What authority does the Law given to Moses have for the believer? None, according to Paul, who tells us that we are not under law, but under grace (Rom 6:14).
He repeats this message in other epistles. He contrasted the letter that kills, with the Spirit that gives life (2 Cor 3:6).
God
cancelled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us ... nailing it to the cross
(Col 2:14).
Christ abolished in his flesh
the law with its commandment and regulations
(Eph 2:15).
So according to Paul we have been released from this set of regulations called the Law. Therefore we have also been released from the penalties for infringement that are in the Law. In its place we receive, if we have faith, the unmerited favour of God, for that is what grace is. This is the major difference between the two covenants, and it has a huge impact on our relationship with God.
But did not Jesus refer to the Law? He said:
Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfil them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven (Matt 5:17-19).
How do we reconcile this with Paul's frequent assertions cited above?
The Ten Commandments were engraved on stone, a piece of rock from the earth. This shows an intention for them to last as long as Earth itself. In this respect the Ten Commandments represent the entire Law, as indicated by Jesus' assertion that every letter and pen stroke in it would remain in force. There was no explicit termination of contract clause within the Law itself. It was designed to last in its entirety. At one point Moses himself wanted to abolish it. When he came down from the mountain carrying the two tablets of stone, he witnessed the sin of the people and realised he could not bring the covenant he had, written on stone, into the camp. The people were worshipping a golden calf, breaking the first and second commandments. He probably reasoned that his only recourse was to pull out of the covenant, breaking the tablets (Ex 32:19),
in the same way that today one might tear up a contract. Maybe by doing that he could protect the people. This is in line with Paul, who stated that adding the law increases the trespass (Rom 5:20).
Nevertheless, 3000 people died on the instruction of Moses to the Levites, and later God himself sent a plague (v35).
The problem was that although the written contract was cancelled, the people had already made a verbal contract to do whatever the Lord would command.
We will do everything the Lord has said
(Ex 19:8),
after God had instructed that he be obeyed fully (v5).
Then they had all witnessed the 10 commandments being spoken to them directly by God from heaven (Ex 20:22).
So Moses' attempt to revoke the Law was not fully effective.
Is there any process for the Law to come to an end? It does contain an intriguing prophesy:
The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers. You must listen to him (Deut 18:15).
This is a prophesy concerning a specific person, otherwise it would have referred to prophets in the plural, and said that people should listen to
them.
The priests and Levites asked John the Baptist
Are you the Prophet?
(John 1:21).
This was in the singular, indicating they were expecting one person to fulfil this role, and that this had not yet happened. John
Answered
.
Moses said that this person would be an Israelite, and that he would be
No
like me
.
In what respect? I suggest it means not just a prophet like those we read in the Old Testament, teaching and stressing the commandments of Moses. Rather it would be one who, with a stature at least equivalent to that of Moses, would revolutionise people's relationship to God in the same way that the Law brought by Moses did. In other words, this
prophet
would bring something new. What that new thing was, Moses didn't explain. He just said that people should
listen to him
.
This instruction brings to mind the occasion on the mountain when Jesus was transfigured, where incidentally, Moses was present. There the Father gave the same instruction concerning his Son:
Listen to him!
(Matt 17:5).
So we can safely infer that Moses was talking about Christ. This is confirmed by Peter and Stephen both quoting the prophesy as they witnessed for Jesus
(Acts 3:22, 7:37).
Of course, we now know as well that Jesus is not just on a par with Moses, but superior to him (Heb 3:1-6).
Given that Jesus is
the Prophet
,
the question to ask therefore is what effect he had on the Law which was designed to last until heaven and Earth disappear. In the passage quoted, Jesus introduces the idea of his fulfilling the Law (Matt 5:17),
and also a time when everything is accomplished. We need to heed Moses' command and listen to what Jesus says. According to Jesus, when these conditions are satisfied the jurisdiction of the Law would come to an end despite there being no termination clause within it.
When did Jesus fulfil the Law? At the Cross! After a life spent without any sin against the Law on his record, he died on the Cross. There he bore every penalty for the sins of the whole world (1 John 2:2), whether incurred under the Law or otherwise. If this does fulfil the Law, it makes the Law in this respect to be like a mortgage contract. It's not that the contract is abolished arbitrarily. Jesus said he had not come to abolish the Law. It is rather that it ceases to have effect when all the payments have been made.
