Should New Testament Christians Obey Old Testament Laws?

Why do Christians today follow some of the laws from the Old Testament, but not all of them? Are Christians being arbitrary in their dealing with these laws, picking and choosing what they like and discarding what they don’t like?

Should New Testament Christians Obey Old Testament Laws?

You may be wondering, “Why do I need to know which Old Testament Laws are relevant to me today?” This is a very important topic for at least two reasons:

1. The Lord is worthy of our obedience to His laws because He is the perfect, holy, and loving law-giver. He gave us His law for our good, because He loves us and knows what is best for us. Therefore, we should seek to rightly understand His law so that we can rightly apply His law for His glory, our good, and the good of others.
2. The culture that we currently live in is no respecter of biblical morality. Instead, we are all free to create our own morality. This means that what’s right for me might be wrong for you, and vice versa. The standard of morality is self. This has naturally led to a dislike of God’s morality as found in the Bible, and to people made in the image of God calling evil good, and good evil (Isaiah 5:20).

This has led Christians and non-Christians to take on the task of re-interpreting the Bible’s moral laws in an attempt to explain them away.

It usually goes like this: “If you’re going to follow one law, then you must follow them all. So if you’re going to call homosexuality and adultery and worship of other gods a sin, then you also must stop eating seafood, stone people who break the Sabbath, and refrain from wearing any clothing that is made of more than one fabric.”

In short, the Christian church is being accused of being inconsistent in their interpretation of the Bible.

Is this true? Are Christians being arbitrary in their application of the law of God? Well, the church for 2,000 years has answered this with a resounding NO!

The law of God must be understood through a study of what the entire Bible teaches about God’s law. We never want to develop our understanding of a doctrine from one verse, passage, or book. Instead, we seek to understand doctrine from a whole-Bible perspective.

Did Jesus Abolish the Law and Make it Irrelevant?

One thing is clear to everybody involved in this discussion, and it’s that something has definitely changed with the arrival of Jesus Christ!

Related Article: Who Is Jesus?

All of the Old Testament was pointing forward to the arrival of the Rescuer, Jesus Christ! When Jesus shows up to redeem His people, He instituted something called the new covenant, which is why we call the second part of our Bibles the New Testament.

The new covenant differs from the old covenant (specifically the covenant that was made with Moses, but that’s a different topic altogether), and one of those differences is related to the role of the law.

For instance, Jesus said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished” (Matthew 5:17–19). We see that Jesus came to fulfill the law in one sense, but in another, He did not come to abolish (or cancel out) the law.

So what does this mean for us? In order to answer this question, let’s look at some other important verses relevant to this discussion:

• “For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” – John 1:17
• “For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.” – Romans 6:14
• “But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian [referring to the law]” – Galatians 3:25

Many Christians (even some whom I greatly respect) would look at these verses and conclude that we are no longer under any laws at all as found in the Old Testament.

Now to be fair, these Christians believe that they are under the law of Christ (Galatians 6:2; 1 Corinthians 9:21), so they follow all of the laws which are found in the New Testament. But as far as the Old Testament is concerned (yes, even the Ten Commandments!), they argue that those laws were for Israel, but not for the New Testament church. The law is a unit, and all aspects of it have been abolished.

But let’s look at what else the New Testament tells us about the law:

• “Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully” – 1 Timothy 1:8
• “Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.” – Romans 3:31
• “So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.” – Romans 7:12

The question is this: How can it be said that we are no longer under the law (according to Romans 6:14) if we’re also to uphold and keep the law as Romans 3:31 states? We have to understand this in order to arrive at a biblical understanding of law. And here’s the answer: The New Testament talks about the law in multiple ways because there are multiple kinds of laws.

Multiple Types of Laws

For a very long time, the church has recognized a common distinction made between three types of laws. They are called the moral law, the civil law, and the ceremonial law.

1. The Moral Law

The moral law is summarized in the Ten Commandments, and these laws are moral because the God who gave them is a moral God. For this reason, the moral law, though given to Moses on Mount Sinai, was in one sense given in the Garden of Eden. Therefore, the Ten Commandments given to Moses were not new, but were as old as the human race.

Think about the book of Genesis which records events prior to the giving of the Ten Commandments. Noah’s son Ham was punished for dishonoring his father, a violation of the fifth commandment, which wasn’t yet given at that time. Cain was condemned as a murderer; Rachel was a thief; Abraham was called a liar; Lot’s wife was covetous. Though these moral laws weren’t yet written on tablets of stone, they were, as Romans 2:14-15 say, written on the hearts of all those made in the image of God.

These moral laws were written on the consciences of every human being. This is why everybody, Christian or not, knows that it’s wrong to murder and steal and commit adultery. It’s simply programmed into who we are as God’s image bearers. These laws will always remain in effect, because they are consistent with the nature of our God. It will never be permissible to worship another god, or to misuse God’s name, or to murder, or to commit adultery, or to steal. All of these things are contrary to who God is, and He will always oppose them and consider them as sinful.

