Highlight: Christians and The Law of God

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Super Chat question. Kay Roach, thank you for that blessing, and you asked a question,

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Pastor Jeff, how do you respond to law -observant Christians, specifically addressing dietary and social laws when we follow portions today, but not the entire law, not as a means of salvation, but a means of obedience?

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Great question. So I would say, first of all, you have to start this question with a law word of God from the

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Old Testament. It's one revelation of God. We have two Testaments, one revelation of God. It's the same God, it's

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His revelation. And so when you look at the Old Testament, one of the things that God says about His law is that it's just.

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One of the things that He says about His law is that it's good. One of the things He says about His law is that it's actually eternal in duration.

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Read Psalm 119 to see how God feels about His law. One of the things you also see is that one of the blessings of the

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New Covenant was that the law of God, the Torah, was going to be a part of the blessings of the New Covenant, because those laws would be internalized.

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Ezekiel 36, Jeremiah 31 31, but also that the law would go forth to bless the world with justice and righteousness.

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You've got Isaiah chapter 2, the nations are going to stream up to God's mountain, and the Torah, the law, is going to go forth from the people of God into the world.

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You've got Isaiah 42, the promise that the Messiah Himself was going to establish justice in the earth,

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He wouldn't grow faint or weary until He's done so, and that the coastlands would wait for His Torah, so much for the law of God being irrelevant in the

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New Covenant. We could keep going with this, but let's just move into the New Testament. The New Testament makes it very clear, Jesus says in Matthew 5, 17 through 19, that He did not come to destroy, me namasete, do not even let it enter into your mind, do not even begin to think, don't even get the germs started in your mind, or the thought that I've come to destroy the law or the prophets,

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I have not come to destroy them but to fulfill them, and then He says that if anyone teaches anybody to even disobey the least of these commandments, you'll be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

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So that's how Jesus feels about the law. The Apostle Paul, in the very same section, Romans chapter 3 and 4, where he's describing that you cannot ever be justified by the law, it will only shut you up before God, when he says that, that we maintain,

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Romans 3 28, that a man is declared righteous, justified by faith apart from the works of the law, he says literally within the space of a few verses after that, he says, do we then make void the law through faith?

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So here he says, ready? You cannot be justified by the law in any way, it is through faith alone apart from the works of the law.

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He then says, so do we then void the law through faith? He says, establish it.

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No, we actually establish it. So actually, justification by faith alone and Christ alone establishes the law, and you see throughout the

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New Testament, the inspired Apostles and writers just assuming the abiding validity of the law word of God after the resurrection and after the ascension of Jesus, they assume it's abiding validity, they appeal to animal husbandry laws, don't muzzle the ox while it treads the grain.

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Well, that's weird, we gotta obey that law? Yep. You take the general equity of that law and you apply it into paying people who are working for you.

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You see that the Apostle Paul quotes things from the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments, children obey their parents in the

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Lord, First Commandment with promise, you see even an appeal to things like, well, okay, so we brought it up, so I'll just throw this out there just so it's a part of this discussion.

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Acts 25, the Apostle Paul appeals to capital punishment. While he's doing this trial thing, he actually says, if I've done anything worthy of death, then

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I don't object to dying. He affirms the goodness and justness...

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There are things worthy of death. Of the fact that there are things worthy of death. So he says, as an inspired Apostle, post cross, post resurrection, the work of Christ is done,

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New Testament's in effect, he says what? He says, if I've done anything worthy of death, I don't object to dying.

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So that's good. So the inspired Apostle apparently believed in capital punishment under certain circumstances.

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He believed that. But when it comes to the question of, okay, but what about some of these people today that say, well, like,

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I see all that, so I guess I gotta obey everything in the Old Testament. I would say we need to read the

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New Testament. Ephesians 2. Exactly. The New Testament writers tell you to assume the abiding validity of the law word of God in their writings by just appealing to it as though you're supposed to know.

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You're supposed to know this. They just freely pull from animal husbandry laws.

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Laws of justice. Don't receive an accusation against an elder unless it's the base of two to three witnesses. They appeal to the law, they just sort of, oh yeah, you're supposed to know this too.

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But they tell you where that law of God from the Old Testament, wherever it's from, that was meant to be transformed under the

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New Covenant has been transformed, and they give you explicit reason as to why. So for example, you have examples, and I think this is the best way to put it, where these were training wheels.

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We're in the New Covenant now. They're off. So for example, there are laws of the Old Testament in terms of the people of Israel, how they were supposed to interact with the foreign nations, how they're supposed to dress, how they're supposed to eat, dietary restrictions, and those things that they were told to do were actually things that were supposed to teach them about being separate, to avoid syncretism.

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Don't blend the fibers together, different fabrics together. Don't blend. That was supposed to teach them. It was training wheels.

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Be holy. Be holy. Don't be like the surrounding nations. Don't blend their practices into your practices, and I want you to do this down to your clothing.

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But now that we have Christ filled with the Spirit of God with a finished atonement and the

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New Covenant itself, we don't need training wheels anymore. Training wheels are off. Training wheels are off, guys.

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Although holiness still applies. Holiness still applies, but the training wheels are off. You don't need to do those things anymore.

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For example, Ephesians chapter 2, the Apostle actually explains why the holiness code is actually now done away with.

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It was meant to be this dividing wall. It was meant to be something that actually kept the

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Jews distinct in so many ways from the surrounding nations, but now the Gentiles and Jews are being brought into one body.

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Those training wheels are off now. We are one body in Christ. We are all together, and those training wheels are not necessary anymore because now we have

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Christ, we have the New Covenant itself, Spirit of God within us, and the law written on our inward parts, and so we don't need the training wheels anymore.

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So that's why I had bacon last night. That's why you love shrimp, too.

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Gosh, I hate shrimp. Sea cockroaches. Disgusting sea boogers.

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You don't like seafood? The only way I could do that is if I was sitting around a campfire on a beach with Jesus and Peter, and he was like, take and eat, and I'd be like, okay.