Mosaic Law Versus Gospel Grace

There’s great misconception about the place of Old Testament Law in modern times. Fierce debates rage on how the coming of Jesus affects laws given through Moses. Should Christians observe the Law? By no stretch of the imagination is this a new challenge. Among most revered fathers of the Christian faith, none confronted this question more than the apostle to Gentile nations. Paul!

Unlike Jewish communities of olden days, many a modern-day Christian knows very little about the Law of Moses. Some construe the Ten Commandments to be its sum total. But the Ten Commandments were a tiny preamble of a moral code containing more than 600 laws that God gave Moses for the nation of Israel on their way from Egypt. These laws are specifically laid out in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.

To Whom Was the Law Given?

By honestly reviewing Moses Law, one cannot fail to recognize it was given to a specific people for a specific purpose and time. It may also help to note that laws of any specific nation or community do not necessarily apply to another people group. For instance, laws of the European Union don’t govern natives of Amazon rainforest. Neither does the constitution of the United States superintend over Kalahari’s Bushmen. Dwellers in cities will be charged with public nuisance offenses for spitting around a metropolis, but such laws do not apply in farmlands. Similarly, the Law that God gave to Israel does not apply to anybody else. It is preposterous to suggest that Gentiles who embrace Christian faith are required to embrace Judaic laws.

Now let’s take that point a little further. Laws are not created for upright people. They are meant to curb depravity! More than anything, the law is intended to judge wrongdoers who’d otherwise claim their actions are not outlawed. Says Scripture,

⁹ For the law was not intended for people who do what is right. It is for people who are lawless and rebellious, who are ungodly and sinful, who consider nothing sacred and defile what is holy, who kill their father or mother or commit other murders. ¹⁰ The law is for people who are sexually immoral, or who practice homosexuality, or are slave traders, liars, promise breakers, or who do anything else that contradicts the wholesome teaching (1 Tim 1:9,10 ~NLT)

Think of it this way. You pay a visit to my family on a weekend. At the gate, a servant hands you a pamphlet with the following conditions of your stay.

1. Do not steal anything in this place!
2. Do not solicit or engage in extramarital affairs!
3. Do not kill anybody here!
4. Only use toilet facilities, do not defile our bushes! …

Would you wonder what kind of place you’ve come to? What would you think of me? Would you feel insulted? While those demands serve a good purpose, they would humiliate a decent person. Inversely, if you found such laws in a prison, or in a center housing delinquent juveniles, you wouldn’t be alarmed. You would understand why they are there. Do you think that’s how God treats His children, or do you suppose God’s children are uncivilized and indecent?

How Does the Law Operate?

The Law of Moses had three inseparable elements! Remove any one of those elements and the entire law would become inoperable!

1. The code of ethics (over 600 laws)
2. The Levitical priesthood (human mediators between God and fellowmen)
3. Continual animal sacrifices (for constant cleansing of Israel’s iniquities)

The written Law detailed requisite behavior toward God and fellowmen. There were laws on worship, Sabbath, food, vows, hygiene, marriage, family, respect, governance, treatment of animals, land use, agriculture… In a word, there was an ordinance for every aspect of everyday life. When someone erred, there was a prescribed sacrifice to bridge the breach. The entire tribe of Levi was set apart as priests to offer daily sacrifices to keep Israel cleansed so they’d remain connected to God. The high priest appeared at the holiest place annually with a special sacrifice to plead for the nation’s purification for one calendar year. If he failed to meet the requirements of that task, he died at the altar and had to be pulled out by a rope that dangled from his foot.

Today, a Christian doesn’t need to know any of that because it’s not relevant to him. Anyone who claims righteousness by works of the Law is not only claiming justification by obeying 631 laws, s/he is also claiming to be a Jew, to have a Levite priest, and to depend on regular animal sacrifices for personal cleansing. The Law of Moses cannot be detached from its fundamental elements. Nobody ever obeyed the written law so fully as to not need cleansing through frequent sacrifices.

Jesus is the End of the Law for Believers (Rom 10:4)

Levitical priests were fallible mortals. They offered sacrifices for sins of the people as well as their own. And because sin was rampant, blood of sacrifices was an ever-flowing river. It must be borne in mind that Levitical priests offered blood from animals. In other words, sins were not cleansed by a priest’s righteousness, but by the blood of innocent animals. Jesus came, first and foremost as the Perfect Sacrifice (the Lamb of God). He also came as the Perfect Priest (with an unchanging priesthood). He offered His own sinless blood, not that of a sacrificial animal. That way, He ushered a New Law of Righteousness, effectively satisfying the three elements of Moses Law! Perfect Priest! Perfect Sacrifice! Perfect Law of liberty!

The Law of Moses was not given to make people righteous. That point is repeated over and over in the New Testament epistles. Purpose of the Law was to expose sin and the desperate human condition without God! Trying harder only leads to greater and deeper frustration. Righteousness is not a human achievement that anybody can boast about. It is a gift of grace freely bestowed on anybody who appropriates the sacrifice of Jesus as his/her bridge to God. Without Jesus, there’s no forgiveness of sins, and no acceptance by God! The Law serves no purpose in this regard.

When we receive Jesus as our Savior and Lord, we become beneficiaries of His sacrifice just as animal sacrifices benefited the people for whom they were offered. But more importantly, a spiritual transformation takes place in our innermost core. It is called “new birth” or being “born again”. Where before we tried our best to live right, we now receive a renewed spirit that has the nature of God as its operating software!

While animal sacrifices provided temporary coverup of people’s iniquities, the blood of Jesus permanently removes the sins of those who trust in His sacrifice, embrace Him as their eternal Priest, and yield themselves to the New Covenant in His blood.

¹⁴ With one sacrifice Christ made his people perfect forever. They are the ones who are being made holy. ¹⁵ The Holy Spirit also tells us about this. First he says, ¹⁶ “This is the agreement I will make with my people in the future, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts. I will write my laws in their minds.” ¹⁷ Then he says, “I will forget their sins and never again remember the evil they have done.” ¹⁸ And after everything is forgiven, there is no more need for a sacrifice to pay for sins. (Heb 10:11-18 ~ERV)