is, it is probably the most debated question in all of theology. Augustine struggled with it. Calvin and Luther and even Jonathan Edwards struggled with it. Doyle and Trenery struggle with it. But this morning, in about 45 minutes, I’m going to try and give you a solution to the question: “What law is the Christian under?”
I. Two covenants-two contracts.
Ø HEB 8:7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion sought for a second.
Ø HEB 8:8 For finding fault with them [notice: the problem was not with the covenant, or with God’s laws-the problem was with God’s people-they couldn’t keep them!], He says, "Behold, days are coming, says the Lord, When I will effect a new covenant With the house of Israel and with the house of Judah;
Ø HEB 8:9 Not like the covenant which I made with their fathers On the day when I took them by the hand To lead them out of the land of Egypt; For they did not continue in My covenant, And I did not care for them, says the Lord.
Ø HEB 8:10 "For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel After those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws into their minds, And I will write them on their hearts. And I will be their God, And they shall be My people.
Ø HEB 8:11 "And they shall not teach everyone his fellow citizen, And everyone his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' For all will know Me, From the least to the greatest of them.
Ø HEB 8:12 "For I will be merciful to their iniquities, And I will remember their sins no more."
Ø HEB 8:13 When He said, "A new covenant," He has made the first obsolete. But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear.
Now you notice here there are two covenants mentioned, and they are called the first and the second, and they are called the old and the new. And the new has taken the place of the old. It has replaced it. When did this happen?
Ø 1CO 11:25 In the same way He took the cup also, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me."
Jesus’ death on the cross marked the beginning of a new relationship between God and His people-a new covenant that replaced the old. And to underline the fact that the OC was over and gone, God did something that is hinted at in v.13--
Ø I think that in v.13, the Holy Spirit is predicting the destruction of Jerusalem and the entire Jewish religion in 70 A.D.-the city and the Temple would be destroyed, burned and leveled, just 4-5 years from when this was written! I.e., The bridge to the past was soon to be burned and completely gone! And the message of the book of Hebrews is: “Don’t try to go back over that burned out bridge to the OC days! That is going backwards! It’s like Lot’s wife looking back over her shoulder as Sodom is burning-it’s like the Israelites wanting to go back into the slavery of Egypt.”
The OC is over, Jesus has brought in a brand new relationship with God called the NC.
If you look at your Bible, it is divided into the OT and NT, but that literally means OC and NC. So the old Covenant is basically everything in your Bible between Ex.20 and the end of Malachi-i.e., the OT!. The Old Covenant is Judaism. The Old Covenant is Moses and the Law. And it’s over! The old is gone, the new has come. As Christians we are not under the old, we are under the new, and the new is new! In some ways, it’s the same as the Old because God is still God and people are still people, but in other ways, it is radically different from the old.
Ø Just one example of the radical difference between the new and the old: Heb.10:19 says that we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus. You and I can enter God’s throneroom sitting in a comfortable chair in our living room! If we had tried that under the OC, we would have been instantly killed, either by the other priests, or probably by God Himself! (cf.Jn.4)
Let’s go to Galatians, where Paul gives an analogy to show us how things have changed--
Ø GAL 3:23 But before faith came, we were kept in custody under the law, being shut up to the faith which was later to be revealed.
Ø GAL 3:24 Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith.
Ø GAL 3:25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.
Ø GAL 3:26 For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.
The word "Tutor" is the Gk. word paidagogos, and it doesn't mean a tutor or teacher as much as the slave that was put in charge of a Jewish boy between the ages of 6 and 16. This slave would lead the boy to school each day and make sure he did his homework. The paidagogos was a strict disciplinarian, and those Jewish boys longed for the day when they would be free of them! Paul says, that is the OT Law!
How did the OT law lead the Jews to Christ to be justified by faith? The answer is that it showed them that they were helpless, hopeless sinners who could never keep it! Just what we have been looking at for the last two weeks: It wasn’t a ladder to climb to heaven-it was only a mirror to show them that they could never make it!
Ø But Jesus fulfilled the Law, He kept it, perfectly--in our place; and then-in our place--He paid the penalty for all the laws we have broken! So we are through with Moses. We are justified-made right with God-by trusting in Jesus Christ.
