Old Testament Law for Christians

Original Context and Enduring Application

Gane, Roy E.

• Publisher: Baker Academic
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781493410224
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Criticism & Interpretation

The Old Testament law is foundational for our understanding of the Bible, but for many it remains some of the Old Testament's most foreign and exotic material. This book by a leading evangelical expert in biblical law helps readers understand Old Testament law, how it functioned in the Old Testament, and how it is (and is not) instructive for contemporary Christians. The author explicates the often confusing legal system of ancient Israel, differentiates between time-bound cultural aspects of Israelite law and universally applicable aspects of the divine value system, and shows the ethical relevance of Old Testament law for Christians today.

Part 1
Getting into Old Testament Law

1
Is Old Testament Law Relevant for New-Covenant Christians?

We live in a world of competing value systems, which are at the center of much debate. What does the system of values in ancient OT law have to offer modern new-covenant Christians? If we are saved by divine grace through faith in Christ’s once-for-all atoning sacrifice, not by our works of keeping God’s law (Eph. 2:8–9; cf. Heb. 9:25–28), why should we invite outmoded values to play a role in directing our lives? Now that we enjoy the more glorious revelation of God in Jesus Christ, why do we still need the eclipsed revelation delivered through Moses (2 Cor. 3)? To put it in contemporary terms, why bother with an obsolete operating system when we are already enjoying a satisfying upgrade?

The NT is not an operating system that replaces the earlier OT one. Rather, the NT is the continuation of the OT story of redemption, in which earlier episodes provide crucial background for climactic later ones, which bring plotlines together toward the conclusion.1 It is possible to read only the final portions of a story, but this approach misses a lot of the meaning. In the case of the Bible, the meaning is crucial wisdom, not mere entertainment or information.

This chapter addresses the relevance of OT law by considering the NT evaluation and use of it and its worth for providing background and context to the NT. Topics developed here include Jesus’s approach to OT law, OT laws as background to his life and ministry, Paul’s approach to OT law, and how OT contexts (including law) illuminate values for Christians. It will begin to become clear that modern Christians can gain much practical wisdom from the rich and fascinating world of OT laws and the values encapsulated in them.2 The remainder of the present volume will reinforce this impression.

Jesus’s Approach to Old Testament Law

Continuing Authority

In the Gospels we read that Jesus regarded the OT laws given through Moses as coming from God and carrying continuing authority. For example, he responds to some opponents: “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition! For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ But you say . . .” (Mark 7:9–11). Here “the commandment of God” (cf. v. 13, “the word of God”) is what Moses said. The laws that Jesus cites on this occasion are not only from the Decalogue (Exod. 20:12; Deut. 5:16) but also from Exod. 21:17 (cf. Lev. 20:9).

In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus strongly upholds the permanence of “the Law” (i.e., Torah, “Instruction” = the Pentateuch) along with the rest of the OT (“the Prophets”):

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. (Matt. 5:17–19)

Bearing Witness to Christ

Jesus also viewed the (OT) Scriptures, which include the “Law of Moses” (Torah = Pentateuch) as bearing witness to himself (John 5:39), and thus he concludes a discourse to his critics: “For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?” (vv. 46–47). When Jesus appeared to two disciples on the road to Emmaus after his resurrection, “beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:27). That night, he declared to more disciples,

“These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead.” (Luke 24:44–46)

The typological ritual laws prescribing the Passover sacrifice (Exod. 12:3–13, 21–27; cf. Lev. 23:5) and the “elevated sheaf” (so-called wave sheaf) firstfruits offering of barley on “the day after the Sabbath” (Lev. 23:10–11) could have been among the OT Scriptures in the Law of Moses to which Jesus referred to show that he had to suffer and then rise from the dead on the third day. Indeed, Jesus died on Friday (“the day of Preparation”; Mark 15:42; John 19:31) at the time of Passover (John 18:28, 39; 19:14; cf. Matt. 26:2) and rose on the third day, which was the first day of the week after the Sabbath (Matt. 28:1), when the elevated sheaf would have been offered. Paul explicitly referred to the crucified Christ as “our Passover lamb” (1 Cor. 5:7) and to the risen Christ as “the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Cor. 15:20).

