JY: Welcome to GearTalk, a podcast on biblical theology. Today we continue looking at the law of Moses and the Christian, as we talked about last week in our podcast titled “How Jesus Makes Moses’s Law Matter.” The coming of Jesus changes the way God’s people relate to the law of Moses. We need to relate to the law, but the coming of Jesus changes how we relate to it. Today we look at a three-step process to help Christians apply laws today. We put a link to Jason’s new book, Delighting in the Old Testament: Through Christ and for Christ in the show notes. This book will be a great help as you consider how Jesus makes Moses’s law matter.

TK: OK, Jason, we’re talking about the old covenant law again today and it’s a progression from where we were last time. So if you didn’t listen to it, our last podcast we talked about three Rs in connection with the Mosaic law that Christians would use. You drew these from Brian Rosner. So the three Rs were repudiate, replace, reappropriate the law. Can you kind of just get us very briefly—talk about those three Rs, Jason, so we can move forward in our conversation?

JD: Sure, Tom. So repudiate—the focus there was just that the New Testament authors repudiate the old law covenant. They view it as bearing a ministry of condemnation that is then replaced by the new covenant’s ministry of righteousness. So the first R is repudiate—we are not as believers directly under Moses. He is not our guardian. He’s not our judge. Christ is. And so we repudiate the old covenant law. We are not under it anymore. Instead, we are under grace. So we’re not under the old covenant law of Moses because it’s been replaced by the new covenant law of Christ. So that’s our second R—we’ve repudiated the old covenant law of Moses, and it’s been replaced by the new covenant law of Christ. And this law is summarized by a call to love, which was also the essence of Moses’s law, but now this love is patterned for us in the life of Christ and his work at the cross and resurrection empowers us now by his Spirit, having overcome sin and death, overcome the curse. As we live in the context of blessing, we are empowered to live as Jesus has called us to live.

But part of following Jesus is knowing that he came not to abolish the old covenant—the Old Testament rather—but to fulfill it. And that Moses’s law provided for us both a vision of what wise living would look like for a person, how wide and how high the love of God and love of neighbor is to go. It pointed ahead predictively, prophetically to the person of Christ.

And now that we’re in him, we can reach back to that Old Testament and gain the third R. So we’ve repudiated the old covenant itself. We’ve replaced the old covenant law with the new covenant law of Christ. But then we recognize that as the New Testament authors are preaching and writing, they’re using their Bible all the time because they believe it is useful for teaching and rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness—that through Jesus, the old covenant law still matters for believers today. But not in a direct way. It matters only through the person of Christ.

So we have to consider how Jesus fulfills that old covenant law, and then we have a context for understanding what appropriating Moses through Jesus would look like, whether that law of Moses would be maintained, whether Jesus’s fulfillment of the law transforms the law itself, or whether Jesus’s law fulfillment actually annuls the law.

So maintaining would be things like “don’t murder” in the old covenant. I mean it looks the same as “don’t murder” in the new. “Don’t commit adultery” in the old looks the same as “don’t commit adultery” in the new. Yet now we have a new pattern and a new power.

Transforming the law would be like what I proposed God does through Jesus with the Sabbath. We’re not keeping the Sabbath daily in the same way that Israel did one day a week. Because Jesus has now realized the Sabbath. We have rest today every day now that Jesus has overcome death, overcome the evil one. We have peace with God and we have rest 24 hours, seven days a week.

Similarly, transformed law would be “don’t muzzle an ox while it is threshing” and based on that principle—or sorry, not that law. The law like “purge the evil one from your midst” where there’s a capital crime. Where there’s a capital crime, the old covenant would require capital punishment. But Paul is able to transform that law through the coming of Christ in the new covenant community. The implications of that law would be excommunication when someone has failed to receive discipline.

The ultimate discipline within the church is to declare this person was ultimately not of us, and you cast out the immoral brother. You purge the evil from your midst. Paul’s using the very statements out of Deuteronomy’s statements that occur seven times, “purge the evil one from your midst,” and he applies it to the church. But now, in a fresh way, in a transformed way.