But when is
everything accomplished
?
Is it a separate condition? One possibility is that it is when the last enemy [death] is destroyed
(1 Cor 15:26).
But this is in the future, when
the end will come
(v24).
This gives us a problem. According to Jesus the whole law has to be taught and practised until then, with each letter and every stroke of the pen therein being observed. This would require that all the sacrificial and ceremonial elements of the law should be observed by believers during the present age. If, however, we conclude that the two conditions are one, so that not only was the Law fulfilled on the Cross, but that everything was accomplished as well, then this problem disappears.
Matthew tells us what happened when Jesus died.
At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split. The tombs broke open...
(Matt 27:51,52).
These events describe Earth itself bearing witness to the enormity of what has just taken place and perhaps foreshadow the fulfilment of the messianic prophesy in Haggai
I will once more shake the heavens and the earth
(Hag 2:6).
Note that the rocks split! Is not this a remarkable detail? This splitting reminds us of the tablets of stone that Moses broke (Ex 32:19).
His attempt to revoke the Law failed. But where Moses failed, Jesus succeeded, by bearing in his own body the whole force of that Law.
John states:
Jesus said
(John 19:30).
With those three words [in the English translation] Jesus declared his work done. What greater work is there to accomplish? At the moment, Jesus is reigning until all his enemies are put under his feet
(1 Cor 15:25, see Ps 8:6),
but the
work
was done on the Cross, concurring with Paul's statement that the written code was nailed to the Cross. It is therefore reasonable to conclude that the declaration
It is finished.
With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spiritIt is finished
spoken by Jesus on the Cross corresponds to the
everything is accomplished
phraseology in Matthew chapter 5, and therefore that everything was accomplished on the Cross. This interpretation solves the problem of otherwise needing to continue to observe ceremonial law, and is compatible with the gospel preached by the Apostle Paul. This being the case, we can infer that Jesus' charge to practise and teach every aspect of the Law (Matt 5:19)
was entirely correct because this was before the Cross. The Law was still in force, but this would only be for the subsequent two years or so of his ministry. He wanted to make it clear that the Law had to remain in place. It could not be terminated prematurely. It had to stay until the Cross. Then, and only then, would the Law come to an end. He put it like this to the woman of Samaria:
a time is coming
when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem (John 4:21).
Note that Mount Gerizim was the historic place of sacrifice for the Samaritans. Jesus was saying that there was a time coming [and it was imminent], when the law to gather three times a year at the place God would choose (Deut 16:16)
would no longer need to be followed. We know that In AD70 Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed by the Romans, and sacrifices in the Temple ceased. But this event is unlikely to be the reason behind Jesus' statement. Firstly, because sacrifices on Mount Gerizim did not cease, but secondly because he went on to say that people would instead worship in spirit and in truth. The fall of Jerusalem is not a suitable trigger for this type of change. It is only the Cross that could have brought about this new style of worship. To reiterate, Jesus had said that the least stroke of a pen would not disappear from the law before all was accomplished. The law to worship in Jerusalem three times a year was certainly something more important than a single pen stroke, yet Jesus told the woman that this form of worship would soon cease, which means that the Law would cease to have effect. We are therefore safe in concluding that all has indeed been accomplished on the Cross, and the era of the Law therefore came to an end then.
So that time has come, and believers are not under Law. Paul describes the Old Covenant as the
ministry of death
and
the ministry of condemnation
(2 Cor 3:7,9 NKJV).
That in itself should make us more careful to distinguish between the two covenants. Of course, Christians no longer obey the ceremonial and sacrificial laws of Moses, but the assertion about the ministry of death referred to it as being
written and engraved on stones
.
This can only refer to the Ten Commandments (Ex 34:28).
Although there were also other stones on Mt Ebal which had the law on them, they were covered in plaster, and the law was written on the plaster rather than engraved on the stones
(Deut 27:2-3).
Therefore, when Paul states that we
are not under law, but under grace
(Rom 6:14),
he is referring to the whole Law, not just ceremonial law, and it is evident that the entire Covenant has been declared obsolete and replaced by the New:
By calling this covenant
(Heb 8:13).
I recommend that we embrace the New Covenant in all its fullness, rather than cling to one that is obsolete and ageing.
new
,
he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and ageing will soon disappear
The Law has been fulfilled; everything has been accomplished; and the Law has been nailed to the Cross. All of it.