Snippet on: Is the law binding for Christians today?

 

Should Christians keep the law today?

The Old Testament law was given to the children of Israel, not to Christians.

The laws in the Old Testament were to reveal three things to the children of Israel:

•    How they were to obey and please God (the Ten Commandments, for example).
•    To show them how to worship God and atone for sin (the sacrificial system).
•   To make them distinct from other nations (the food and clothing rules).

The Old Testament laws are NOT binding on Christians today.

When Jesus died on the cross, He put an end to the Old Testament law.  

Yes, he did!!

Romans 10:4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes.

Galatians 3:23–25- But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterward be revealed. 

24 Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. 

25 But after that faith has come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster!!!

Ephesians 2:15 King James Version

15 Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace;

Christians are now under the law of Christ (Galatians 6:2), which is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind…and to love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37-39).

 If  Christians obey those two commands, they will be FULFILLING all that Christ requires of us: “All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:40).

^{Roman 13: 8} Owe no man anything, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.

⁹ For this, thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandments, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

¹⁰ Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

Ponder this!!!

The Old Testament law is a guidepost for knowing how to love God and love our neighbor. If we are loving our neighbors, we will not be murdering them, lying to them, committing adultery against them, or coveting what belongs to them.

The Old Testament law does not apply to Christians today. It is a unit (James 2:10). Either all of it applies, or none of it applies. If Christ fulfilled some of it, such as the sacrificial system, He fulfilled all of it.

The Ten Commandments were a summary of the entire Old Testament law Galatians 5:14 

(For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbor as 

thyself).  

Nine of the Ten Commandments are clearly repeated in the New Testament (all except 

the command to observe the Sabbath day).

The purpose of the Old Testament law is to convict people of their inability to keep the law and point them to their need for Jesus Christ as Saviour

Paul points us to Romans 7:7-9 - What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”

 8 But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. 

9 I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died.; 

Galatians 3:24 Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

Bear in mind that the Old Testament law was never intended by God to be the universal law for all people.

We are required to love God and love our neighbors. If we obey those two commands faithfully, we will be upholding all that God requires of us.

Salvation is a gift of grace, not of works Ephesians 2:8-9 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from you; it is the gift of God; 9 it is not from works, so no one may boast. We cannot obtain it by attempting to keep God’s laws perfectly or by being a good, moral person. Neither can we lose our salvation when we transgress His commands and disobey by sinning. Either the blood of Jesus atoned for all of our sins, or none of them.

This is the secret of the Christian life as we learn to walk by the Spirit and not by the flesh.

Romans 8:1-4 – “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 

For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. 

For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, 

He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”

Sources

https://www.biblword.net/do-christians-have-to-keep-the-old-testament-law/

https://www.biblestudytools.com/bible-study/topical-studies/what-is-the-law-and-what-is-its-purpose.html