And then we have something like the laws against eating unclean animals. You can’t eat unclean animals, for they represent ultimately the ultimate unclean animal, who is the serpent, and it’s the world that is following the serpent. So we separate. If you’re part of the old covenant, you separate yourselves from the world by symbolically not eating what they eat. But now that Jesus has overcome the serpent, that law is annulled and his fulfilling that law now means that we can eat what was unclean because it’s no longer unclean. He has declared what was unclean to be clean. And now things like pork become victory food.

TK: Jason, this is not where we’re going today. I just think it’s a common thing to hear in our churches. So it’d be great to hear you address it for a second in regard to those sorts of laws like eating clean and unclean food. How would you respond if somebody said God did those things because of health reasons while they were in the desert, for instance, pork, something like that? Because what you just made was more of a theological statement of what they symbolized. But if somebody said no, that was because of their living conditions in the desert. So give a response to that.

JD: Well, I’d respond from two perspectives. One, we see no explicit claims in the Old Testament that not eating pork was for medical reasons for a people’s health. But the biggest challenge—the second thing I’d note is that in Jesus declaring all foods clean in Mark 7, or in his revelation to Peter in Acts 10—what do you see? I see many unclean animals and Jesus tells Peter “Rise, go and eat.”

In declaring such things, if it had to do with medical purposes then what changed? Why was it unhealthy in the past and it’s healthy now, or it’s OK now? If God was so concerned with their health, he would not have altered the law in this day. Because I mean you focused it on the wilderness audience. There’s still people living in the desert. And what exactly would be—why would God say it’s OK to eat it today when it wasn’t OK then? I don’t think it has to do with medical reasons.

The most likely thing that it has to do with is theology. And thus when Peter saw the vision that he was to eat unclean food, he immediately knew that what that meant was God was making a way for the Gentiles to have a relationship with him. If the food was a barrier that distinguished God’s people from those who weren’t, and if that barrier is no longer there, Peter knew right away and he declares it in Acts 10 and in Acts 11. He declares it—God has made a way to save the Gentiles without making them become Jews.

Intriguingly, Tom, Moses at Mount Sinai—that’s not—he’s not the first one to speak of clean and unclean animal distinctions. This actually reaches all the way back, and Moses draws attention to it when he refers to Noah. Noah is supposed to get a pair, a male and a female of every animal. But then he’s supposed to get seven of every clean animal. It lays it right out there in Genesis 6.

TK: Yep.

JD: So way before Mount Sinai, the people were already aware of the distinction. So if in Genesis 6 we ask, OK, what clues are there in the narrative about what is clean and what is unclean? The only previous unclean animal that we’ve heard about is in Genesis 3. The serpent is the standard, the pattern, and so it makes the most sense to me. And again, we’re having to interpret the text. But this explains why it is—and I don’t think any other interpretation that I have read explains why it is that when Jesus comes and overcomes the powers of darkness at the cross, that that by its nature would all of a sudden change the course of history and alter the eating pattern of Israel.

What is it about Jesus coming that proves to all of the Jewish apostles that God has made a new way for Gentiles to encounter him now without having to become Jews? I think it’s because every one of the unclean beasts is in some way associated with the activity—the deceiving nature, so the predatory killing activity, the deceiving nature, or the context of judgment that is the dust related to the serpent. And when Jesus overcomes the serpent it automatically makes unclean animals no longer unclean. They have no pattern to be connected to because Jesus has conquered the one that was associated with. He’s conquered the one who had enslaved the world in darkness. And now there’s a way for every unclean person to have relationship with God in a distinctive, fresh way through Jesus without having to become an Israelite. And so that’s how I’m understanding what’s going on there.

TK: That’s really helpful. OK. So we didn’t say it yet today, but we’re both of us are looking at Jason’s book Delighting in the Old Testament: Through Christ and for Christ. We have a link to this in our show notes. But Jason has an image. So imagine if you had a pair of glasses and you just had one of the lenses you were holding. The laws connected to Moses, so the law of Moses would be on one side of the lens. It’s passing through the lens and then on the other side is the law of Christ and Christ is the lens itself. So that’s where you were saying the laws are transformed or maintained or annulled.

So, Jason, I think it’d be really good if you can help us think about, “Alright, if we can’t just make the law go away and say I’m a new covenant believer, it doesn’t matter,” and we just talked about several instances where new covenant believers like Paul to the church in Corinth, he’s actually applying the Old Testament law. He’s using it. So what is a process that we can use for applying the Old Testament law today?

