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The Law of Moses and the Law of Christ
Sunday, October 3, 2021
Pastor Jojo Ma
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Exodus 21:1-2
1 And God spoke all these words, saying, 2 "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery."
We all want to please and honor God and we know we do so by obeying what He commands in His Word. So then, how should Christians read these verses in Exodus, and how do we obey these commands?
We today live under the new covenant, the covenant that Jesus said was “in my blood”.
God saved His people for obedience. The people were not trying to get saved by their obedience. God’s love for us precedes our obedience for Him.
vv1-2 And God spoke all these words, saying, "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery."
God loves first, His people respond in love. God saves first, His people respond in obedience. It’s always that order. God’s people never work their way to earning God’s love or salvation. It’s always grace upon grace upon grace.
Jer 31:31-34 31 Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD. 33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, “Know the LORD,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.
2 Cor 3:6 [God] has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
Heb 8:13 In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete.
Gal 3:19 Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made.
Gal 3:24-25 So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.
Eph 2:15 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.
Christ has come. The new covenant has come in his blood. The old is now obsolete. The shadow has passed, the substance is here.
Contextually, and covenantally, the Ten Commandments were given to old covenant Israel at Sinai and only to them --- not to the Egyptians, not to some future United States of America.
Yes, the Ten Commandments are important as they reveal God’s moral will for us. And the moral truths they espouse are especially significant because they are repeated in the New Testament, in the new covenant books.
The law of Christ --- that is what we as Christians should primarily be focusing on. It is the law of Christ, and not the law of Moses, that guides our Christian ethic and practice.
What is the sum and substance of the law of Christ? Love for one another. It’s a loving life.
We as believers under the new covenant are primarily guided by the law of Christ, the law of love, not the Mosaic law. Yes the Ten Commandments have an instructive role for us today --- they remind us of God’s holy character --- but it’s love that sums them all up: the love of Christ, the law of Christ, the law of love.
Jn 13:34-35 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.
Gal 5:6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.
Now the law of Christ rules our hearts and lives as we walk by the Spirit in a faith that produces love.