21 Feb 2021
A Bible study discussion causes this question to come to the forefront. In the context of Christianity today, there is of course the teaching of Antinomianism (“against law”). This teaching actually goes back to the time of the New Testament. The Apostle Paul refutes the suggestion that the doctrine of justification by faith alone leaves room for persistence in sin. There are two main forms of antinomian rejection of the law. The first is that the moral law is not needed to bring the sinner to repentance. This runs counter to Paul’s experience and teaching (Rom.7:7; Gal. 324).The other insists that the moral law has no place in the life of the believer who is not under the law but under grace, and so not bound to the law as the rule for Christian living. This arises from misunderstanding of Paul’s teaching who, while he utterly rejected the law as means of salvation, nevertheless affirmed the continuing validity of the law for the Christian (Rom. 3:31; 8:4).
In that light, the ten commandments are certainly still relevant to us today: we see that the ten commandments teach us at least three pertinent points:
A. First, they show us what sort of people the triune God want us to be. From the list of prohibitions, we learn that God hate certain actions and there is a certain form of behaviour God desire and love to see in His people. The commandments tell us that God ‘forbid’ unfaithfulness and irreverence to Him and also dishonour and damage to our neighbour. So God want us to be free of such evils and to be persons who love God who create us and our neighbours whom God also made, in our lives.
B, Second, the commandments show us what sort of lifestyle is truly natural and expected of us as humans. Such a lifestyle is the only form of conduct that fully satisfies human nature i.e. it is fulfilling in the way God intends for those He created. Any deviation from it, even without being conscious of it, would be inescapably unfulfilling.
Third, the commandments show us what sort of people we are in God’s eyes – namely lawbreakers and under sentence of judgement, whose only hope lies in God’s forgiving mercy and grace.
So when we measure our lives by God’s moral laws, we find that self-justification and self-satisfaction are alike impossible , and we are plunged into self-despair. The laws thus expose us to ourselves as spiritually sick and lost. They also enable us to appreciate the gospel remedy God provide through His Son.
“For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near” (Heb.10:1).
“For by a single offering He has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified” (Heb. 10:14). Thus Christ abolished the first ( OT sacrifices and offerings; Old covenant) in order to establish the second (Christ’s single sacrifice for all time; New Covenant). Sacrifices and offerings in the ceremonial law in the OT are therefore obsolete for believers in the NT because of the one perfect sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ.
But what other aspects of the ceremonial laws, like Levitical Food and cleanliness Laws? We know that God’s people in the OT are to consecrate themselves to God in these laws because God is holy and they are to be holy and set apart for Him, distinct from the surrounding nations. Does this mean that NT Christians should keep kosher? The answer is ‘no’. Commenting on these very laws, Jesus said, “Nothing outside a man can make him ‘unclean’ by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him ‘unclean'” (Mark 7:15). The holiness of God however does not disappear in the NT, nor does the need for God’s people to be recognizably holy. Rather, the holiness code has become internal rather than external, a matter of the heart rather than mere ritual and law-keeping. These laws do not apply to the church today because God’s holiness code has become internal, not external – however, the code of holiness is still relevant to God’s people today. It is interesting to note that the laws of cleanliness are also practical and wise in terms of the prevention of illnesses and infection. The first quarantine (which is seen commonly today in the prevention of the spread of viral infection) was probably instituted in the OT law of cleanliness. So even in seeking to establish spiritual holiness in the OT context, the laws also have practical application in the physical realm in most instances. Here we see the wisdom of God in all that He instituted.