JD: Well, I want to propose a three-step process, Tom. It’s going to start with establishing that old covenant law’s original revealed meaning and application. Then we want to determine the law’s theological importance. And then finally, we’ll just summarize the law’s lasting significance for us today. So what I’m arguing is that none of Moses’s law stands as our direct guide or judge, but that all of Moses—any of the commandments, every single one, still matters for us.

TK: All 613.

JD: That’s right.

TK: So, but you would even say in all of Moses, you’re even saying that we’re not—the Ten Commandments isn’t coming to us apart from being mediated through Christ.

JD: That’s right, the Ten Commandments were given to old covenant Israel. And so they are not—we’re not directly bound by the Ten Commandments. But I’m proposing that all the Ten Commandments still matter for us, but every single law in those ten, we would have to consider—how does Jesus fulfill that law, and how does it still matter for us?

And in the same way that laws can—we see laws maintained and yet extended. So, for example, the “don’t muzzle an ox while it is threshing” from the book of Deuteronomy, Paul is able to apply that in an extended way. Same principle still stands, but he applies it in an extended way to the need to make sure that a pastor is getting paid in the way that he’s serving the congregation.

TK: Stopping there for one second, you can just imagine a church having a discussion because it’s—it had never come up before in their context of—well, this guy’s devoting himself full time to the ministry that in the First Century and they’re thinking, what do we do with this? And they’re going to their scriptures that they had at that time—the old covenant, and they’re talking about, well, we have a law about the ox. And do we care for the one who’s plowing out the grain? You can just imagine them doing this process you’re talking about.

JD: Yes, and they’re looking at that law. They’re recognizing that it manifests something about God’s unchanging character and purposes and then they’re considering the lasting relevance of that expression of God’s eternal law to Israel. Considering the lasting significance of that particular law now through the lens of Jesus in light of what Jesus has done, how do we think about this law and how would it have lasting relevance today?

And I think that’s what we’re supposed to be doing with every single law. We can’t throw out any of them, but every one we need to wrestle hard considering—what was its original revealed meaning and application? What’s its lasting theological importance and then how is it significant today? Those are our three steps and I just want to take a little bit of time to unpack each of those and then maybe we can go through some case studies.

TK: Sounds really good.

JD: So as we seek to engage step one—establishing the law’s original revealed meaning and application—what we need to do first is categorize the type of law. Now this is a law type based on its content. There were different kinds of laws in old covenant Israel that had different results if you broke them and we have very similar types of distinction of laws even in our culture today.

So criminal laws were those kinds of laws that governed offenses that actually put the whole welfare of the community at risk. We call these crimes and thus criminal law. The offended party in this instance is not even a person. It’s the state or the national community. You may have murdered a person, but the reason the state is involved is because that type of activity puts the entire nation at risk and so the state steps in and the punishment is on behalf of the whole community in the name of the highest state authority, which in Israel meant Yahweh. They have, in the case of murder, for example, violated Yahweh himself by destroying unlawfully one of those made in his image.

So the criminal laws would be things like kidnapping, homicide, false prophecy, witchcraft, adultery, rape. So in all of these instances, you are engaging activity that is directly putting an affront to God himself or to those made in his image, and you’re putting the welfare of the entire community at risk. And all of these would demand—these criminal offenses would demand the highest punishment—would be capital punishment, where they’ve taken a life, so their life will be taken. That’s the principle set forth in the old covenant law. And as we’re assessing, so we’re saying we’re coming to a law in the Old Testament. So I’m saying the first step is to categorize the type of law. Is it a criminal offense? But not all offenses were at that level.

TK: But what you’re saying is if this is something that rises to the highest level in Moses’s law, I should have that in my mind as I’m assessing it as—wow, this was extremely significant for them.

JD: That’s right. And so its lasting relevance to us today will not be rightly understood apart from that—the nature of how that act was considered such a high violation. So we have to account for that.

