JORDAN QUINLEY
Paul’s attitude towards the law of the Old Testament would have been quite simple before his conversion to Christianity; after his life-changing encounter with the risen Christ, however, it appears to be rather complex—and at times can feel befuddling. In some places, Paul speaks negatively about the law, using surprisingly strong terms to denounce it or distance it from the Christian experience. At other times, Paul speaks quite positively about the law, even seeming to use as a source of moral instruction. No wonder theologians have discussed this to such an extent.
A proper view of Paul’s apostleship and of the divine authorship of all of Scripture does not allow us to take Paul’s writings on this subject as imprecise, muddled, or contradictory. There must be something cohesive going on here that can be discerned by a careful study of the text. Dr. Brian Rosner of Ridley college in Australia has, in my opinion, done the church a great favor in bringing all the biblical data to bear, explicating how Paul uses and teaches about Torah in the New Covenant. In this article, my goal is simply to summarize Dr. Rosner’s main points, which I think are immensely helpful, and relevant both to former Adventists and to evangelical Christians. These ideas are taken directly from his lecture series and book, Paul and the Law, available online.
First, it will help to note that when Paul speaks of “the law” he consistently means the Torah as a whole—the first five books of the Bible taken together. Sometimes he is thinking of the legal code within it, and sometimes of the narrative parts, but he does not seem to draw such a sharp distinction between those aspects of “the law” (the Pentateuch) as we usually do, and he just uses the term the law throughout. In Galatians 4, for instance, it is the law that tells us the story of Abraham and Hagar. That being said, let’s dive into Paul’s treatment of the law in the New Testament.
Paul takes three main actions towards the law, and this is the heart of Brian Rosner’s exegesis.
- Paul repudiates the law, both as covenant and as commandments.
- Paul replaces the law with something else.
- Paul re-appropriates the law. That is, far from throwing it out altogether, he reclaims the law for Christians in a new way, and without diminishing his repudiation of the law.*
Paul nowhere commands Christians to obey the Old Testament law, and in fact, when quoting from the Old Testament, as he does often, is always careful to extract any language about obedience to the law or walking according to the law.
If this sounds a bit confusing, let’s now take each point one by one. First, Paul repudiates the law by absolutely discarding it as a legal code that Christians are obligated to obey. Whatever uses the law has for the Christian (and we will get there in point number three), its relationship to us is quite distinct from its relationship to the Jews living under the law covenant. The Jew was expected by God to follow the law, to obey its precepts; the Christian is under no such requirement. Paul nowhere commands Christians to obey the Old Testament law, and in fact, when quoting from the Old Testament, as he does often, is always careful to extract any language about obedience to the law or walking according to the law. For a Hebrew of Hebrews and former Pharisee, this is rather stunning. Romans 6:14 tells us we “are not under the law, but under grace.” The phrase under the law seems to be Paul’s own coinage (as far as we know) and indicates the law’s jurisdiction or authority over us. He uses the phrase ten times in his letters.
The people of God from Moses to Christ were certainly under the law, that is, subject to it, required to obey it. Jesus himself was “under the law” during his earthly life (Gal 4:4), so that he would be the one to “set you free from the law of sin and death”—which in context seems to mean the Mosaic law, since it is the law that was powerless and weakened by the flesh! (Rom. 8:2). Even Jews now “have been released from the law” (Rom. 7:6).
Indeed, Paul specifically says that he himself, the former Pharisee, is not under the law (1 Cor. 9:20), but rather is in-lawed to Christ. In fact, he puts a relationship with Christ and mandatory obedience to the Mosaic code at odds with each other. That disjunction is more astonishing than we modern, gentile Christians usually stop to realize. Again, those “led by the Spirit” (all true believers) “are not under the law” (Gal. 5:18). This new position towards the law is all because Jesus Christ fulfilled and “[set] aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations.”
In fact, Christ set aside, or abolished, the law as law. Thus we can see that Paul’s repudiation of the law is absolute. We are not under the jurisdiction of the law, and thus we are in no way required to obey it. Paul carves out no exceptions. For Paul, there is no special exemption for the Ten Commandments when he says that we are not under the law, or that Jesus abolished the law with its commands. This repudiation of the law can make a lot of us a bit uneasy. But before we rush to salvage the law, we should let the repudiation sink in and really feel its full force. The fact that Paul says that the law no longer obligates followers of Yahweh is a vital thrust in his theology.
What is our standard?
This fact, of course, raises a few questions. One, if Paul is so adamant about getting rid of the law, are we under no code of conduct? Is there no standard for Christian living to which we are called—even obligated—to aspire? Two, what about the good things Paul has to say about the law in other texts? And did not Christ say that he did not come to abolish the law, and how does that fit with Paul’s assertion in Ephesians that Christ did abolish the law? Is the law abolished, or isn’t it?
To the first point, Paul does not leave the Christian free from any moral standards. He replaces the old law with a new kind of law. This new kind of law is referred to by Paul twice as the law of Christ (1 Cor. 9:21, Gal. 6:2). James seems to refer to it as the law that gives freedom (very different from the “yoke of slavery” of the Old Covenant law (Gal. 5:1)). This law of Christ that gives freedom is more than just a list of rules even though it includes rules. It is a “law” of love, based on Jesus’ love toward us. It is not obeyed based on the external motivation of rewards (blessings) and punishments (curses) that characterized the law of Moses, but from a heart of faith and love that is remade and led by the Holy Spirit (Rom. 8:14, Gal. 5:18, 2 Cor. 3:18).
