What is "The Law"?
The actual question that was submitted by one of my students was “How do the laws in the Old Testament apply to us as believers today?” My knee-jerk reaction to this question was to defer it indefinitely because it’s a contentious topic that I feel ill-equipped to teach (which is also why you will rarely see me say anything about eschatology). But it’s good to get stretched and pulled out of my comfort zone from time to time. So, I set out to resolve the issue for my curious student.
What follows will no doubt disappoint many for its lack of completeness, but as always, I endeavor to do the best I can with the time I have.
What’s the Problem?
If you’ve never really interacted with Christians from other theological camps on this topic, you might think that there’s really nothing to fuss about, and that the answer is quite straightforward. I used to think this, but that was before I started reading what other serious evangelical Bible scholars had to say about the matter. A family friend gave us a box of books, and one of the titles that caught my attention was “Five Views on Law and Gospel.” My decision to read it was solidified when I saw that two of the five authors were names I recognized: Greg L. Bahnsen, and Walter C. Kaiser, Jr. The book proved to be a challenging read (i.e., not terribly exciting and at times bordering on tedious), but overall I enjoyed the format (each man wrote in support of his position, and the other four would rebut), and I learned a few things along the way.
But before we go too much further, we need to define our term of interest: law.
What means “Law”?
When we talk about the proper role of the OT laws in a Christian’s life, we must come to an understanding of what is meant by “law.” Depending upon context, “the law” can refer to either one of the following:
The Mosaic Law (Exodus – Deuteronomy)
John 1:17
Exodus 24:12
Matthew 22:36–40 (cf., Deuteronomy 6:5; Leviticus 19:18)
The entirety of the Old Testament
John 12:34
John 15:25 (cf. Psalm 35:19, 69:4)
Romans 3:10–19
1 Corinthians 14:21 (cf. Isaiah 28:11, 12)
This division seems a bit too broad-brushed and unhelpful in answering the question before us—we need something a bit more precise. The New Unger’s Bible Dictionary breaks the law of Moses into six categories: civil, criminal, judicial, constitutional, ecclesiastical, and ceremonial (“Law of Moses”, p. 762); but going into that level of detail seems a bit excessive (even for me), so we need something a bit less fine-grained. More typically, we see “the Law” divided into three categories: moral, civil (or “judicial”), and ceremonial. “This bed is just right.”
Moral Law
The Moody Handbook of Theology offers a very helpful definition of moral law:
The moral law is found principally in the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:2–17; Deuteronomy 5:6–21), although not restricted to them. The Ten Commandments are listed in two categories: man’s relationship to God, covering the first four commandments (Exodus 20:2–11), and man’s relationship to God, covering the last six commandments (Exodus 20:12–17). The moral law begins with the statement, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt” (Exodus 20:2), hence, “the standard of moral measurement in deciding what was right or wrong, good or evil, was fixed in the unwavering and impeccably holy character of Yahweh, Israel’s God. His nature, attributes, character, and qualities provided the measuring stick for all ethical decision.” (Enns)
As I noted in class, the interesting thing about the moral law of God is that it is not what theologians would call “causistic” or “case” law; it’s not a series of “if…then” statements (i.e., “if you do this, then this is the punishment you can expect”). The Ten Commandments, for example, is a series of “thou shalts” and “thou shalt nots” that does not concern itself with how to deal with infractions, though the 5th commandment does include a promised blessing for obeying it (cf. Ephesians 6:2).
In the context of the question “What’s the proper role of the Law in the believer’s life today,” I think what most people have in mind is the Mosaic law (this was the explicit intent of the student who asked the question during her reading of Leviticus). So, we’ll be focusing most of our attention there; but we still need to define the other two types of law.