Second level would be things like—they’re called civil laws and these are just laws governing private disputes between citizens or organizations in which the public authorities are appealed to for judgment. They’re called upon to intervene. But the offended party is not the state or the national community, but just an individual. So here we’re talking about things like assault, theft, destruction of property, and then limited family issues like premarital unchastity, post-divorce situations trying to work out details after a divorce or mistreatment of slaves. All of these are civil disputes that were too difficult for parties to handle themselves, and so an outside mediator of the state would get brought in. And yet the offense was recognized to be between parties and ultimately not putting the welfare of the entire community at stake or at risk.

Next, we have family law. And this is different than the previous two contexts. This is non-state level domestic laws that are governing the Israelite household. And it didn’t require state involvement in ancient Israel, so things like marriage, inheritance, the redemption of land and persons, family discipleship, and the care of slaves. This was all within the realm of family law, but at times what was part of family discipleship or family discipline—if you have an ultimately highly significantly rebellious child who time and time again has refused to listen to his parents and whose activity in dishonoring his parents is ultimately even going to put the welfare of the community at stake—all of a sudden family law would become civil law or, more likely, criminal law.

TK: It’s kind of—it’s worked up the ladder.

JD: It’s worked up the ladder, but originally the government, like the king or a governor, is not involved in the discipline or discipling of children. Marriage is something that a family was able to enjoy. The purchase or selling of property—it didn’t have to reach all the way up to the government level, it was something that could be handled within. And so that’s family law.

Next, we would have what’s often called cultic, and by that it just means worship—not occultic but just cultic law, ceremonial law. And this is the sphere that all of us are familiar with. It’s all of Israel’s pageantry. It’s the laws that govern the visible forms and rituals of their religious life, their ceremonies. So everything related to the temple, related to sacrifice, so sacred sacrifice, sacred calendar, various sacred symbols like the priesthood, ritual purity, everything that would distinguish Israel from the nations. What these were—they provided parables of more fundamental truths about God and relating to him. And this is a whole subset of distinct laws. These symbolic laws that pointed even to the future, something associated with the work of the Messiah, what he would accomplish. So that would be the fourth category. We’ve had criminal law, civil law, family law and now ceremonial law.

And the last category is intriguing. It’s called compassion law. And these are laws that could not be even judged in court. So these are—and we call them laws, but they’re simply the commands for charity, for love of neighbor, to work, justice and mercy toward others. These laws can’t be brought to court. But God knows the heart, and so anything related to the protection and justice of the weak, showing impartiality or generosity, respect for persons and their property, all of this would fall into this subset of Israel’s law.

So we’re not talking about the theological categories of moral, civil, and ceremonial law that some in the church have used, saying that only the moral law is still binding on believers today. The civil law that dealt with Israel’s theocracy, their kingdom under God, that doesn’t apply, and all the ceremonies are now overcome by the substance that is Christ. Those are theological categories that I don’t even think are very faithful to the way the Bible talks about itself. And I’m not dealing with those. I’m saying these are content related categories that include laws, all of which still relate to believers today in light of Christ’s person and work.

So we established the category—that’s the type of law it is. That’s our starting point for considering the original revealed meaning and application. And then we say, “So what? What was the role of this law in the original context?” And often study Bibles do a good job here in helping us—like the ESV Study Bible or the NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible—just looking at those notes are going to help the reader get a better understanding of what this law meant and what its original significance was.

And then the last step here in evaluating the original revealed meaning and application is just asking, well, what was its purpose? And I’ve got a whole list of questions here. But they’re the who, what, when, where, why, and how questions. What kind of situation was this law trying to promote or prevent? Whose interest was this law aiming to protect? Who would have benefited from this law and why? Whose power was this law trying to restrict, and how did it do so? What rights and responsibilities were embodied in this law? What kind of behavior did this law encourage or discourage? What vision of society motivated this law? What moral principles, values, or priorities did this law embody or initiate? What motivation did this law appeal to? What sanction or penalty, if any, was attached to this law, and what does that show regarding the relative seriousness or moral priority of this law? Those are the kinds of questions that will help us establish the original revealed meaning and application of the law. And we’re going to want to walk through this with some examples, Tom.

TK: That I think that will help a lot as we kind of start getting into categories like—wow, this is so confusing to say. It’s really not that confusing what we’re talking about here, but having some real laws once we finish this first part here, some real laws we can say, OK, let’s talk about this one.

