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The answer is no!
Christians still have a covenant to live by.
We
are under the New Covenant now that Christ
gave His life for us, not the Old Covenant
that God gave to Israel to keep.
Nine of the Ten Commandments are included in
and enlarged upon in the New Covenant. They
apply to Christians, not because they were
in the Old Covenant, but because they are
commanded of us in the New Covenant!
The New Covenant is not without law!
In fact, Christians live by a higher law,
the law of Christ. The moral obligations of
the New Covenant are superior to the Old
Covenant in every way.
1 John 3:15 says, “Everyone who hates his
brother is a murderer, and you know that no
murderer has eternal life abiding in him.”
John agrees with Jesus’ teaching in
Matthew 5:22-28 that outward conformity to
God’s commandment “You shall not murder,” in
Exodus 20:13 is not nearly enough. What
matters is our hearts! When you hate someone
it violates the command not to murder just
as if you had already taken a life.
1 Peter 4:15 says, “But let none of you
suffer as a murderer or a thief or an
evildoer or as a meddler.”
Nine of
the Ten Commandments are reapplied after the
Cross.
Commandment #1, You shall have
no other gods before Me (Exod. 20:3; Matt. 4:10;
1 Cor. 8:4-6; 12:2; Col. 3:5, Eph. 5:5; 1 Tim. 2:5).
Commandment
#2, You shall not make for yourself a carved
image - any likeness of anything that is in
heaven above, or that is in the earth
beneath, or that is in the water under the
earth; you shall not bow down to them nor
serve them (Exod. 20:4-5; 1 Jn. 5:21; Acts 17:29; Rom. 1:22-23; Rev. 21:8).
Commandment #3,
You shall not take the name of the Lord your
God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him
guiltless who takes His name in vain (Exod. 20:7; 1 Tim. 1:20; 6:1; James 5:12).
Commandment
#4, Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it
holy (Exod. 20:8-11).
The New Covenant
plainly says that the Sabbath and all the
ceremonies of the Old Covenant have ended
(Acts 15:1-20; Col. 2:14-17; Eph. 2:11-16; Gal. 4:10-11; Rom. 14:5-12). Jesus is the
Lord of the Sabbath; He has become for us
our Sabbath rest (Matt. 11:28-30; Heb. 4:1-11).
Commandment #5, Honor your
father and your mother (Exod. 20:12; Eph. 6:1-3; Col. 3:20).
Commandment #6, You shall not
murder (Exod. 20:13; Rom. 13:9; 1 Pet. 4:15;
1 Jn. 3:15; Rev. 21:8).
Commandment
#7, You shall not commit adultery (Exod. 20:14; Rom. 13:9; 1 Cor. 6:9-10; Rev. 21:8).
Commandment #8, You shall not steal
(Exod. 20:15; Rom. 13:9; Eph. 4:28; Titus 2:10).
Commandment #9, You shall not bear false
witness against your neighbor (Exod. 20:16;
Rom. 13:9; Col. 3:9-10; Rev. 21:8).
Commandment
#10, You shall not covet anything that
belongs to
your neighbor (Exod. 20:17;
Rom. 7:7; 13:9; Eph. 5:3; Col. 3:5).
How
do we know which of Old Covenant Laws still
apply today?
The Old Covenant was a
legal agreement made with Israel alone
(Exod. 34:27-28; Lev. 26:46; Rom. 9:4). The
New Covenant is a “new” legal agreement made
with everyone, Jews and Gentiles, who
follows Jesus Christ as their Lord and
Savior (Heb. 7:12; 8:6-13; 10:9; Rom. 10:4;
Gal. 3:21-24; 2 Cor. 3:6-11; 5:16-21).
New converts were expected to follow the
moral teachings of Christ and His apostles,
which are based upon and expanded upon the
moral principles taught in the Torah.
However, if Sabbath-keeping was a
requirement for Christianity then we would
expect to find a command to keep it in the
New Testament, but there is none. For the
authors of the New Covenant to leave out a
command for the Church to keep the seventh
day Sabbath would have been a major
oversight!
The only laws Christians
are required to keep are the laws that are
expressed in the New Covenant. Not some
strange mixture of laws from both the Old
and the New Covenants like some people
falsely teach today.
The New
Testament explicitly teaches that
Sabbath-keeping along with all of the other
ceremonial requirements of the Old Covenant
Law are not required for Christians who live
under the New Covenant (Matt. 11:28-30; 12:1-8;
Acts 15:1-28; Col. 2:14-17; Gal. 4:10-11; Rom. 14:5-12;
Eph. 2:11-18; 2 Cor. 3:3-11; Heb. 3:7-4:13; 8:6-9:4; 10:23-25).
REMEMBER: We are not saying there is NO
covenant anymore, we are saying we are under
a different covenant than Israel was
altogether.
It is all there; all
people have to do is take the time to read
the New Testament for themselves.
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