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It is a New
Covenant!
God has had
different laws under each of the different
covenants. Each covenant makes its own laws.
Each covenant is a new legal contract. A
contract has to have all of its requirements
spelled out in the contract. We are never
told to keep the Law of Moses in the New
Covenant. Just the opposite!
The Old and New Covenants have similarities
and differences:
The law of
Christ and the Law of Moses have similar
commandments, but just because nine of the
Ten Commandments are reapplied in the New
Covenant doesn’t mean that the Law of Moses
is still in effect. If Christian's steal
something, they break the law of Christ, not
the Law of Moses. If we choose to keep parts
of the Old Covenant law, such as the Sabbath
or the dietary restrictions, we are free to
do so, but keeping the Law of Moses out of
the belief that we are obligated to keep
them denies the perfect and finished work of
Jesus Christ on Calvary’s cross.
What is the law of Christ?
Galatians 6:2 states, “Carry each other’s
burdens, and in this way you will fulfill
the law of Christ”. What exactly then is the
law of Christ, and how is it fulfilled by
carrying each other’s burdens? The law of
Christ is also mentioned in 1 Corinthians 9:21.
Paul argues in Galatians that
the law (covenant) given to Israel at Mount
Sinai makes no claim on any Jew or Gentile
who believes in Jesus Christ (Gal. 2:15-21; 3:10-14; 3:23-26;
Gal. 4:4-5; 4:21-5:6). Paul then tells
the Galatians to act ethically and walk in
the Spirit (Gal. 5:16).
Christ-followers are to be led by the Spirit
(Gal. 5:18) and fulfill "the law of
Christ" (Gal. 6:2). In 1 Corinthians 9,
Paul demonstrates how Christians should have
love for their weaker brother or sister and
refrain from demanding their own personal
rights.
1 Corinthians 9:19-23 says,
“For though I am free from all, I have made
myself a servant to all, that I might win
more of them. 20 To the Jews I became as a
Jew, in order to win Jews. 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. 21 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. 22 To the weak I
became weak, that I might win the weak. I
have become all things to all people, that
by all means I might save some. 23 I do it
all for the sake of the gospel, that I may
share with them in its blessings.”
Notice these points:
1. Paul is not under the Law of the
Jews;
2. But Paul is not without
law;
3. Paul is under a different
law from the Jews;
4. Paul is
under the law of Christ!
Paul clearly uses the phrase to mean
something other than the law given to Israel
at Sinai and considered by most Jews to be
their special possession. The law of Christ
is what Christ stated were the greatest
commandments in Mark 12:28-31, “And one of
the scribes came up and heard them disputing
with one another, and seeing that he
answered them well, asked him, “Which
commandment is the most important of all?”
29 Jesus answered, “The most important is,
‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord
is one. 30 And you shall love the Lord your
God with all your heart and with all your
soul and with all your mind and with all
your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘You
shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There
is no other commandment greater than
these.’”
The law of Christ, then, is to
love God with all of our heart and to love
our neighbors as we love ourselves.
In Mark 12:32-33, Jesus and the
scribe agreed that two commands are the core
of the entire Old Testament Law. All of the
Old Testament Law can be placed in the
category of “loving God” or “loving your
neighbor.”
Various New Testament
scriptures state that Jesus fulfilled the
Old Testament Law, bringing it to completion
and conclusion (Rom. 10:4; Gal. 3:23-25; Eph. 2:15). In place of the Old
Testament Law, Christians are to obey the
law of Christ. Rather than trying to
remember the 613 individual commandments in
the Old Testament Law, Christians are simply
to focus on loving God and loving others. If
Christians would truly and wholeheartedly
obey those two commands, we would be
fulfilling everything that God requires of
us.
Christ freed us from the bondage
of the hundreds of commands in the Old
Testament Law and instead calls on us to
love. First John 4:7-8 declares, “Beloved,
let us love one another, for love is from
God, and whoever loves has been born of God
and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love
does not know God, because God is love.” And
1 John 5:3 continues, “This is love for God:
to obey His commands. And His commands are
not burdensome.”
The law of
Christ is made up of all the laws of the New
Covenant:
No one is
commanded to keep the Old Covenant Law in
the New Covenant. They are separate and
distinct covenants and you can't be under
both at the same time. If you are teaching
people to keep some or all of the laws of
the Old Covenant, you are teaching the false
gospel of the Galatian heretics. Telling
people they have to keep even part of the Old Covenant law is a
false and damning gospel.
The
law of Christ can be defined as:
The
law of Christ is the covenantal outworking
of God’s absolute law under the New
Covenant, the gracious law of the New
Covenant (Rom. 6:14), which is
covenantally binding upon the Church (1 Cor. 9:20-21) and consists of the law
of love (Matt. 5:44; Gal. 6:2; James 2:8;
Rom. 13:8-10), the example of the
Lord Jesus Christ (John 13:34; Phil. 2:4-12), Christ’s commands and teaching
(Matt. 28:20; 2 Pet. 3:2), the commands
and teachings of the New Testament epistles (Acts 1:1-2; 2 Pet. 3:2; Eph. 2:20; Jude 1:17; 1 Jn. 5:3), and all Scripture
is interpreted in light of Jesus Christ and
what He accomplished for us
(Matt. 5:17-18; Luke 24:27,44; 2 Tim. 3:16-17).
The Mosaic Law was
done away in its entirety as a legal code.
It has been replaced by the law of Christ.
“The law of Christ contains
some new commands (1 Tim. 4:4), some old
ones (Rom. 13:9), and some revised ones
(Rom. 13:4, with reference to capital
punishment). All the laws of the Mosaic code
have been abolished because the code has.
Specific Mosaic commands that are part of
the Christian code appear there not as a
continuation of part of the Mosaic Law, or
in order to be observed in some deeper
sense, but as specifically incorporated into
that code, and as such they are binding on
believers today. A particular law that was
part of the Mosaic code is done away; that
same law, if part of the law of Christ, is
binding. It is necessary to say both truths
in order not to have to resort to a
nonliteral interpretation of 2 Corinthians 3
or Hebrews 7 and in order not to have to
resort to some sort of theological
contortions to retain part of the Mosaic
Law.” [1]
Each covenant had its own legal code.
The only laws Christians are required to
keep are the laws expressed in the New
Covenant. Not some ad-mixture of laws from
the Old and the New Covenants like
Seventh-day Adventists teach.
References:
1. From: Basic
Theology – The End of the Law!
See also:
The Sabbath In
the Old and New Covenants:
The Law of God vs. The Law
of Moses:
Law: What is It's Meaning in the Bible:
The Old and New Covenants are not the same!
What was the law placed beside the ark of
the covenant?
The Old Covenant
Law Has Come to an End!
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