“And now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor-we aren’t slaves, we are sons!” Let that sink in. Christian, the Old Testament Laws are not your laws! You are not under those laws--including the 10 commandments as such--anymore than you are under the laws of Sweden. That is exactly what Paul is saying in--
Ø ROM 6:14 For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.
Ø ROM 7:4 Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, that we might bear fruit for God.
Ø ROM 7:6 But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter.
Imagine the OC and the NC as two different contracts that God's people have been under in history. The old Covenant was given by Moses, the New Covenant was given by Christ. Now the requirement on the part of God's people was the same under both contracts: "Be ye holy as I am holy!" But what it meant to be holy is not exactly the same under each contract.
Ø There is a connection between the two contracts! The old looked forward to the new; it pointed to a new contract that would come one day that would be everything it wanted to be but couldn't be. The OC was written on stone, with no power to obey it. The NC is written on our hearts, and it comes with the HS to move in our hearts to obey God.
Ø But the two contracts are absolutely separate! In Acts 15, this was exactly the question that was brought before the Apostles and Elders in Jerusalem: “Are Gentile Christians under the Law of Moses?” The answer was a clear, resounding, “No.” The issue was settled once and for all. Christians are not under the old contract at all. It has been replaced by the new.
Now some folks would object to this scheme that I have just explained. They would say, "No, some parts of the old contract have been nullified--the ceremonial parts--but the moral laws have been retained. Christians are under the new contract, plus the moral laws of the old contract." So how do you decide which is which? This means that you and I are supposed to read the 600+ laws we find in Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, and figure out which ones still apply and which ones don't.
Let me tell you why I don’t think this works.
II. Out with the old, in with the new.
1.) There is no dividing the law.
A few years ago a Christian friend was struggling because her son had drifted away from Christ, and one evidence of this was the fact that he had gone out and gotten a big old tattoo! She said, "He knows that the Bible teaches that getting a tattoo is sin!" Where? Leviticus 19-right in the heart of Moses country. Is that true-is that still a biblical prohibition for a Christian?
Well, we get ourselves into an awful pickle if we go to a chapter like that and try to figure out which of the can be tossed, and which ones are moral and must be obeyed--
Ø LEV 19:1 Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying:
Ø LEV 19:2 "Speak to all the congregation of the sons of Israel and say to them, 'You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy. [now what follows is the definition of what it meant to be holy for the nation of Israel]
Ø LEV 19:3 'Every one of you shall reverence his mother and his father, [#5 commandment] and you shall keep My sabbaths; [#4 commandment] I am the Lord your God.
Ø LEV 19:4 'Do not turn to idols or make for yourselves molten gods; [#1&2] I am the Lord your God. [but look what comes next]
Ø LEV 19:5 'Now when you offer a sacrifice of peace offerings to the Lord, you shall offer it so that you may be accepted.
So do we keep vv.3,4, and throw out v.5? Jump down to:
Ø LEV 19:18 'You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord.
Ø LEV 19:19 'You are to keep My statutes. You shall not breed together two kinds of your cattle; you shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed, nor wear a garment upon you of two kinds of material mixed together.
Now stop right there. Did v.18 sound familiar? Jesus said that to love your neighbor as yourself was the second greatest commandment in the whole law! But would any Israelite have known that? No. The fact is, it was just as important for a Jew to plant his garden correctly or to wear the kind of clothing as it was to love his neighbor. All of those laws were equally binding on the Jewish person. Let's read on--
Ø LEV 19:26 'You shall not eat anything with the blood, nor practice divination or soothsaying.
Ø LEV 19:27 'You shall not round off the side-growth of your heads nor harm the edges of your beard.
Ø LEV 19:28 'You shall not make any cuts in your body for the dead nor make any tattoo marks on yourselves: I am the Lord.
Ø LEV 19:29 'Do not profane your daughter by making her a harlot, so that the land will not fall to harlotry and the land become full of lewdness.
Ø LEV 19:30 'You shall keep My sabbaths and revere My sanctuary; I am the Lord.