Civil/Judicial Law
I’ll once again lean on The Moody Handbook of Theology for a definition of the civil law:
The civil law involves many of the laws appearing in Exodus 21:1–24:18, as well as in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. These laws reflect social concerns whereby the Israelites would live with proper concern for their neighbors in the mediatorial kingdom. The laws have reference to slaves, injury to others, property rights, oppression of widows and orphans, money lending, and many other concerns. (Enns)
The civil laws are based upon the moral law and prescribe a course of action for violations. A good deal of the civil case law can be found in what is called “The Book of the Covenant” found in Exodus 20:22 – 23:19, and gets its name from the summary of them found in Exodus 24:7.
For example, Exodus 20:12 says “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which Yahweh your God gives you.” This is the moral law. A civil law based upon that moral law can be found a few verses later, in Exodus 21:17: “And he who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death.”
Ceremonial Law
Moody to the rescue, again:
The ceremonial law, described mainly in Exodus 25:1–40:38 (as well as in Leviticus and Deuteronomy), involves the tabernacle, the clothing and function of the priests, and the sacrifices and offerings. (Enns)
I don’t think any more really needs to be said here as ceremonial law is fairly easy to spot in Scripture.
Dealing With Ditches
When talking about errors in theology and practice that commonly befall Christians, Voddie Baucham likes to say, “there’s a ditch on either side of the road.” The pursuit of the proper role of the law in a Christian’s life seems not to be immune to this aphorism. In this case, the ditches have signs posted in them that say, respectively, “antinomianism” and “legalism.”
Antinomianism
This big word comes from the Greek:
ἀντί [anti] — "against"
νόμος [nomos] — "law"
Simply put, antinomians are “anti-law.” They basically plant their flag on verses like Romans 6:14, 10:4, and Galatians 3:23–25, declare that “we’re no longer under the law but under grace” and assert that there are no moral laws binding on the Christian today. The “hyper-grace” movement in some Charismatic circles espouses this view.
This view is highly problematic as it is directly confronted and contradicted by the Holy Spirit in Romans 6, particularly in verses 1, 2, and 15. GotQuestions.org has a pretty good article detailing with the problems with antinomianism, if you’d like to learn more.
Legalism & Nomism
The legalist, on the other hand, while confessing that he is saved by grace and not by works of the law, exalts himself over and above his Christian brothers because he follows a stricter set of (often extra-biblical) laws or rules.
The kissing cousin of the legalist is the nomist, (again from the Greek νόμος [nomos]) who believes that salvation is contingent upon adherence to the OT laws in addition to faith in Christ; it was against nomists (the “Judaizers”) that Paul wrote the epistle to the Galatians.
We might be tempted to think of antinomianism and legalism/nomism as opposite ends of the same spectrum, but I’m inclined to agree with John MacArthur’s view, expressed in his book Sanctification:
The truth is, antinomianism and legalism are two sides of the same coin. The legalist thinks he's spiritual because he observes a law; the antinomian thinks he's spiritual because he doesn't. Both define the Christian life by what they do with regard to the law rather than stressing the need for the Spirit's empowerment to conform us to Christ's likeness. The legalist will never be able to restrain the flesh with his legalism (Gal. 5:17). And the antinomian who refuses even to hear the law because he thinks rules of any kind are a threat to his "liberty" is still in bondage to sin (Rom. 6:15-16). Both legalism and antinomianism are hostile to the Spirit's work in sanctification. Both the legalist and the antinomian will crash and burn. (MacArthur, emphasis in the original)
To Be Continued…
A 30-minute class is far too short to fully cover this topic. Lord willing, we’ll pick this up next week and actually answer the question.
No homework this week…it’s all on me.
Works Cited
John MacArthur, Sanctification: God’s Passion for His People (Crossway, 2020), 64.
Merrill Frederick Unger, Roland Kenneth Harrison, and Howard Frederic Vos, The New Unger’s Bible Dictionary (Moody Publishers, 1988), 78.
Paul P. Enns, The Moody Handbook of Theology (Moody Publishers, 1989), 57.