JD: Maybe it would help just to—as I’m after I get done with each section I can just give an example. So in Deuteronomy 22:4. It’s an independent law. It simply says “You shall not see your brother’s donkey or his ox fallen down by the way and ignore them. You shall help him to lift them up again.” So there’s a pretty basic law. If you’re walking down the street and you see your brother’s donkey down in the ditch, you need to—you can’t keep walking.

TK: Can’t pretend you didn’t see it.

JD: You can’t pretend you didn’t see it. So I ask myself what type of law is this? And we might say, well, it could have been judged in court. But I don’t know—it really is just a basic compassion law. And…

TK: Mm-hmm.

JD: I mean, a judge might say, well, actually there was a reason why he had to keep going. And I think there’s those qualifications that are understood in so many of these laws. But if you have a neighbor whose need you see, whose need you’re able to meet, and you ignore it, that is sin. And in this instance, you’ve got a brother who’s got some—got an animal caught in the ditch and a proper heart of compassion would be to enter in and help him.

This is not like a basic principle law—“love your neighbor as you love yourself.” It’s an example, it’s—if you see your brother’s donkey in the ditch. So it’s providing a certain case, a case study example that could then be multiplied. It would be wrong to say, “Oh well actually it was my brother’s ox in the ditch and so that law didn’t apply to me.”

TK: Yeah, but if it was—

JD: If it was a horse, if his cart was broken down, all of these are case studies that the Israelites already recognized not every instance is covered. That’s why they needed priests, and that’s why they needed judges to help evaluate certain situations. But what this law is calling the reader to recognize is there’s a principle at work here, a principle of love of neighbor. And if there’s someone called here a brother which would suggest they’re part of my covenant community—and in the old covenant context part of the covenant community—and I come out from worship and see that they’ve got something, you know, an animal that’s stuck in the ditch, I bear responsibility, unless there’s some reason I cannot help. I bear responsibility to pause and aid this one.

TK: Even in saying that—ignoring them. There’s a difference between, “I made a decision I could not help because of this” and, “I’m choosing to ignore it.” Because if I make a decision I can’t help, I’m not ignoring it. I’m just saying I can’t do what I wish I could do right now.

JD: That’s right. And we have those situations. Here the specificity is ignoring it. What you should do in turning. So this is—we’ve established the type, the meaning and significance of the law. It’s really calling people to be mindful of others at every point and not ignoring need. That’s what it was seeking to do.

What was its purpose? I think its purpose was very explicitly to build a community that has eyes out for one another. So that we’re there to help people in their time of need. That’s all old covenant, but I think we’ve established the meaning, the significance and the purpose in light of the type of law it was—this compassion law.

So now we move to stage two. Determining the law’s theological importance, and this includes three parts. Number one—well, what does this law tell us about our God…

TK: That’s really good.

JD: …whose character is unchanging. So, Tom, you look at that law in Deuteronomy 22:4, “You shall not see your brother’s donkey or his ox fallen down by the way and ignore them. You shall help them to lift them up again.” What does that tell us about God?

TK: Yeah, it certainly tells us that God character-wise is not a selfish God and is not looking for a selfish people who are out for themselves, but who is wanting a people who care for one another and have compassion for one another. So heart-wise that would mean having not a closed heart but an open heart. It reminds me of verses in the New Testament like God sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. And that we are called to be like our Father in heaven. So that picture of—if you thought what kind of neighbor would I want? I would want one who’d care for my things like this. You think—would I want to worship a God like that? I would want to worship a God like this.

JD: And that God is unchanging. And so when we consider the lasting relevance of this law, even on the other side of Christ, we have to recognize that what this tells us about God is still true of God today—that his disposition is toward the needy and that we become his hands and feet toward the needy. And so all of a sudden we’re seeing just in—I mean step one theological importance. What does it tell us about God in his ways? And we’re seeing lasting relevance.

It’s that the next one, though, that we really bring up that lens—the image that we talked about here at the beginning of the podcast—asking how does Christ fulfill the law? And what are the implications of this for believers today? So Jesus is the ultimate neighbor and he is the ultimate one who did not ignore need when it was seen. He comes and he is constantly turning toward the needy. He’s the doctor to meet the needs of the sick. Even when the religious leaders of his day are rejecting the sinners and the tax collectors, Jesus is recognizing need. His whole life is a life of love, and so when it comes to fulfilling such compassion laws, he embodies them.