Now let me ask you, is it possible, let alone biblical to arbitrarily divide these laws into lists of moral and ceremonial laws? No! Moses never did it. Jesus certainly didn’t do it, and neither should we.
The fact is, the commandment, "Be ye holy as I am holy," is exactly the same for God's people under the old Mosaic Covenant, and the New Covenant under Christ. But our duty to God is defined by the laws of the covenant under which we live. Christians are not under the Old Covenant, and we don’t need to go to the Old Covenant to define our moral absolutes anymore than we would go to Leviticus to define our diet or our worship!
2.) There is no separating the Law from its penalties.
Now some folks would like to say this: "Christians are still obligated to keep the moral laws of Moses, but if they blow it and disobey, they are under grace and so it's not a big deal, God forgives." In other words, they separate the Law from its penalties--Christians are under one but not under the other. I.e., for a Christian, the 10 Commandments are transformed into the 10 Suggestions! “Keep the Sabbath, but you can change the day to Sunday, and well, you can work if your job depends on it, and well, you can watch football, but just make sure you pray during half-time.”
That doesn't hold water. The Law is a whole, and the penalties are inseparable from the commands--
Ø DEU 27:26 'Cursed is he who does not confirm the words of this law by doing them.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'
And that hasn't changed--
Ø GAL 3:10 For as many as are of the works of the Law are under a curse; for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law, to perform them."
Paul is saying, "If you insist on being under the old contract, in any way, shape or form, you are under the penalties of the Law too, and that means that you are under a curse because you can't keep it perfectly." Now follow me here: One clear reason that we know that a Christian cannot be under the Law of Moses is that it would also put a Christian under the condemnation of the Law for breaking those commandments, and the good news of the Gospel of grace is this--
Ø ROM 8:1 Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
If Christians are not under the condemnation of the law, then that must mean that they are not under the Law!--Do you see that? You can't separate the Law from its penalties, to be under one is to be under the other, and Christians are under neither! We are free from the Law, and we are free from its curse.
Aren't you glad? The Law that the Jews lived under was a harsh taskmaster! The Law gave no strength or power to obey. It gave no hope and it gave no help. It only blessed complete perfection and cursed the slightest infraction. There was no grace at all in the Law of Moses. It's purpose was not to give man grace, but to show man his need of grace!
Ø In John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, a man named Faithful was being beaten to death by a man representing Moses! When Faithful pleaded for mercy, Moses responded, "I do not know how to show mercy," and kept beating him! Only the Man with the nail-scarred hands could stop the beating!
3.) The Law comes to its telos in Christ.
Ø ROM 10:4 For Christ is the end of the law for [or, "resulting in"] righteousness to everyone who believes.
The word "end" is the Gk. word telos, and it means end, but it also means "goal, culmination, fulfillment." Jesus is both. He is the goal toward which the Law pointed, and having fulfilled the Law, He is its end.
Ø When I used to run track, there would be a ribbon at the end of the race course. That ribbon was the telos--it was the goal toward which I was running, but it was also the end of the race.
Why aren't Christians under the Law of Moses? That old race is over! Everyone who trusts in Christ receives His victor's crown--and receives a new contract.
You see, the Law of Moses was never meant to be the eternal, unchanging law for God’s people for all time. It was temporary, it has fulfilled its purpose, and it is null and void--
Ø GAL 3:19 Why the Law then? It was added because of transgressions, having been ordained through angels by the agency of a mediator, until the seed would come to whom the promise had been made.
The Law had a built-in expiration date-Calvary: GAL 3:25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.
III. What is the new contract for God's people?
So what are we under now? A new contract called the New Covenant. When Jesus shed His blood on Calvary, He put Aaron out of a job, didn't He? No more animal sacrifices--the Lamb of God had taken away the sins of His people--it is finished! But He also put Moses out of a job!
Ø HEB 7:12 For when the priesthood is changed, of necessity there takes place a change of law also.
God's people have a new High Priest, and they have a new Lawgiver and new laws! Listen to Paul, a former Jew, in--
Ø 1CO 7:19 Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but what matters is the keeping of the commandments of God.
