We live in a world were most religions outside Christianity teach that we justify ourselves before God by our good deeds (legalism). Then there are professing believers who continue to assert that in light of Jesus’s justifying work on our behalf, calling others to pursue holiness is misguided; we need only to rest in saving grace (anti-nomianism [anti-law]). Finally, there is a strong contemporary voice warning Christians against the Old Testament altogether. Knowing that believers today are not part of the old covenant, how should new covenant saints relate to Mosaic Instruction?
I recently presented a symposium at Indianapolis Theological Seminary on the relationship between the Old Testament Law and the Christian. Check out both the lecture and the accompanying Q&A to see how (using Brian Rosner’s alliteration) God’s word calls us to repudiate the Mosaic law as covenant, replace it with the law of Christ, and then reappropriate the Mosaic teaching through the light and lens of Christ. None of Moses’s law directly binds believers today. Nevertheless, we should teach and do all his law, but only as it is recast through the way Jesus fulfills the law. We must use rigorous exegesis and theology to evaluate whether Jesus expands, maintains, transforms, or annuls each individual OT law.
Old Testament Law and the Christian: Lecture
Old Testament Law and the Christian: Q&A