But then when we say, is there anything about Jesus’ person and work that would suggest that this kind of a law would get transformed, that it would look different today in some way? Certainly there’s new contexts, but that’s not a transformed law. That’s a maintained law. And I think about how Jesus, when he describes the parable of the Good Samaritan and he gets all the way to the end and he says—oh, how is it worded? The call is, “So who’s your neighbor?” And the neighbor becomes anyone whose need you see, whose need you’re able to meet, and he says, “Go and do things like this.” And it’s a broad statement calling people to be mindful.

OK, here’s this broken-down body on the side of the road and the Samaritan crosses the tracks, picks up this man and helps him in the midst of his need. And Jesus not only says go and do likewise, it’s go and do things like this. So it just broadens it out. It—the law is maintained, but now it’s even expanded into all of our modern-day contexts. And so I would propose that as we’re considering Jesus’s person and work, he’s not transforming the law. He’s not annulling the law. No, this would be an expression of God’s character to old covenant Israel that would be maintained within the new covenant law of Christ.

And then finally, the last step is simply to say—stated in a single sentence—the love principle behind the law. When Paul in Romans 13 says all the commandments—don’t commit adultery, don’t steal—and then he says, or any other commandment is summed up in this: love your neighbor as you love yourself. What that means is that every single one of the old covenant laws, we should be able to boil down to a principle of love.

And so this is the third step—we ask, what does it tell us about God in his ways? What are the—what does the person and work of Jesus—how does it impact our understanding of the lasting significance of this law? And then finally, we establish a love principle that could be something like this—and I want to make it specific. I don’t want to just be generic like, “Well, where’s love your neighbor as you love yourself,” but rather, “Loving your brother means you will assist him when you come upon him in need.” So it’s a very specific statement. But the need could be numerous levels in numerous new contexts. It doesn’t have to be specifically a donkey or an ox. It could be a broken down car. It could be a tuition payment.

And we’re seeing now, OK, so what would the lasting implications be for us today? That’s our third step. What would we say then the law’s lasting significance is? Well, it’s that love principle empowered by Jesus that—I mean if we want to be very narrow, then we would say this law is not broadly for all neighbors and all society, but it would be for the covenant community. What do we know to be true from this law—that when we see someone within our church family in need, we cannot ignore that need, but have a responsibility to help meet it if we are able.

TK: Mm-hmm.

JD: That’s just how I would be thinking through this process of applying the law. So we start out with establishing the original revealed meaning and application, considering the type of law, the original meaning, significance and its purpose. Then we determine the law’s theological importance by asking: what does it tell us about God in his ways? How does Jesus fulfill this? How does Jesus fulfilling this law impact its application? And what is the love principle behind the law? And then finally, we simply summarize the law’s lasting significance for us today. So that’s how I would be going about it.

TK: I love it. So let me Jason, let me ask you one—that so this Deuteronomy 22, I’m looking at it right now. And first of all, there’s a bunch that are intermingled. So you get one like that about the ox and then right away you go to Deuteronomy 22:5—“A woman shall not wear a man’s garment, nor shall a man put on a woman’s cloak.” Then we get to one in 22:6 about a bird’s nest. And just as we think about this, these are coming at us from all directions. Can you give me a reason why that would be the case? Like it’s not—we’ve put even the categories you put earlier—we’ve put all the compassion laws in one place because I would say where the ox falling or we would say maybe the bird nest one might fall in that category. “The woman shall not wear a man’s garment”—that didn’t fall in the compassion law category. So can you just give a quick—how do I map this out? They seem to be mixed up. Is Moses just like pulling stuff out of a hat or what’s with the rhyme and reason for how they’re arranged?

JD: Well, two things. They’re coming at us much like life comes at us. They’re not organized into these nice boxes. Rather, life is messy, and that’s how Moses presents them. And you’re absolutely right, Tom, that he’s not categorizing them into, OK, I’m going to talk about the criminal laws first. Then we’ll deal with the civil and then the family, and then the ceremonial, and then the compassion.