Now any Jew listening to Paul would have accused him of blasphemy and insanity! "Paul, you are out of your mind! You are speaking in contradictions! You say that what matters is keeping God's commandments, and then you say that circumcision is nothing! Paul, circumcision is the commandment of God!"
We see two things here: First, the old contract--the Mosaic Law--is null and void. Circumcision was the very mark of the old contract. For Paul to say that circumcision is nothing is saying that the old contract is gone. *(And no, he didn’t say that infant baptism has replaced circumcision.)
But there is a second truth here: Christians are still obligated to keep "the commandments of God!" Now are you asking the same question I am asking? "If the commandments of God are not the Law of Moses, then what are they? A couple of chapters later, Paul gives a clue--
Ø 1CO 9:20 And to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews; to those who are under the Law, as under the Law, though not being myself under the Law, that I might win those who are under the Law;
Ø 1CO 9:21 to those who are without law, as without law, though not being without the law of God but under the law of Christ,
So where do we find this law of Christ?
In Ephesians, Paul is talking about the Church as a the new people of God. It is made up of Jew and Gentile, bought by the blood of Christ, and we are one new body, one new man, and one new living and holy temple in the Lord. And we have a new constitution--
Ø EPH 2:20 --having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone,
Now don't miss this: Paul is speaking of those men who received New Covenant revelation from the Lord Jesus through the Holy Spirit. I.e., He is saying that the New Testament is the foundational document for the Church's life and worship. This is the new contract, the new constitution, for the new covenant people of God.
Ø The American colonies were under the constitution and laws of England up until July 4th, 1776. On that date, we declared ourselves to be no longer under those laws. We drew up a new constitution and they became the new laws for the USA. The laws of England no longer had any legal authority over any American--they were null and void. The laws of England could not be appealed to as the final authority on any matter whatsoever. America was under a new document or covenant--the Constitution of the United States of America.
Ø But having said that, it's obvious that the men who drafted our Constitution, gave careful consideration to the old laws of England. They kept many, changed some, and threw others out. But regardless of how many were new or the same, there was a complete change between being under the old laws of England and the new laws of the USA. I suppose there isn't a whole lot of difference today between living in America and living in England--but they are under completely separate and different laws, no matter how similar they are!
Ø This is an exact parallel between the Tablets of Stone given to Israel and the New Covenant given to the Church--The New Testament is a completely new constitution for God's people--similar perhaps, but different, new-and much, much better!
IV. Three bottom line principles:
1.) The NT is your contract with God, not the OT.
Because God is unchanging, the ethics of the NT are basically the same as those of the OT, and those we are responsible to obey are repeated in the NT. I.e. There is nothing God requires of a Christian that can’t be found in the NT.
(Some specific commands from the OT are not repeated in the NT, such as the prohibition against bestiality-but this is assumed in the NT prohibition against fornication, which is any sexual impurity.)
2.) The NT commands are higher and more demanding because the NC people of God have the NC Scriptures, the Word of God written on their hearts, and the HS to help them to carry out that Word. I.e. God expects more from you and I than He did from David.
--But the NT commands are fewer and less specific-not because God’s morals have changed-but because under the NC, the emphasis is upon the Christian freely responding to the grace of God by obeying from the heart. Duty under the OC is replaced with desire and delight under the NC.
--E.g. The OC believer had the two great commandments, love God and love your neighbor, but still needed over 611 more laws. The NC believer should be able to function by seeking to fulfill these two from the heart-
Ø ROM 13:8 Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law.
Ø ROM 13:9 For this, "You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet," and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."
Ø GAL 5:14 For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."
Ø GAL 6:2 Bear one another's burdens, and thus fulfill the law of Christ.
3.) The OT is still the eternal, living Word of God, for all of God’s people! It still reveals the unchanging character of God, and God still speaks to His people through this Word. It is indispensable for understanding the NT, but the OT must always be read through the lens of the NC. I.e., When in doubt about how an OT passage applies to you, ask Jesus, not Moses.
Ø MAT 7:24 "Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine, and acts upon them, may be compared to a wise man, who built his house upon the rock.