Such correlations between the enacted redemptive typology of the OT rituals and what happened to Jesus of Nazareth contributed to confirmation—for his disciples and also for us—of John the Baptist’s identification of him as “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), meaning the Messiah/Christ whom the ritual system prefigured and in this sense prophesied.3 Today our only access to this ritual system is through pentateuchal texts, mostly in the form of laws/instructions.

The OT laws testify to Christ in another important way. When he was asked which is the greatest commandment in the law (Matt. 22:36), he replied: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets” (vv. 37–40).

Here Jesus cites two laws (Deut. 6:5 and Lev. 19:18) outside the Ten Commandments to summarize all of OT law and also the messages of the prophets. That which unifies this divine revelation is the value of love, which is nothing less than the character of God: “God is love” (1 John 4:8). Because God loved the world, he gave Christ, “his only Son,” to save those who believe in him (John 3:16). Christ is God (e.g., John 8:58; 10:30; Col. 1:19), so he is love (cf. John 15:9). Therefore all of OT law testifies to Christ’s love, which he asks his followers to emulate (John 15:12).

Old Testament Laws as Background to Jesus’s Life and Ministry

Some OT laws provide illuminating background to more specific aspects of Jesus’s life and ministry. Following are three examples from Luke, all of which concern women.

Offering by a Poor Mother

Luke 2 tells us what Jesus’s parents did soon after he was circumcised (eight days after he was born): “When the time came for their purification according to the Law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord . . . and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the Law of the Lord, ‘a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons’” (vv. 22, 24).

This refers to Lev. 12, according to which a woman who gave birth would undergo a period of purification, at the end of which she would offer “a one-year-old lamb as an entirely burned offering and a pigeon or turtledove as a purification offering” (v. 6 CEB); if she could not afford a sheep, she could sacrifice “two turtledoves or two pigeons—one for the entirely burned offering and the other for the purification offering” (v. 8 CEB). Thus Luke 2:24 implies that Jesus’s parents offered two birds because they were poor. They could not even afford a lamb for Mary’s purification after the birth of “the Lamb of God”!

Female Impure Discharge

Another purity law sheds light on an incident recounted in Luke 8. As a crowd of people pressed around Jesus, a woman with a chronic discharge of blood

came up behind him and touched the fringe of his garment, and immediately her discharge of blood ceased. And Jesus said, “Who was it that touched me?” . . . But Jesus said, “Someone touched me, for I perceive that power has gone out from me.” And when the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling, and falling down before him declared in the presence of all the people why she had touched him, and how she had been immediately healed. And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace.” (Luke 8:44–48; cf. Matt. 9:20–22; Mark 5:25–34)

Why did she come trembling? She must have known that according to Lev. 15, her chronic genital discharge of blood made her physically and ritually impure, as during her menstrual period (vv. 25–27). Therefore, anyone who touched her would be impure until evening (cf. v. 19). No doubt hoping not to make Jesus impure, she only touched the fringe (Gk. kraspedon, “edge, border, hem”) of his garment (Luke 8:44). But when he asked, “Who was it that touched me?” and insisted that someone had done so (8:45–46), she felt caught and likely thought he was angry because she had defiled him. In response to her confession, however, he affirmed her faith and reassured her that there was no problem.

Two other OT laws illuminate this story. First, the “fringe” or “tassel” (Heb. tsitsit; LXX kraspedon) that Jesus had on his garment was required by a law in Num. 15:37–40 (cf. Deut. 22:12) as a sign of remembering and following all of God’s commandments and being holy to him. The tassel on each corner of a garment was to have a violet (or blue) cord attached to it (Num. ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Part 1: Getting into Old Testament Law
• Part 2: Literature and Background of Old Testament Law
• Part 3: Applying Old Testament Laws
• Part 4: Values in Old Testament Law
• Conclusion
• Selected Bibliography
• Index of Modern Authors
• Index of Scripture and Other Ancient Sources
• Index of Subjects
• Back Cover