Do Christians have to obey the Old Testament law?

Although Christians have been freed from the yoke of the law which, as Peter said, "neither our fathers nor we were able to bear" (Acts 15:10), the righteous requirements of the law are fulfilled in true believers of the Lord Jesus Christ, "who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit" (Rom. 8:4). Christians do not have the ten commandments, given to Israel, as their rule of life. We have Christ as our example, a divine nature that has the capacity for pleasing God, and the Holy Spirit as the power to enable us to walk for God's pleasure in this world. The Gospels show us what Christ was for God in the world, and His commandments were but the formal expression of what was livingly expressed in Himself, for He never asked others to do anything but what He perfectly expressed in His own life before them.

And, let the reader thoroughly understand that when our Lord speaks of His commandments, His words, and His sayings, He does not mean the ten commandments, or law of Moses. No doubt, those ten commandments form a part of the whole canon of scripture, the inspired word of God; but, to confound the law of Moses with the commandments of Christ, would be simply turning things upside down; it would be to confound Judaism with Christianity, law and grace. The two things are as distinct as any two things can be; and must be so maintained by all who would be found in the current of the mind of God.

We are sometimes led astray by the mere sound of words; and hence, when we meet with the word "commandments," we instantly conclude that it must needs refer to the law of Moses. But this is a very great and mischievous mistake. If the reader is not clear and established as to this, let him close this volume, and turn to the first eight chapters of the Epistle to the Romans, and the whole of the Epistle to the Galatians, and read them calmly and prayerfully, as in the very presence of God, with a mind freed from all theological bias and the influence of all previous religious training. There he will learn, in the fullest and clearest manner, that the Christian is not under law in any way, or for any object whatsoever, either for life, for righteousness, for holiness, for walk, or for anything else. In short, the teaching of the entire New Testament goes to establish, beyond all question, that the Christian is not under law, not of the world, not in the flesh, not in his sins. The solid ground of all this is the accomplished redemption which we have in Christ Jesus, in virtue of which we are sealed by the Holy Ghost, and thus indissolubly united to, and inseparably identified with a risen and glorified Christ; so that the apostle John can say of all believers, all God's dear children, "As he [Christ] is so are we in this world." This settles the whole question, for all who are content to be governed by holy scripture. And as to all beside, discussion is worse than useless.

First, the law is not the ground of a sinner's justification. He is justified by grace, by the blood of Christ, by faith. This is fully reasoned out in Romans 3 and 4. Second, the law is not the rule of life for the believer. Christ is that. Our links are with Him and not with law, as we have seen (Rom. 7:4). This is fully shown in Galatians 3 and 4.

One other point demands a passing notice. Granting that the law is not the means of life, it is sometimes said, Yet is it not the rule of Christian conduct? Look at it well, and then ask if this is possible. Take for example the prohibitions as to one's neighbour. Would God be satisfied with a Christian who abstained from the sins there specified? Nay, would a Christian be satisfied himself that, in abstaining from these things he answered to God's mind as to his walk? Suppose now, that he even did love his neighbour as himself, would this rise to the height of the example of Christ? What does the apostle John say? Hereby perceive we love, because He laid down His life for us. That is, the true expression of love is seen in the death of Christ for us. Hence the apostle adds, "And we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren." (1 John 3:16.) To do this would surely be loving the brethren better than ourselves — going therefore marvellously beyond the scope of law. The truth is, as Paul has taught us, we are "dead to the law by the body of Christ; that we should be married to another, even to Him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God." (Rom. 7:4.) The law was a rule for Israel; but Christ, and Christ alone, is the standard of the believer. "He that saith he abideth in Him, ought himself also so to walk, even as He walked." (1 John 2:6.) It is therefore an infinitely higher standard, involving far greater responsibility, than that of the law. This contention, indeed, that we are still under the law, notwithstanding the statement, "Ye are not under the law, but under grace" (Rom. 6:14), springs from ignorance of what redemption is. When it is seen that believers are brought through the death and resurrection of Christ out of their old condition, and have a new place and standing altogether; that they are not in the flesh but in the Spirit (Rom. 8:9), it is easily perceived that they belong to a sphere into which the law cannot enter; and that as Christ is the only object of their souls, so the expression of Christ in their walk and conversation, as they pass through this scene, is their only responsibility. We commend these points to the careful attention of every child of God.

True it is that a Christian, walking in the Spirit, fulfills the practical righteousness of the law (Rom. 8:4). But if you put a Christian under the law, you put him under the curse, for the apostle declares that as many as are on that ground, not merely as many as have not kept the law, are under the curse. In short, the entire teaching of Romans and Galatians is flatly opposed to the notion of putting Christians under the law whether for justification or as a rule of life. So far from its being the ground of justification, it is the ground of condemnation. So far from its being a rule of life, it is a rule of death. See Romans 7:10 and 2 Corinthians 3.

The mistake made is this. Many things contained in the law, all in the moral law as usually understood — say Christ's two great commandments, and the ten commandments (not now discussing the sabbath which belonged to the old creation, the Lord's day to the new) — were obligations before the law and are obligations under Christ. But from the law, that is, the enforcement of these obligations by the authority of God binding them on man as his righteousness by a rule of life (and that only is law), or pronouncing a curse on them if they did not keep it, from that (that is, from law) we are wholly and in every shape and way delivered, dead to it. It is adultery, to use the image of Romans 7, to have to say to it, to call ourselves Christians, if we are not absolutely from under its authority. I learn how God viewed evil and good from it, I can learn to support true ministers from what is said of oxen, but the law is not binding on me. I learn more of Christ's sacrifice in detail from Leviticus and other places than from the Gospels; yet I have nothing whatever to say to the law as to them, I am not under it. So of moral obligations — I learn in the law that God abhorred stealing, but it is not because under the law that I do not steal. All the word of God is mine and written for my instruction, yet for all that I am not under law, but a Christian who has died with Christ on the cross and am not in the flesh to which law applied, I am dead to the law by the body of Christ.

