How many times have I said something (and heard preaching) about the “old law” referring to the Old Testament?
The Bible certainly does use the terms “old covenant” and “new covenant.” See Matthew 26.28, 1 Corinthians 11.25, 2 Corinthians 3.4–18, Hebrews 8.7–9.1, Hebrews 9.15, and Hebrews 12.24 for references to the “new covenant.” The only reference to “old covenant” is in 2 Corinthians 3.14 (some versions say “Old Testament”). Hebrews 8.7, 9.1, 9.15, and 9.18 use the term “first covenant.” So with covenants we understand there was a first and a second, an old and a new.
But does Scripture say the same thing about “law”? Is there a first and a second law? Is there an old and new law of God?
How the Bible uses words matters, and we should pay close attention.
What about Acts 15?
Acts 15 is a key text we must deal with. Some Jewish Christians had come from Judea to Antioch, where Paul and Barnabas were, and were teaching, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved,” and “It is necessary to circumcise [Gentile Christians] and order them to keep the law of Moses” (Acts 15.1, 5). The main issue, therefore, was circumcision, the covenant God had made with Abraham and Abraham’s descendants in Genesis 17. God tied circumcision directly to the covenant with Abraham’s family, saying, “This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between Me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised” (Gen. 17.10). Jewish Christians understood the continuity of God’s people even as God was accepting Gentiles into His great flock (as Jesus had said, “And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd”—John 10.16). The Jewish Christians understood rightly that Gentiles were accepted into the flock, but they understood wrongly about God’s desires for them and the change of covenants.
They use the term “law of Moses” in verse 5. Is this chapter about keeping the law of Moses? Were they were discussing whether to throw out the entire law of Moses, about whether they could hold Gentile Christians accountable to that law? In a way, yes, that was included in the question, but the focus was circumcision. The elders in Jerusalem (including Peter and James) took council with delegates from the church in Antioch (including Paul and Barnabas), and they discussed the matter. They recognized God had accepted Gentiles into the kingdom of Christ without demanding they be circumcised, giving them the Holy Spirit. Paul and Barnabas told of their work among the Gentiles, and James quoted from Amos 9.11–12 a prophecy that said, “All the Gentiles who are called by My name, says the Lord.”
What was their judgment? Together, and with the Holy Spirit, they wrote a letter to the Gentiles which said:
For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well.
Acts 15.28–29
In other words, circumcision was not to be required, but moral aspects of the law were to be followed. It’s not that the Gentiles had no law to follow—Christians do have law—but certain aspects of the law of Moses had been fulfilled in Christ and were no longer in effect. Circumcision has been fulfilled and taken off the table under the New Covenant.
Hebrews 8 Quoting Jeremiah 31
Hebrews explains, “Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant He mediates is better” (Heb. 8.6). The first covenant was not faultless (Heb. 8.7), so there was a need for a second, and God had told Israel, before they had been captured and displaced by the Babylonians, that He was planning to give them a New Covenant (Jeremiah 31.31–34). The Hebrew writer quotes that prophecy in Hebrews 8.8–13:
8 For he finds fault with them when he says:
“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord,
when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel
and with the house of Judah,
9 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers
on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt.
For they did not continue in my covenant,
and so I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord.
10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel
after those days, declares the Lord:
I will put my laws into their minds,
and write them on their hearts,
and I will be their God,
and they shall be my people.
11 And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor
and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’
for they shall all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest.
12 For I will be merciful toward their iniquities,
and I will remember their sins no more.”
13 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.
Hebrews 8.8–13
Notice in verse 10 God said, “I will put My laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts.” What laws was He talking about, do you think? The Jews would have understood Him to mean the laws He had given His people through Moses.
There was a definite change in covenant, but God’s laws would continue. There was a New Covenant, but not a New Law.
The New Covenant explicitly does not include many aspects of the Old Covenant because they were fulfilled in Christ, including eating of unclean meats, animal sacrifice, circumcision, the Levitical priesthood, tabernacle/temple worship, Jewish feast days, and sabbath day keeping. All of those were fulfilled or changed into something new. The New Covenant brings in a few new commandments to the people of the covenant, including baptism, the Lord’s Supper (“this is the New Covenant in My blood”), and loving our brethren as Christ loves us (“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another”—John 13.34).
A Quick Look at Matthew 5.17–20
Jesus preached:
17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. 19 Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
Matthew 5.17-20
The language He uses is striking: “until heaven and earth pass away.” Many today read this as if Jesus were saying, “the Law will be in place for three more years until I die and rise from the dead, then I’ll do away with the Law.” But this does not fit the language Jesus uses! Jesus speaks of the righteousness of His Kingdom: “Whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.” What is the kingdom of heaven? A few chapters later, in Matthew 11.11, Jesus says the least in the kingdom of heaven will be greater than John the Baptist, indicating that the kingdom had not come yet in its fullness, and John never lived to see it. No, the kingdom of heaven began in its fullness when Christ sat on His throne, and Matthew 5–7 (the Sermon on the Mount) is an explanation of the righteousness Christ expected His followers to have in His kingdom. He was not talking about a few laws of Moses which would expire as soon as He ascended into heaven.
To further prove this point, continue reading the rest of Matthew 5. Jesus pulls law after law from the Law of Moses, not to abrogate or to abolish them, but to explain the fuller sense of what God meant by those laws. Some of the laws were quoted from the Ten Commandments (you shall not murder; you shall not commit adultery), but He also quotes other commandments in Moses’ Law (you shall not swear falsely; an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth; you shall love your neighbor). Jesus was not changing God’s law; rather, He was deepening our understanding of God’s law and telling us we should keep it!
This will suffice for now, but I hope to continue looking at how Jesus and the apostles continued to rely upon and use the Law. We have no New Law today, but we do have a new relationship to the law and a new understanding of God’s grace and how we relate to the law of God. I hope you, dear reader, are blessed by these thoughts.