Christians and the Old Testament Law pt. 4

All week long I have been trying to answer the following question: What do Christians do with the Old Testament law?  Today I will try to answer the hardest related question; What is the point of all the law? We all understand the reason behind some of the laws, for example, don’t worship other gods, but why are some others so obscure?  E.g. Don’t eat lobster, or catfish.  Build a fence around your roof.  Don’t cook a baby goat in its mother’s milk.   If you kill someone on accident their relatives can come after you, unless you flee to a city of refuge.

Depending on who you ask, you get different answers about the nature of the Pentateuch.^α These views fall basically into 4 camps.

• Some say the point is to relay the law and give moral guidance. – In other words, the main purpose for the Pentateuch is to give the laws.  Which is understandable view since so much of it is made up of laws.  But that ignores some extremely important narrative.
• Some say that the point is to offer a simple history – Plain enough right.  The laws are basically extraneous
• Some say that the point is a biography of Moses – I would like to dismiss this out of hand because it ignores Creation, and everything about Abraham.
• Some say that the point is to offer specific commands to specific people. (e.g. Build an ark)  This also seems silly.

Having dismissed all these views, how will we arrive at an answer to the question at hand?  let’s turn to Old Testament theology genius, and my Hebrew professor, John Sailhamer.^β

He will say that main idea of the Pentateuch is to contrast 2 people; Abraham as seen in Gen 26:5, and Moses in Num 20:12.

Follow those links and read the 2 passages closely.  I’ll bet you see something you have never seen before that will transform the way you look at these passages.

What is so transformative about this view?

First, Abraham is said to have kept the law even though he lived and died before it was given.  Do you see it?

Then compare that praise to the sin of Moses.  Which according to Num 20 is a lack of faith, not disobedience to the law.

Have you ever seen this?  Abraham is praised for his faith, Moses (the bringer of the law) is condemned by his lack of faith.

So what conclusion do we draw from this contrast?  How does it help answer the question I have spent all week on?  It means that the point of the OT law is just as Paul says in Rom 10 “the righteous live by faith.”

I hope this series has been helpful.  I enjoyed writing it.  Feel free to ask any questions in the comments.

^α I’m not sure where I got this from.  I think from lecture notes by Robert L. Cole, Old Testament Survey 1,  Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary

^β John Sailhamer, “The Mosaic Law and the Theology of the Pentateuch,” Westminster Theological Journal, 53 (1991) 241-261.

Christians and the Old Testament Law pt. 3

So why did I choose to spend a whole week writing on this topic?  Because it seems like every Christian struggles to some degree with the answer.  They don’t often ask the question “Am I responsible for keeping the Old Testament law?”  But they do wonder “why can’t I get a tattoo?” or, “Is it okay to mow my yard on Sunday?” or “Is it okay to go to a restaurant on Sunday after church?”  These questions revolve around issues that are not addressed specifically in the New Testament but are clearly addressed in the Old.

I wrote a while back on the morality of tattoos and that post is one of the most popular of all time on my blog.  (Tattoo is a top 5 word in search referrals every month) So let’s take that issue and look at it from the different approaches I laid out yesterday.

So to clarify, Tattoos are not addressed at all in the New Testament, but they are clearly forbidden in the Old Testament. (Lev 19:28)  How does our approach to OT law affect our answer to the question “are tattoos morally acceptable?”

View 1 – The law-gospel divide.  If we approach our question from this view then we are left to conclude nothing.  This view which says that the OT law is of no consequence to NT believers tells us nothing.  We are left to judge the morality of tattoos from a strictly New Testament perspective.

View 2 – Theonomy.  This view says that the OT law is binding on Christians would offer a clear answer to the question.  According to this view, tattoos are morally unacceptable because they are forbidden by Lev 19:28.  I will add here that according to this view, sausage, and clothes of mixed fabric are immoral as well.

View 3 – Principlism. This view, which says that Christians are bound only by the moral law and not the civil or ceremonial law, would also not help us to answer our question.  This command is in the category of ceremonial law, so it is no consequence to the Christian.

We could do this same illustration with any number of common moral questions and find a similar result; it depends on your view.  So maybe this isn’t the most helpful post of all time, but it should help in making the questions contextual.  At least you have a way to think about these sort of moral questions when they arise in your life.

Tomorrow I will try to answer a harder question; What is the point of the Pentateuch and all this law?

Christians and the Old Testament Law

One of the difficult questions for Christians is, what do we do with the Old Testament law? We all feel bound by the 10 Commandments and we know inherently that they are meant to guide us today. We do not, however, feel bound by many other laws found in the Pentateuch. I do not personally know a single Christian who feels any guilt whatsoever about wearing clothes made from mixed fabrics. Nor do I know any Christians who have built a fence around their roof in order to keep the law. So why is it that we can only keep a portion of the 613 laws, rules and regulations found in the OT? I will attempt to answer that question in a series of posts this week. Today will be a bit of an introduction to the Pentateuch, Tuesday I will offer some answers that people have given throughout church history, Wednesday I will take a quick look at how these views work out in real-life situations, and Thursday I will share with you what I believe to be the best answer to the question, “what is the point of the law.”

So now let’s get started with an introduction to the Pentateuch.

The word “Pentateuch” means five-fold book and refers to the first five books of the Old Testament. The narrative of the Pentateuch begins with creation and goes through the life of Moses. The narrative flows smoothly through Genesis and most of Exodous, however the rest of it is broken in order to insert hundreds of commands. These commands regulate everything from how to build the temple to what foods are acceptable.

There are so many laws, in fact, that the Pentateuch is often called the “Torah” which means instruction or law. This is where our question arises. As New Testament believers we believe that Jesus came to “fulfill the law.” (Matt 5:17) So does that mean that we do not have to keep any of it? That doesn’t seem to be the case. Every Christian I know feels that murder is wrong, and Jesus himself said that the most important command was to Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength (Matt 12:20)

With this tension laid out, we will look tomorrow at how Christians have chosen to deal with it.