— Mr. M. had better search and see whether the apostle does not guide "Brethren" in affirming that the Christian is not under law in Romans 6, Galatians 5 (latter part), 2 Corinthians 3, 1 Timothy 1:9, and many other places of the New Testament. It is untrue that in any of these scriptures the question is about justification. Not so; it is a question of walk, or a rule of life. The apostle is most explicit, and had to guard the truth against attacks similar to those now levelled at "Brethren." We are under grace, not law; and Christ revealed in all the word of God is the true and full guide of the life He has given us, not the law which was given by Moses, excellent as it is, but excellent as a rule of death and condemnation, not of christian walk or worship. Matthew 5 does not contradict the apostle, nor do "Brethren" anything here but seek subjection to the Lord personally or through His servant. For they hold that the Lord did not destroy the law or the prophets but fulfil; and they neither break one of the least commandments nor teach men so, but contrariwise do and teach then by the grace of God. In every way "Brethren" hold that Christianity establishes law. For first there never was such honour put on its sanction as when the Lord suffered death on the cross; and this is the point in the end of Romans 3, where faith is shown to act thus; secondly, in Romans 8:4, we learn that the practical result is as real as the doctrine of the cross to faith, for the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in those that walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit, as all Christians are called to do. Yet that righteous requirement of the law is thus fulfilled, by our being under not the law but grace, nor yet by the law's death (as the Authorized Version has it, following a bad reading in the received text) but by our death to it. Being born of God, we love; otherwise we have not seen or known Him. But if we love God and our neighbour, we fulfil the law, for love is the fulfilling of the law, and for us there is none other. Mr. M.'s controversy is therefore with St. Paul; and no Christians really value the sermon on the Mount more than "Brethren," if so much. Indeed it is strange and humbling that godly men should feel otherwise; for the word of God is plain, and so are the facts before every eye.

370 Christ was under the law during His life, in resurrection He is so no longer. Now the commands, whether they be called of God, or whether they be called of Christ, have another character for the Christian. All that Christ has said, all that His apostles have said, everything in which the Old Testament displays His will, direct and govern the life which we already possess, and have the authority of the word of God, of God Himself, over our soul. I have life; the words of Christ, His commands (and whatever is found elsewhere in the word of the same character is the same in principle), are the expression of this life in Him, its fruits in every respect according to the perfection and according to the will of God Himself, and they are the directions for this life in me. By following them I walk according to the thoughts of God, and according to His will; it is the law of liberty, because I already possess the life of which it prescribes the perfection; and being the expression of the will of God, it is also obedience. But if you "return to the command" under the form of law, you return to death and condemnation. The law does not give life, does not give strength for holiness, any more than it justifies. From what you say, I do not believe you are delivered from the law. If you had felt what the law is, I do not think you would have said, Let us return to the command, or could have spoken of again setting up the observance of the command; because you would feel that on this ground you are lost, because the law has not lost its force, and throughout it is always (for man) a ministry of condemnation and death. I do not in the least reproach you. Many dear and precious souls are under law.

Many contend that the ceremonial law is abrogated, but that the moral law is binding upon all. This distinction between the ceremonial and the moral law can only be true in so far as the law is the embodiment of moral principles, which must ever be the rule of conduct for an intelligent being as such. So the righteous requirements of the law are fulfilled now in those who walk after the Spirit — while they are said to have become dead to the law by the body of Christ. Scripture speaks only of 'the law.' The law engraven on stones (the ten commandments) is called "the ministration of death," not the law of life to a Christian. 2 Cor. 3:7. Law gives no power over sin; indeed, no sooner does a law say that a particular thing must not be done, than a desire arises to do it. Scripture does not say a word about the Christian being ruled by law; but it says that grace teaches him how to walk (Titus 2:11-12), and because he is under grace sin will not have dominion over him. The law depicted what a righteous man should be for the earth. It was perfect for the purpose for which it was given, but as seen in the question of divorce (Mark 10:4) it permitted what God had not intended for man at the beginning, and to this Christ bore witness. In Matt. 5:21-48 the Lord mentions five particulars, which they had heard in old time, in contrast to which He legislates in accordance with the new order of things that He was bringing in. The law did not come up to the responsibilities of Christianity. The Christian has a higher standard, even Christ Himself. He is to walk 'worthy of the Lord' unto all pleasing. Having received Christ Jesus the Lord, he is to walk in Him, Col. 1:10; Col. 2:6; and to walk also 'worthy of God,' 1 Thess. 2:12; indeed his aim should be to say, with Paul, "To me to live is Christ." Phil. 1:21.

It is contrary to God's revealed will if Christians put themselves under the law. Usually they do not mean the whole law including its judicial and ceremonial orders, but only its moral commandments, i.e. the 10 commandments. For the observance of these the reason given is that a Christian is not allowed to kill, steal, etc. But a believer will avoid these and all other sins, not because he observes the law, but because he has received a new life and possesses the Holy Spirit as a source of strength which enables him to go beyond the minimal requirements of the law.1

Yet again and again it is taught in Christendom that although the law was given to the people of Israel, it is still valid for all peoples and therefore also for Christians, since God would not operate a double standard for mankind. Apart from Matthew 5:17-48, Scriptures such as Deuteronomy 4:5-8, Isaiah 2:2-3 and Romans 3:19 are quoted as reason, but, among other things, history and prophecy are being mixed up. God is unchangeable in His nature but His relationships to men are not at all times and in all circumstances the same.