Are the 10 Commandments for Today (New Covenant Theology Answers)
The Old Covenant Law Is a Unit
All right, we're talking tonight about the Old Covenant law and why it is a unit. Now, we say that it is a unit. Why? And what does that mean? Because the word unit can mean different things, actually. If a guy is just like a big beast of a man, you might say, that guy is a unit. What are we getting at when we call something a unit?
It's talking about how an entity—a body of something—is totally and perfectly united and indivisible. You can't break it apart. You can't dissolve it or distinguish it, distinguish its parts in a way that separates the parts from one another. Now, this is the fourth distinctive of New Covenant Theology.
We've talked about some of the other ones, but the one that's gonna be most relevant here is the idea that the law of Moses was temporary by divine design. Now. This next doctrine that the law is a unit ties in perfectly with that because when we say that the law was temporary, what we're saying is that the era of the law has ended and all of the law has been set aside.
Is This Heresy or Sound Theology?
Now, when I said that. Some of you are like, yep, totally with you. Others are saying, Joel, what the heck are you talking about? Are you an antinomian? Is this Marcion? Is this some sort of New Covenant heresy? You know, what is this? Let me explain and then I'd like to know what you think. So in Scripture, the law of Moses is always presented as a cohesive, indivisible whole.
It's a unit. This is expressed in my catechism called Catakids! In question number 44, which says this, did God divide his commands into three different kinds? And the answer is no. God gave Israel his commands and said to obey them all. God gave Israel his commands and said to obey them all, meaning the law is indivisible.
Underneath. If you were to look at the catechism underneath it, there's all these Scripture references and we're gonna walk through a few of them tonight just to show you that this is not something that is just coming from a theology text somewhere, or some pastor's personal opinion, or some theologian's personal preference.
This is very biblical. And it's important to talk about this because the concept of law is the biggest thing that separates New Covenant Theology. From Covenant theology. That which is held by the reformed churches, the 1689 Federalist Churches, or 20th Century Reformed Baptists or Presbyterians or Theonomists.
This concept of the law and our relationship to it is the biggest thing that separates us. From them. Now, practically speaking, we're gonna end up living the exact same way. I mean, there's almost an indistinguishable difference. There's some difference on the Sabbath, which we'll talk about, but they're very, very close.
But just like Israel separates New Covenant Theology from dispensationalism, the law, the Old Covenant law separates New Covenant Theology from covenant theology.
The Tripartite Division of the Law
So covenant theology teaches that the Mosaic law is an administration of the covenant of grace, which is a covenant that is an extra biblical covenant.
It's not expressly mentioned in Scripture. But what they say is that the mosaic law is divided into three different types. We refer to this as the tripartite division of the law. The three types are moral, civil. Ceremonial moral, civil, and ceremonial. Here's how they break that up. The ceremonial law is everything having to do with the corporate worship of God through sacrifice, through the Levitical priesthood, the temple, all that.
And nine out of 10, maybe 10 out of 10 covenant theologians are gonna say, ceremonial law done away with. The civil law is where there's gonna be a little more disagreement. These are all the laws that pertain to the government, the civil sphere, what we would consider to be just, you know, law or government in our society.
This is, you know, “Put a parapet or a fence around your roof.” That's a civil law. If your ox gores your neighbor, you have to make a recompense for that. These are civil laws, the moral law. Or what they call the moral law is the 10 Commandments. And what they would say is every covenant theologian is going to say the moral law carries over from the Old Covenant era into the new Covenant era.
The 10 Commandments are God's unchanging moral law. That's very important, unchanging moral law.
The Problem with Dividing the Law
However, in Scripture, there is no tripartite division of the law, not expressly, it's not mentioned. There are people who try to divide it up. But in Scripture, the law is always presented as a singular body of law.
Even though there are different words used for the commands, you know, commands, statutes, ordinances, testimonies, they are parallel terms and they don't map onto moral, civil, and ceremonial law.