The moral law, which is summarized in the Ten Commandments, is indeed binding on you today, dear Christian! The commandments were given to you and for you. They were given to help you live a blessed life that is good for you and is glorifying to your God!

2. The Civil Law

The next type of law is the civil law, and these are the laws that governed Israel as a nation under God. These laws included guidelines for waging war, restrictions on land use, and regulations for debt.

Now these laws have indeed expired, meaning that the church today is not required to follow these laws in the same way that Israel was required. Here’s why: the New Testament Church is not a state like the Old Testament church was. The church is no longer made up primarily of Jewish people, and she is no longer governed directly by God through His priests under an earthly Jewish king. Therefore, the laws that governed Israel as a state are no longer binding on the church today.

The Apostle Paul writes to the church in Rome to be “subject to the governing authorities” (Romans 13:1), which was the Roman Empire. Unlike Israel under the old covenant, the church consisted of people from all nations who were to obey the laws of the land that they resided in. According to Jesus and the rest of the New Testament, we are not required to keep these civil laws.

Just as Abraham was promised in the book of Genesis, the church has grown from a people of one nation to a people made up of all nations. With the change of the nature of the church has come a change in the laws that govern the church.

3. The Ceremonial Law

The third type of law is called ceremonial law. We see that Israel had specific dietary laws to follow, regulations for celebrating religious festivals, and laws for worshipping God in His sanctuary. Ceremonial law included the regulations for the sacrificial system, the conduct of the priests, instructions for ritual purity, and information about clean and unclean foods. These laws essentially directed Israel in how to be holy, and how to be forgiven and reconciled to their God when they sinned.

So do Christians need to stay away from seafood and pork today? Do we need to beware of clothing made of more than one fabric? Do we need to offer a sacrifice whenever we sin? Absolutely not, because these ceremonial laws have expired, and the New Testament Christian is not obligated to keep these laws.

But how do we arrive at that conclusion? Are we just being arbitrary and picking and choosing what we like and what we don’t like? No! Instead, we are dealing with the various passages that discuss the law of God, and putting all of the pieces together into one, coherent picture that makes sense of all the Bible’s teaching on this topic.

So let’s look at how Jesus, for instance, deals with the dietary laws. As he talked to his disciples about what defiles a person, he said this: “And he said to them, ‘Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?’ (Thus he declared all foods clean)” (Mark 7:18–19). Likewise, when God appeared to the Apostle Peter in a vision (see Acts 10:9-16) the Lord took something that was once previously unclean and declared it to be clean.

Let’s take a look at the sacrificial system. The offering up of birds, and rams, and goats by earthly priests was a daily occurrence in Israel, and it looked forward to the coming Messiah who would offer Himself as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, once and for all. Concerning the Old Testament ceremonies, Colossians 2:17 says that “These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.” The Book of Hebrews so wonderfully teaches us the supremacy of Jesus Christ and how He has fulfilled the sacrificial system:

“For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself” (Hebrews 7:26–27).

Jesus Christ was the perfect sacrifice because He perfectly kept the law. He was sinless in every way, which made Him qualified to be the ultimate Lamb without blemish. There no longer remains a need for any more sacrifices! Therefore, since Christ fulfilled all of the ceremonial laws, we no longer live under those laws. We don’t need to offer up a bloody animal as a sacrifice for our sin. Christ has fulfilled all of these laws, granting us direct access to God through Him, the One who is the perfect priest and the perfect sacrifice!

Differences Between the Types of Laws

It is here that we see a major difference in all of these laws. God could never change His moral law without a change occurring within Himself (which He can’t do; God doesn’t change). He can, however, change His civil and ceremonial laws without having to change or dishonor Himself.

For instance, God commands us to never steal or commit adultery or to worship an idol because those things are an offense against His very own nature. He feels wrath and indignation toward those sins.

But eating pork or wearing certain fabrics of clothing aren’t in and of themselves an offense against God. God is able to take eating pork, which was forbidden in the Old Testament, and make it permissible in the New Testament without His nature being changed. That can’t, however, be said about any of the moral laws as found in the Old Testament.

If something once morally forbidden was all of a sudden morally permissible, that would indicate a change in God’s character, and that’s simply not possible since God is an unchangeable God!

Which Laws Should Christians Follow Today?

With all of that being said, please don’t miss this point: the civil and ceremonial laws remain instructive for the New Testament Christian today. Indeed, every law that we see in the Bible has a moral component to it.

For instance, to the Old Testament Jew, every law carried a moral weight to it, because to break any kind of  law is a moral offense. Therefore, even when we see some strange laws in the Old Testament, we can still learn about the character of God and His desire for His people to be holy.

All of Scripture is profitable and instructive (2 Timothy 3:16-17), even those laws which are no longer binding on us today.

I hope that you have a better sense as to why New Testament Christians continue to follow and abide in many of the laws in the Old Testament (the moral laws), while no longer following other commandments that were intended to serve a temporary function (civil and ceremonial laws) until the ultimate fulfillment of those things had arrived, namely Jesus Christ! For this reason, every New Testament Christian can proclaim along with the Psalmist, “Oh how I love your law”! (Psalm 119:97)