TK: Right.

JD: Rather, it is all mixed up and that makes it more difficult for us as Christian ministers to approach Moses’s law because we have to deal with every law independently. We have to pause and consider so…

TK: That’s helpful.

JD: You mentioned, “A woman shall not wear a man’s garment, nor shall a man put on a woman’s cloak. For whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord.” That’s graphic language.

TK: Well, and just looking—looking where we just were about the ox, it didn’t say anything there about it’s an abomination to the Lord if you don’t—if you ignore the ox. It didn’t use that level. So right away you’d say, wow, this one seems very heightened from the one right before it.

JD: Right. That’s right. And we’re supposed to see that and pause. This abomination language—that puts it on par with things like kidnapping and witchcraft. And so even the use of the language suggests, “Oh, this is criminal law.” That someone could get in—you know, even lose their life, forfeit their life if this is in the abomination category.

But then we say, “Wait, it’s about—it says a woman shouldn’t wear a man’s garment, nor a man put on a woman’s cloak. For whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord God.” I mean, this suggests there’s a fundamental principle at stake here that is directly related to maleness and femaleness. That this isn’t just about—

TK: And you’re saying that because—because it’s mixing a woman and a woman wearing a man’s garment, or mixing the maleness and femaleness together. That’s what we’re seeing right there. Correct?

JD: That’s right. And if it’s—but the very act of this transgenderism is abominable. And that it just—it suggests that we’re dealing here with not just an example like a case study, but rather a more fundamental principle that is at stake. And it has to do with—it seems—I mean what can happen if a woman wears a man’s garment or a man puts on a woman’s cloak? What can happen is mis-identity. And it seems like that’s probably what’s at stake. We’re not talking about child’s play.

TK: Or can a woman wear jeans somewhere?

JD: Right. We’re talking about gender confusion where someone is not—where it’s unclear to those around them whether they are male or whether they are female. So they’re—I mean, ultimately, what do we know? We know that the relationship, the distinction between male and female has even cosmic elements involved—that it’s even ultimately related to rightly portraying Christ and his church. There seems like there’s maybe criminal law involved, but there may also be some sort of symbolic ceremonial element involved. And then that we’re dealing with male and female may also relate to family.

But when it comes to purpose, it seems as though we’re talking about maintaining divinely created gender distinctions within the community—that God made them male and female, and that you’re always supposed to recognize that a boy is a boy and a girl is a girl. And God won’t change that. And this—and then we say, well, what does this tell us about God in his ways? That God takes seriously biology, natural order and that he desires that one’s gender identity and gender expression aligns with one’s biological makeup.

It’s assumed here that there is a man, and that there is a woman, and that there’s a distinction and that within certain settings there are elements that could within a given culture say this is a man or this is a woman. And you already mentioned jeans or take a woman wearing a tie at Olive Garden at a restaurant. Within our culture. I don’t have trouble distinguishing men and women if they’re looking like men and women, and whether a woman has jeans on or even if a guy has long hair, it doesn’t automatically mean that the woman is more masculine or the man is more feminine. You can be extremely masculine and have—a guy could have very long hair and a woman can be extremely feminine and even, you know, have a tie on.

What’s at stake—it appears—with this law is confusion. Within the given society, is there confusion? And there should never be confusion. And it tells us something about who God is, that he is a God who has designed maleness and femaleness with purpose. Ultimately even to distinguish himself and his people, to distinguish Christ and his church. And within that framework we say, is there anything about Jesus’s coming that has altered such a pattern? And I would say, on the contrary, everything Jesus did was displaying his Father. He was the ultimate human and the ultimate male who valued women in massive ways. He went toward the women. He had female disciples. He disclosed himself to a woman first after his resurrection. The lady worshippers in the Gospel accounts are just elevated and it’s beautiful.

What is clear is that there’s a maintaining of distinction between maleness and femaleness all throughout the New Testament, and Paul says those distinctions even apply to what’s going on in the local church, where male headship is elevated in order that there might be an ever present portrait to the entire body during corporate worship in the leadership of what’s taking place in the assembly, that Jesus is indeed on the throne, that he is Lord of his people. And these complementary relationships, male and female, husband, wife, male eldership—all of that is designed to magnify the glory of Christ, and if we minimize those distinctions, we’re saying we minimize the distinction between Christ and his church.