All of God’s Commands Were Moral to Israel
So when I was in my biblical theology class back in 2011, taught by Dr. D. A. Carson at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, he put this great point across. He said that for Israel, all God's commands were moral. Breaking one part makes you guilty of breaking all of them. That's what James two says in, in the New Testament. Try telling Moses or try telling an Israelite, Hey, you know, only some of these commands are moral.
They would say, what are you talking about? These commands come from Yahweh. They were given to us on Sinai. They're all moral. So this division in the law is a theological concept that isn't actually expressly stated in Scripture.
The Old Covenant Demanded Perfection
The Old Covenant is a works covenant and it demands perfect obedience to 100% of the commands, all 613 commands if you, if that's the, the true count.
You must obey all of them. The Old Covenant does not require doing one's best. You had to get it all. You had to get it all right. You had to get it all right. Perfectly. The Old Covenant required perfect obedience. Israel's status as God's treasured people and all the blessings that come with that, all depended.
Perfect obedience. So 2 Chronicles 33:8 says, and I will remove, I will no more remove the foot of Israel from the land that I appointed for your fathers. If only they'll be careful to do all that I have commanded them all, the law, the statutes, and the rules given through Moses. What is he saying?
The law is meant to be kept in its entirety, front to back, the whole thing. James two 10, which I already mentioned says, for whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point, has become guilty of all of it.
Parallel Terms, Not Separate Categories
So there are different words, decrees, commands, laws, testimonies that are used for these commandments.
But this does not represent a division in the law. And actually you see these terms being used in 1 Kings 2:3.
In 1 Kings 2:3, David is telling Solomon to keep his charge. There's one singular charge and the charge is to keep God's commands, statutes, rules, and testimonies as written in the law of Moses. So in other words, there's one singular charge that David is giving to Solomon. There's many commandments and you can refer to them in different ways, but as the Pulpit Commentary points out.
The Pulpit Commentary points out that it is impossible to draw any clear and sharp distinction between these four words as the older expositors do. The phrase is derived from the Pentateuch, and the force is the force of the accumulation of practically synonymous terms is to represent the law in its entirety.
In other words, what you're getting is not. A division of different types of commands in this passage, but rather parallel terms, almost synonymous terms that all mean the same thing. This is a very common practice in Hebrew writing, especially in poetry where you have parallelism where you'll have the same term repeated multiple times, but just in different ways in order to drive the point home.
The Old Covenant Has Been Decommissioned
Now we no longer live in the Old Covenant era. In this era, the Old Covenant, hear me on this, has been decommissioned. The death of Jesus Christ on the cross accomplished everything that was necessary to satisfy the righteous requirements of the law. Let me pause here to say that if that, I'm getting a lot of this from Jeff Volker, pastor of New Covenant Bible Fellowship in.
Tempe, Arizona, I believe. Go and listen to his excellent course on New Covenant Theology. But what he says is that the Old Covenant was all about works. The New Covenant is all about the work of Christ. So the law in the new Covenant era, the Old Covenant law has been done away with it, has been abolished.
Now, right away, someone's gonna go to Matthew five, and I'm gonna go there in just a second. But I want you to understand, when we say abolished, the word abolished can mean two different things. In Matthew five, Jesus says, do not think that I've come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them.
Jesus Fulfilled—Not Demolished—the Law
It’s very, very important to understand what the word that Jesus uses here is the word for abolish in Matthew 5 is [καταλύω, kataluw], “to dissolve, disunite, destroy, demolish, subvert, overthrow.”
Jesus is saying, don't think that I have come to just void all the law and the prophets where I'm coming to disintegrate them, to separate them out, to chop it up and do away with it and throw it in the trash.
I have not come to do that. I have actually come to fulfill them. In fact, he says, not one jot or tittle will pass away from the law until all is accomplished. So he says two different things. He says, “I have not come to abolish it,” in the sense of nullifying it and saying it was never valid. And He says “We're not gonna chop it up.”
And not one jot or tittle will pass away until all is accomplished. So Jesus is not saying, the Old Covenant law is never gonna be set aside. What he's saying is it's not gonna be set aside like that, like garbage. Like it is totally just rendered void.
