What Old Testament Laws Apply to Us Today?
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What OT Laws Apply to Us Today?
This is a question asked by many, both in the Church and in society as a whole. Tad touched on this briefly in his LGBTQ series that he finished last week because the answer to today’s question has a lot of bearing on that issue.
While I am going to try to answer that question as best I can today, before I get to it I want to briefly touch on the OT as a whole so we set the foundation for what we are talking about and where it is located.
When most non-churched people think about the OT, they think about eating apples, crazy huge floods, parting seas and, a whole lot of “thou shalls” and “thou shall nots.”
This is unfortunate. So, before we talk about the “thou shalls” and the “thou shall nots” I want to make sure we have a basic understanding of what is in the OT.
The OT, or probably better said, the Hebrew Bible, is a collection of 39 writings by about 32 authors (remember Moses for the first 5; David, Sons of Korah, etc for Psalms) over time period of approximately 1200 years (give or take a some centuries based on the scholar analyzing the timeline).
1. What is the OT
a. 4 Main Genre’s of writing (and a few minor genre’s like apocalyptic writings)
i. The Law
1. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy
ii. History
1. Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Samuel (1&2), Kings (1&2), Chronicles (1&2), Ezra-Nehemiah, Esther
iii. Poetry (Or Writings)
1. Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs
iv. Prophets
1. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi
Just like you wouldn’t pick up a Stephen King novel and expect it to read like a biology textbook, each of these genres have a similar pattern or framework for what we find in them:
b. Prophets
i. What to we expect to see?
1. Rebuke of Israel
2. Pronouncement of Judgement
3. Future Hope
a. Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
(Isa 7:14)
b. There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD. And his delight shall be in the fear of the LORD. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear, but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins. The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea. In that day the root of Jesse, who shall stand as a signal for the peoples—of him shall the nations inquire, and his resting place shall be glorious.
(Isa 11:1-10)
c. “I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.
(Dan 7:13-14)
d. “At that time shall arise Michael, the great prince who has charge of your people. And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never has been since there was a nation till that time. But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone whose name shall be found written in the book. And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.
(Dan 12:1-3)
c. Poetry
i. What do we expect to see?
1. Praise of God
a. Praise the LORD! Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens! Praise him for his mighty deeds; praise him according to his excellent greatness! Praise him with trumpet sound; praise him with lute and harp! Praise him with tambourine and dance; praise him with strings and pipe! Praise him with sounding cymbals; praise him with loud clashing cymbals! Let everything that has breath praise the LORD! Praise the LORD!
(Psa 150:1-6)
2. Wisdom for life
a. The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.
(Ecc 12:13-14)
3. Future Hope
c. Who has ascended to heaven and come down? Who has gathered the wind in his fists? Who has wrapped up the waters in a garment? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is his name, and what is his son's name? Surely you know! Every word of God proves true; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him.
(Pro 30:4-5)
d. History
i. What do we expect to see?
1. Story of Israel
2. God working in the world
a. A Future Hope
Remember the word that you commanded your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the peoples, but if you return to me and keep my commandments and do them, though your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there I will gather them and bring them to the place that I have chosen, to make my name dwell there.’
(Neh 1:8-9)
e. The Law (Torah)
i. What do we expect to see?
1. Laws! Right? (Yes & No)
a. History (In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Gen 1:1)
b. Poetry (“Blessed be Abraham by God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth; and blessed by God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand!” Gen 14:19-20 “You have led in your steadfast love the people whom you have redeemed… You will bring them in and plant them on your own mountain, the place, O LORD, which you have made for your abode, the sanctuary, or LORD, which your hands have established. The LORD will reign forever and ever.” Ex 15:13-18)
c. Prophecy (Genesis is full of prophecy, and a Future Hope, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.” Gen 3:15)
d. AND, Law
What do we do with the law today, the 600-ish “thou shalls” and thou shall nots?”
Great question! Like I said before, I will try to answer this question to the best of my ability. I don’t pretend to have a perfect answer, or even a fully complete answer, to this question that has vexed the Church for nearly 2000 years - beginning with Paul and Peter and James:
But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party. And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, “If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?”
But, at other places, Paul seems to endorse the Torah law:
Certain persons, by swerving from these, have wandered away into vain discussion, desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions. Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully, understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine, in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted.
Is it any wonder that there are few things more universally misunderstood among the public at large, and within the church, as the issue of the Old Testament law.
Within the Church you will find some who say, “We have a New Covenant, we are no longer under the Old Covenant, therefore the Old Testament laws do not apply to us today.” People who hold this position, generally, will point to Hebrews 8:6-13
Hebrews 8:6–13 (ESV)
But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second. For he finds fault with them when he says: “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. ...” In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.
