Category: The Law of Moses

Questions about how Christians relate to the Law are a theological expanse that seems only to keep growing. In interacting with other Christians, there are some shared assumptions, but when speaking with Jews, these assumptions don’t necessarily work. When answering questions from Jewish interlocutors, I can only speak about the New Testament perspective on the law. I admit that part of this is due to my own ignorance about the fullness of the Jewish tradition…

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photo by Ferdinand Feng Does the indwelling of the Holy Spirit bring to the believer in this age of salvation history something prior ages did not have? It is hard to answer otherwise, for the new covenant is a better covenant than the old, and whole the Spirt came upon God’s saints to do certain things, the indwelling and sealing of the Holy Spirit puts us in a different realm from what came before. No…

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Freedom from the law is not something to look at warily. The words “antinomian” and “antinomianism” are polemical terms, and as is often the case, they carry connotations. But does the claim of what’s behind these words stand up to scrutiny? A dictionary definition says an antinomian is “one who holds that under the gospel dispensation of grace the moral law is of no use or obligation because faith alone is necessary to salvation.”[i] The…

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Putting Christians under the law was wrong then, as it is now. Acts 15 contains the account of the first council of the church, in Jerusalem. The topic was the law, and whether Gentile converts to faith in Jesus need to adhere to the Mosaic law. Despite the clear verdict of the council, there are still those who say that the Christian must keep the law. But just as it was wrong then, so is…

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If we say we are not saved by keeping the law, but once saved, we must obey it, we have fallen from grace. Paul’s letter to the Galatians is one of his most polemical, perhaps the most forceful of any. One of the prime things Paul aims to do is dispel the idea that Christians retain any obligation to the law of Moses. In the first chapter, Paul expresses his astonishment at the desertion of…

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Salvation history is the unfolding of God’s plan. It is an unfolding not because God is somehow making it up as he goes, but because in his divine counsel, he chooses to reveal aspects of it in time. As one example, Paul is explicit about such an unfolding regarding the church, when he says to the Ephesians, “When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made…

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When one reads the New Testament, and in particular Paul’s epistles, one can’t help see how the law of Moses is a prominent theme in the apostle’s thought. How he treats it is of great importance to how Christians should regard it. First, one has to say that for Paul, “the Law” is specifically those commandments given at Sinai, and following. The holiness code of Leviticus 18-22 is also part of the law, and an…

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These points are a synopsis of my book If One Uses It Lawfully: The Law of Moses and the Christian Life.  1. The Law was given to Jews, and not to Gentiles. The law was given at Sinai, after the people were redeemed from Egypt. The Ten Commandments form the “treaty document” between God and Israel. (Gentry/Wellum, Kingdom through Covenant, 327-28.) The psalmist wrote “He declares his word to Jacob, his statutes and rules to…

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