Instead, everything the Old Covenant points to will be fulfilled. And that's exactly what Paul says has happened in Ephesians 2:15. In Ephesians 2:15, he's talking about the animosity that was there between Jews and Gentiles, and he says that he's brought you and Gentile together, quote, by abolishing the law of commandments, expressed in ordinances that he might create in himself, one new man in place of the two.
So making peace by the way. Notice a couple different words. Again, commandments, ordinances. It's not talking about divisions of the law. It's talking about two different terms for the same thing. The body of law. And he says that the Law of Commandments has been abolished, but that's not the same term that Jesus uses in Matthew five, even though it's translated the same way in our English translations.
The word here is Abolish: [καταργέω, katargew], “to render idle, unemployed, inactivate, inoperative, to cause a person or thing to have no further efficiency, to deprive of force, influence, power.” So Jesus didn't come to disintegrate the law.
The Law Was Retired, Not Rejected
He came to decommission the law like an old battle cruiser that is, you know, not destroyed and sent to the junk heap.
Like, Hey, this thing was worthless, but it's decommissioned, maybe turned into a museum or something like that. Here's how my old friend Paul Kaiser, who taught me about New Covenant Theology, the way he puts it is this, Moses was not fired. He was retired. Isn't that a big difference?
Moses is not fired. He was retired. So the Old Covenant law has been decommissioned, not rendered void. And this is what Paul—or whoever the author of Hebrews is—says in Hebrews 8:13.
He says, in speaking of a New Covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away. All right, so the Old Covenant is even in that time, it is becoming obsolete. The word there is [παλαιόω, palaiow], “to make ancient or old, to become old, to be worn out.”
The Danger of Mixing Law and Grace
New Covenant Theology then rejects the idea that parts of the Old Covenant law remain enforced today. The Old Covenant law does not remain enforced. It is a unit. It is all decommissioned. When you misunderstand this, you try to bring in parts of the Old Covenant law into the new Covenant era.
What you don't understand though, is that the Old Covenant law was a works covenant. Whereas the New Covenant is a covenant that is by grace. Totally by grace. It is all accomplished for us by Jesus Christ on the cross.
The Sabbath Is the Flashpoint
Now, the biggest difference here, the biggest sticking point is going to be the Sabbath. The Sabbath does not fit neatly into any of the moral, civil, or ceremonial categories. It's moral because it's in the 10 Commandments, but it's also civil. It governed how Israel it, it came with a civil penalty actually came with the penalty of death if you gathered sticks on the Sabbath, your life was liable.
And then it's also ceremonial because it has to do with how we worship God. And so it doesn't neatly fit into any of the categories. The best way to understand it is that it was part of the Old Covenant law and like the rest of the Old Covenant law, it pointed towards a New Covenant reality, which according to Hebrews four, is our rest in Christ.
The Dual Effects of the Law
We're gonna bring this to a close, but it’s important to notice the dual effects of the law, and this is true. Old Covenant and New Covenant. The effect of the law, or the twofold effect of the law is this. For unbelievers, it reveals your sin. It always has, always will. And the Old Covenant, that was the primary focus.
The law revealed sin, it multiplied sin. The 10 Commandments do that. The whole law does that, but in the New Covenant, it does that as well. The law of Christ in the new Covenant says the wages of sin is death. If you've sinned, you deserve death. The law reveals your sin. But in Old Covenant and New Covenant, the law also shows you how to please God.
So David, in Psalm 119, talks about how much he loves God's law. Why? Because David is a believer. The law is not saving him. But the law David understands is. What God desires. And by obeying the law, you get to show God how much you love him because he's, David's been David is a, is a true believer in Jesus or in God as believers in Jesus Christ.
Then the law of Christ is by following it, we show how much we love Jesus. Jesus says, if you love me, you'll obey my commands. And so the law serves a very important purpose in both covenants. But in the new Covenant, we have a new version of God's law called the Law of Christ. And the whole Old Covenant law has been completely decommissioned and retired.
It's been fulfilled in Christ. And now Jesus Christ is our law giver, not Moses.
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