Skip to main content

What is the difference between "the law of Moses" and "the law of Christ"?

The coming of Christ changes everything. The Old Testament is not to be discarded; it remains God's word for us. But we read the Old Testament, and obey the Old Testament laws, through the prism of Christ and the New Testament. 

As Christians, we are not "under" the law, that is to say we are *not* bound to keep ("do") the Old Testament laws in the Old Testament way (Gal. 5:3). Rather, we "fulfil" the law in a New Testament way (Romans 8:4; 13:8,10; Galatians 5:14; James 2:8). Not only are we "not under law" in respect of the detailed laws (e.g. Exodus 21-23); we are also "not under law" in relation to the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1-17). The Ten Commandments do not constitute a timeless universal moral code, but rather represent specific commandments given to the people of Israel in the context of the Exodus from Egypt (20:2), and future life in the promised land of Canaan (20:12).  

Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 9,

"To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law." (vv. 20-21)

In Romans 7, he writes,

"Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code." (vv. 4-6)

So, according to the New Testament, Christians are not "under the law [of Moses]", but we are "under the law of Christ". Christ fulfilled the law of Moses by keeping it perfectly in all respects; we fulfil the law of Moses by personally obeying Christ. Serving "in the new way of the Spirit" means a whole different approach to obedience to God, focused not on observing Old Testament commandments in the precise way they are framed (e.g. Exodus 35:3), but rather personally obeying Christ.

"The law of Christ can be defined as those prescriptive principles drawn from the example and teaching of Jesus and his apostles (the central demand being love), which are meant to be worked out in specific situations by the guiding influence and empowerment of the Holy Spirit." (A. Blake White)

This understanding broadly matches up to what is called "New Covenant Theology (NCT)", as also espoused by Douglas Moo

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Bury, Greater Manchester - Timeline of churches

979?      First Church on the site of the present Parish Church (the picture below is an artist's impression of Bury parish church in 1485). This was the only church in the town of Bury until 1719 (see below).  1585      Parish church (re)built in the gothic style . 1650     During the Commonwealth, Henry Pendlebury was ordained for  Holcombe Chapelry.  1662     Having been ejected from the Church of England,  Henry Pendlebury of Holcombe   (1626-1695) held services at a Chapel on Bass Lane by Richard Kay, and others ejected from the C of E (replaced in 1712 by Dundee Chapel, Holcombe) 1669      The vicar of Bury parish reported to the Bishop of Chester that he heard several conventicles were "constantly kept at private houses of Independents, Presbyterians, Dippers and other such like jointly, of the bset rank of the yeomanry and other inferiors." 1689      ...

The history of the Christian Church in twenty places

α. Jerusalem (30 or 33 AD) The place where Christ, the Son-of-God-become-man, died on the Cross, was raised from the dead on the third day, and from where he ascended back to heaven. This is also where the Holy Spirit was poured out on the first disciples. Sometime after AD 44 (Acts 12), Peter, John and other Apostles dispersed across the world to bear testimony to the risen Christ. 1. Ephesus (approx. 100 AD) The place where the Apostles, Paul and John, handed over to the next generation of Christian leaders, which included the “Apostolic Fathers”. One such “Apostolic Father”, Ignatius of Antioch, passed through Ephesus on his way to martyrdom at Rome, and addressed a letter to the church at Ephesus. 2. Athens (second century) The centre of Greek thought, which Justin Martyr and other Second Century Apologists addressed in their presentations of the Christian faith, proclaiming Christ as the Logos (the Word or principle underlying the universe). 3. Lyon (from 177) The church in ...

History of Christianity in Latvia - great "saints" and heroes of the faith in Latvia

The Baltic region, including what is now Latvia , was one of the last outposts of European paganism, and was only evangelised and converted from the 1100s.  Bishop Meinhard (1134-1196) was one of the first to successfully plant the gospel in Latvian soil. An Augustinian canon (similar to a monk), he served as the first bishop of the see of Üxküll (now  Ikšķile ,  Latvia ). However, the murder of his successor led to a more violent imposition of Christianity.  This was in the context of the Northern Crusades  (Livonian Crusade) whereby peoples/tribes inhabiting this region, including the Latgalians, Selonians, Semigallians and Curonians, came to embrace the Christian faith. Andreas Knoepken  (1490-1539), a disciple of Luther, was the one who "brought" the Protestant Reformation to Latvia in its Lutheran form. 1521 is considered the date of the Protestant Reformation in Latvia; by the mid 1500s the majority of people had become Protestant. The Bible was ...