While I certainly will not argue with the writer of Hebrews (whether Paul, or Barnabas, or someone else - ultimately God wrote it), I do not agree with making the word “covenant” equivalent to all law in the Hebrew Bible. If you remember from about a month ago, I preached on God’s Hesed love, and, in order to understand God’s Hesed love, we walked through all the main OT covenants and saw how Jesus fulfilled them all. If the writer of Hebrews truly meant that all the OT covenants were obsolete, that would include the Abrahamic covenant which is the covenant of faith. That our salvation comes by faith and not by works (all the other covenants have this same concept, too). So, clearly, Jesus did not make the covenant of faith obsolete - He is the pinnacle of the covenant of faith. Look at the text, the writer is quoting Jeremiah 31:31-34
“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
The writer of Hebrews is clearly referring to a specific covenant - the Mosaic covenant. What did the Mosaic covenant address? Speaking in generalities, it addressed worshiping God in a particular location - first at the Tabernacle (a kind of mobile “tent” temple), and later at the Temple in Jerusalem, it also addressed following a particular set of commands associated with sacred space - entering holy ground - which was the Tabernacle space and later the Temple. These were your commands about being clean and unclean.
On the other end of the spectrum, we have our brothers and sisters who believe, like the Judaizers spoken of in Acts and by Paul: Acts 15:1-2 that the cannon of the OT law still applies - that righteousness is found in believing in Jesus and keeping the OT law (though they are usually a bit selective on which they keep).
But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” And after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about this question.
To keep with the topic of last week, under the plain reading of the OT law, homosexuals and adulterers were to be stoned - I don’t see even the Judaizers of today stoning people.
So, what are we to do? Ignore the OT law? Or, do we keep the OT law? Or, should we land somewhere in the middle?
Well, I think the first thing we need to do is understand the OT law a little bit.
The OT law can be broken into three main categories.
Ceremonial, Civil and Moral laws.
While I am going to use these divisions for our discussion (and this division is a widely held position), opponents of doing so are right when they point out Scripture itself is silent on the matter. There isn’t a specified “civil law section” or “ceremonial law section” or a “moral law section.” Despite this, the laws themselves lend to making these distinctions between them.
Ceremonial Law
i) Law relating to Temple worship.
(1) Focused on issues of clean and unclean.
(2) It was specific to the Israelites.
Ceremonial Law - This was the law relating to Temple worship - focused on issues of “clean” and “unclean;” sacrifices, food restrictions, ritual washings, and other practices.
It was specific to the Hebrews/Israelites.
Civil Law
i) Law relating to the regulation of society.
ii) It was specific to a particular culture and time.
Civil Law - This was the law relating to the regulation of society as a whole. The civil law is a body of laws that governs social behavior and specifies crimes, penalties, and other requirements.
It was specific to a particular culture and time. (Israelites)
Moral Law
i) Law relating to how people relate to God and one another.
ii) It is timeless.
iii) Addresses sin.
Moral Law: In general, moral law dealt with how people related to God and one another.
It is timeless.
Addresses sin.
Ceremonial laws, in general, are easy to spot. An example is anything that relates to being clean or unclean. Certain foods (like bacon or rock badgers), having touched a dead body, having leprosy, etc. - these all have to do with ceremonial cleanliness and entering sacred space - the Temple in Jerusalem. Remember being clean or unclean had nothing to do with sin. Let me say this again, being clean or unclean had nothing to do with sin. Being clean or unclean merely dealt with one’s (fitness/ability/preparation) for entering or treading upon sacred ground / space - for entering the presence of God for worship. Think Moses being told to remove his sandals at the burning bush. For an Israelite, being unclean meant you could not worship God because God could only be worshiped at the Temple and if you were unclean and entered the Temple, you would defile the Temple - and that is something no one wanted to do.
An example is Deut 14:21
Deuteronomy 14:21 (ESV)
“You shall not eat anything that has died naturally. You may give it to the sojourner who is within your towns, that he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner. For you are a people holy to the Lord your God.
This text is a good example of how being unclean is not sinful. If something died naturally, you could give it or sell it to a person who was not a Hebrew, so it wasn’t sinful to eat, but if a Hebrew ate, it would make him or her unclean.
Additionally, ceremonial laws sometimes bleed over into the civil laws because of the government structure of Israel at the time - it was a theocracy, so, to put it in modern terms, there was no distinction between church and state. This would be regulations related, generally, to the Temple calendar - particularly regulations governing the Israelite feast schedule.
Civil Law - these laws are about the regulation of society. Despite our modern distinction between civil and criminal law, as I am using the term today, it encompasses both. The civil law is a body of laws that governs social behavior and specifies crimes, penalties, and other requirements.
Governments throughout history, that have written laws, have had civil laws - we have civil laws today, but we make a distinction between civil laws and criminal laws; the OT does not make such a distinction - Israelite civil law covered both civil and criminal law.
An example of a civil law would be Exodus 21:28-29
“When an ox gores a man or a woman to death, the ox shall be stoned, and its flesh shall not be eaten, but the owner of the ox shall not be liable. But if the ox has been accustomed to gore in the past, and its owner has been warned but has not kept it in, and it kills a man or a woman, the ox shall be stoned, and its owner also shall be put to death.