A key passage on this subject in Paul’s writings is 1 Corinthians 9:20, 21:
To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law [another term for the Jews] I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law [gentiles] I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law.
These verses are instructive. Paul is not under the law. “The law” is the Pentateuch, and Paul asserts that he is not required to obey it. And yet he is “not free from God’s law but [is] under Christ’s law.” He is not under the one law, but under another. Here, he equates what he calls “God’s law” with “Christ’s law”.
But wasn’t the Mosaic law God’s law? Yes, it was. But it isn’t anymore. It is not God’s eternal law. Importantly, this non-eternality includes the Ten Commandments, which were expressly the core terms of that old law. God’s law, then, transcends the time-bound administration of the Old Covenant law. In fact, God’s law changes as he unfolds his plan (see Heb 7:12). So then, the law that used to constrain those in relationship with God under the previous covenant has been set aside and replaced by another law—which is still just as much God’s law—under the current covenant established by the work of Jesus. And this law is called by the name of Christ.
The example and commands of Christ and his apostles in all the New Testament constitute this new ethical standard, while the law found in the Old Testament has been nullified.
The example and commands of Christ and his apostles in all the New Testament constitute this new ethical standard, while the law found in the Old Testament has been nullified. Our standard for living is the new command given by the Lord that we love one another as he loved us (Jn. 13:34). Love has always been the true core tenant of God’s law, in both its previous and current administrations, but it has been given special emphasis now, and it has been quite literally fleshed out for us by the living example of Jesus Christ. Colossians chapter three is too long to quote here in its entirety, but it is a beautiful expression of the transformational nature of the power of the Spirit of Christ in us, much more powerful than a list of rules, and I would encourage you to take a minute and read it.
Prophecy And Wisdom
Now we come to the final way Paul treats the law. Having taught us that we are not under the law as law, meaning not under it as a legal code to follow its precepts and regulations, he is then able to retrieve the law for two other purposes: as prophecy and as wisdom. In setting the law as commandment aside, we must be careful to remember that it is still God’s Word, that it is, as Paul says, “useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3:16). Paul also says that “everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope” (Rom. 15:4). Paul is in no way saying, “Throw out the Old Testament.” On the contrary, Paul has the highest view of the Old Testament and uses it as an authority constantly in his evangelism and writings.
There is a lot more to unpack in Paul’s re-appropriation of law that space does not permit. But let’s quickly see a number of places that Paul insists that the law pointed ahead to Jesus Christ. In Acts 28:23, Paul speaks to certain Jews and “witnessed to them from morning till evening, explaining about the kingdom of God, and from the Law of Moses and from the Prophets he tried to persuade them about Jesus.” This is consistent with the testimony of Philip, that in Jesus of Nazareth they had “found the one Moses wrote about in the Law” (Jn 1:45). Likewise, in Romans 3:21, Paul says that the Law and the Prophets testify about the righteousness of God that is revealed apart from the law. In other words, the law pointed to a righteousness that would come to us apart from itself. Paul consistently views the law as he describes it in Galatians, as “a guardian until Christ came,” a function which served to highlight the fact that, because of human sinfulness, the law failed to provide life.
Finally, Paul reclaims the law as a source of wisdom for Christian living. The law is not without value when it comes to Christian ethics. While it is not over us as a written code to obey, it is suffused with divine wisdom, as it comes from God. The Old Covenant law was meant to direct Israelite society in such a way that, as God’s chosen people, the Israelites could model true worship, environmental stewardship, and social justice as God’s image bearers, as Adam was supposed to do. The law then, while obsolete as a binding code, contains much we can glean.
For example, the law has roots in the moral order of the creation itself. By this Rosner means that there are modes of behavior that are more in line with nature than not, since we are created by God with purpose, and the law of Moses embodied and codified those principles—as does the Law of Christ. This idea makes sense of how Paul can quote the law when admonishing his readers how to live, even though he also insists that we are not under its jurisdiction. Examples of this reference to the Law include Romans 13:8–10 and Ephesians 6:1–3. These passages do not prove that we are still under the Ten Commandments, but they show that the commandments contain wisdom that transcends the administration of the Old Covenant.
Thus, as a divinely ordained means of preparing the world for the arrival of Christ and all that the New Covenant would entail, the law is not abolished but fulfilled, and in that way Paul can “uphold the law.” But because it has been replaced with a new way of living and a new way of relating to God defined by the New Covenant, the law, with its commands and regulations, is abolished by Christ himself. As Brian Rosner emphasizes, Paul’s take on the law does not leave us having to determine which parts of the law are still for us, but in what role the law is still for us. This paradigm helps us discern Paul’s complex use of the law more clearly. †
* The law is part of God’s eternal word, and even though its commands and regulations have been abolished by Christ’s fulfillment of it, it still serves as a witness and shadow of the Lord Jesus, and it reveals God’s faithfulness to His promises and His care of His people.
- How Did God Create Humankind? - February 29, 2024
- What is God’s Work of Creation? - August 24, 2023
- What Are God’s Decrees and How Does He Carry Them Out? - June 22, 2023
Pope Francis got into a row with a Rabbi over this very subject recently:
“The Law, however, does not give life, it does not offer the fulfillment of the promise because it is not capable of being able to fulfill it. The Law is a journey, a journey that leads toward an encounter. . . . Those who seek life need to look to the promise and to its fulfillment in Christ.” -Pope Francis I