How Should We Understand the Law?

Most people who start to read the Bible from the beginning for the first time will typically have this experience: Genesis is fascinating with the story of creation, Babel, the flood, and the epic stories of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The exodus story is gripping. And then comes the law. Mount Sinai and the Ten Commandments are familiar. Next come the flurry of laws and stipulations, many of which are so far removed from our culture and hard to understand that the Bible reader can get bogged down. Mid-Leviticus, typically.

What is “the law”? What is the purpose of the more than 600 regulations? And, very importantly, how much of this applies to our lives? Why do we believe that “You shall not commit adultery” in the Ten Commandments applies to us but “Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material” does not?

In Scripture “the law” may refer to the more than 600 regulations Moses passed on to the people in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, or it may refer to the first five books of the Bible, or as shorthand for the entire pattern of religious life and rituals in the Old Testament. Law is a way for any society to define the proper bounds of behavior both for protection and for flourishing. But the law of the Old Testament is unique in that it was God’s way of shaping his relationship with a covenant people.

This will help us understand the sometimes bewildering array of laws, some of which seem strange to us. The Hebrews were chosen to live in a distinctive way by how they dressed, what they ate, and how they worshipped. Most of these laws do not carry over after the coming of Christ, when the old covenant gave way to the new covenant, and the way of living in obedience to God comes via a higher kind of law.

In Exodus through Deuteronomy there are three kinds of laws. First, there are civil regulations, for instance, property rights; marriage and divorce standards; laws sanctioning theft, murder, and other crimes; health regulations; etc. Then there are ritual instructions that define the sacrificial system, the festivals, the role of the Levites, and the specific physical features of the tabernacle. Finally, there are moral principles, which include sexual ethics, the major themes of the Ten Commandments, and more. These three types are sometimes called the civil law, the ceremonial law, and the moral law.

So how do we know which of the 600 laws in the Old Testament apply to Christians today? Should we avoid eating shellfish? Ought we to observe Passover? Is it wrong to steal? Do we have to observe the Sabbath (i.e., rest on the seventh day of the week, Saturday)? Are sexual relations between blood relatives wrong? Is tithing (i.e., giving 10 percent of your income) an eternal commandment?

We have to answer this question on something better than our intuitions. The terms of the new covenant must guide us here, and what we find in the New Testament is that the civil law was God’s way of shaping Hebrew society; it’s not binding today. The ritual law used sacrifice and festivals and the tabernacle to teach lessons about sin and atonement, but it has now been superseded by the work of Christ. (See the teaching in the New Testament book of Hebrews.) Moral laws have ongoing validity, but mostly because they are repeated in one form or another in the New Testament.

But lest we repeat the legalism and self-righteousness of the Pharisees and teachers of the law of Jesus’ day, we are guided in the new covenant by this one transcendent principle: the law of love or “the law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2). Jesus said the whole old covenant law can be summed up by “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” and “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt. 22:37-40). Paul put it this way: “the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’” (Gal. 5:14), and “love is the fulfillment of the law” (Rom. 13:8-10).

It would be reasonable to ask: “So if most of the Law in the first five books of the Bible does not apply to us today, in what sense is it part of the word of God for us?” Here is where we need to set aside all self-centeredness. The whole sweep of the biblical narrative is the story of God moving among and within people in order to bring salvation to humanity, but that doesn’t mean every verse is about us. The law of the Old Testament is the word of God for all people for all time, but given to specific people groups in the context of God’s dynamic, upward development of a covenant relationship with human beings. The apostle Paul puts it this way: “The law was our guardian [custodian, tutor] until Christ came that we might be justified by faith” (Gal. 3:24).

So the law stands as a true expression of the will and the ways of God, expressed in a particular era, subject to modification, providing the basis for ever higher revelations of what it means to be the covenant people of God. Jesus summed it up when he said: “I have not come to abolish [the Law or the Prophets] but to fulfill them” (Matt. 5:17).

Next time: “What Is Important About the Land of the Bible?”

[This excerpt is chapter 8 in How to Understand the Bible: A Simple Guide]