The penalties and restrictions applied to these laws (not eating the dead ox, or stoning the owner) were a product of the culture of the time, yet the principle at the heart of the law (don’t murder / treat others as you want to be treated) is timeless.
This is a prime example of how the civil and moral law work together, it was a moral law with a civil penalty. Many - if not most - of the moral laws in the OT had a civil law counterpart or a civil law penalty associated with violating them. The moral law expressed either prescribed conduct (do this) or proscribed conduct (don’t do this) and then the civil law ascribed a penalty for failure to comply. In this example, negligent keeping of a dangerous animal leading to death, is still a violation of the law today. The penalty in our society today is different, most likely some prison time for manslaughter, not death, but there is still a civil penalty associated with the moral law at the heart of the matter.
Moral Law: In general, moral law dealt with how people related to God and one another. The concept was summed up by Jesus in quoting the OT: love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself.
A prime example of a list of Moral Laws is… The 10 Commandments
Exodus 20:1-17 “And God spoke all these words, saying, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. “You shall have no other gods before me. “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or 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 or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. “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. “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male serva…”
The first four address our relation to God, the last six address our relation to one-another. These moral laws, address sin. As I said before, many of these moral laws have civil law penalties, but other than the fact we know sin brings spiritual and physical death, stand-alone moral laws do not address the issue of penalty for violating them.
Additionally, the moral law, “Thou shall not kill” can be addressed in the civil law in a multitude of ways - such as in the example of failing to restrain a dangerous ox that leads to death - results in the death of the owner because, by failing to restrain (or put down) the dangerous animal, he, in essence, unlawfully killed another person as if he had stabbed the victim himself. The goring ox, leaving a dangerous hole in the ground, stabbing or choking someone, getting into a fight resulting in death, these are all civilly addressed violations of the moral law, “thou shall not kill.” They are all different expressions of the same moral issue.
Now, lets answer the question for today. What laws apply to us??
Ceremonial law deals with clean/unclean.
Civil deals with penalty for violating both ceremonial and moral laws.
Moral law deals with sin.
Lets start with the easy one - the ceremonial laws do not apply to us. We are not Israelites worshiping at the temple in Jerusalem. The issue of clean and unclean was clearly addressed through Jesus. So, if it is an OT ceremonial law, like not eating bacon, or not wearing a cotton/poly blend, or keeping Jewish festivals, it doesn’t apply to us today.
And now for the other easy one, the moral laws do apply to us today. The 10 commandments do apply to us. Any OT law that addresses our relationship to God (not ceremonial laws - but those that specifically address us and God like not having any other gods before Yaweh, not taking Yaweh’s name in vain, etc.) and any OT law that addresses our relationships with one another, are moral timeless laws that DO apply to us today.
Now, for where people struggle - the civil law. We look to the OT civil laws, not for the penalty they prescribe, but for the Moral law behind the civil law. People love to talk about an eye for and eye and a tooth for a tooth - that’s the penalty (and if we truly followed it we’d all be blind beggars sipping hamburgers through straws)- the moral law is to love your neighbor as yourself. If it is a ceremonial law behind the civil law, it does not apply to us. If it is a moral law behind the civil law, it does apply. Ignore the penalties associated with the civil law - they are not timeless. BUT, the moral precepts - the moral commandments and law they reflect - those are timeless. This, I believe, and what I would like you to remember, is what Paul meant when he said, 1 Timothy 1:8-11
Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully, understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine, in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted.
And, I believe, Paul was simply pointing out how Jesus used the civil/moral law as evidenced in the Sermon on the Mount.
Where we get into trouble is when we try to make the penalty of the OT civil law apply to today because none of us, I would hope, believe that adultery, sexual immorality/homosexuality, taking the Lord’s name in vain, sorcery, cursing one’s parents, pretending to be a virgin, or violating the Sabbath, should be punished by death. These are all sins - a violation of moral law - and they all lead, like every other sin, to spiritual and physical death, but we are under the New Covenant, the Covenant of Grace, and WE don’t mete out punishment for sin, that is God’s prerogative, not ours. We are to tell people about Jesus, to tell them about the way to Life, explain to them and warn them that violating God’s moral laws leads to death, but we do not condemn them to death and beat them over the head with the Bible pointing to 3000 year old civil penalties. We are to love in truth and grace as our Master, our Teach, or Lord, our God - Jesus - did when he came and gave us His example to follow...
And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
I hope that answers the question about what law applies to us today and how we are to supposed to handle it rightly - I hope that made sense. In the end, Love God, Love Others - just like Jesus. Jesus paid the penalty for our violating God’s moral laws when he died on the Cross, and in His resurrection he defeated death so that we might have new life in Him - a life we have access to by trusting in His all-sufficient work, by believing in Him, and following Him for all of eternity.
Please join me in prayer.