So the distinction set forth in Deuteronomy 22:5 is just reaffirmed in the New Testament through Jesus’s fulfilling of this law. And so it would seem to me that we’re talking about a law that is maintained. And we would have a love principle that says something like loving others and our God means that adults will dress in a way that does not confuse our gender in the eyes of others. We will seek to raise boys to become men, seek to raise our daughters to become women and to recognize that there’s distinctions and they’re beautiful. And to celebrate the complementary nature of men and women, and such a principle is set forth already in Deuteronomy 22:5.

TK: And you mentioned it, but just—you have a child who I think in your book you might mention it like a little girl puts on a mustache in a toy chest or something like that. That’s not what this text is talking about.

JD: No, it’s not talking about that because everyone would then know that that—I mean there’s nothing about that little play mustache that makes people think that girl is a boy. Yet we still need to be careful because we’re always training and teaching and we need to ensure that our boys know they’re not to be girls and that our girls know they’re not to be boys. And so there’s innocence in such play. And yet as parents, we also want to be mindful to ensure that any movement in our little boys toward embracing femininity needs to be curbed. And so, for example, in my own home, wanting to raise up providers and protectors, I’m teaching my boys to hunt. I’m teaching my boys to use power tools so that they can learn how to provide and protect. But if my daughters want to join in, I love it. But I’m not gonna, you know, I’m not going to force them to. If my boys want to learn domesticity, you know, learn how to cook and help handle things within a home, I celebrate that. But I want—I’m ensuring that my daughter is learning how to do that—how to carry out the elements that are listed in Proverbs 31 associated with the godly woman. And that includes strength and wisdom, buying and selling even of property, having a vision for the family. I want to raise up godly, strong, wise, skilled daughters and I want to raise up strong, wise, insightful providers and protectors in my sons. And I think Deuteronomy 22:5 is pointing in those directions.

TK: I think something I just—I recognize that I see it in those who come to Christ is—coming to Christ, receiving his forgiveness, receiving the Holy Spirit in us, it makes us truly human where we’ve not lived that way before, where we can reflect what God intended in human beings, and this is what this—this passage is really saying. He intended women to be women. He intended men to be men. It’s a beautiful thing, right here.

So obviously this one, given our current climate, we’d say we have whole levels of conversation people wouldn’t have had 15 years ago about this verse, but the principle hasn’t changed at all, Jason. So I’d like to do one more and then wrap up. Briefly, the next verse—I’m going to read it to you—next two verses and then we can just talk about this. So I like how you said that mixed in with this you see an ox or sheep that’s gone astray. We didn’t talk about that one. Then you saw one falling down. Then we have a woman wearing a man’s garment or a man putting on a woman’s cloak. And then we come across a different one and you just said this is a reflection of—this is how life comes at us. And we’re constantly assessing, “Lord, how am I supposed to think about this?”

Well, this one says Deuteronomy 22:6—“If you come across a bird’s nest in any tree or on the ground with young ones or eggs, and the mother sitting on the young or on the eggs, you shall not take the mother with the young. You shall let the mother go, but the young you may take for yourself that it may go well with you and that you may live long.” First of all, it has a tag line at the end, but what’s the deal here? We have a bird’s nest. We have moms and eggs, and surely God doesn’t really care about that. It seems like such a small matter, doesn’t it? Or doesn’t it?

JD: Well, that is the question. And Moses gives this law to say it does matter, but what exactly is it that matters?

TK: Right. Because on the one hand, we have this—somebody, they paid all this money for this ox, it’s a big deal, but here we just have a nest in a tree.

JD: Right, right. And so you’ve got these creatures of the creation and the proneness of some is to say look, yeah, the creation is here. We’re supposed to serve the creation, protect the animals, don’t hunt and—and yet that’s actually not what the text says. It says you can enjoy your omelet, but don’t take the mother. It says when you come across the nest, you can have the eggs, but let the mother go. And so then we say, well, what is this about then? And I think it’s highlighted at the very end of the line when it says, “The young you may take for yourself that it may go well with you and that you may live long.” This is provision from God. It’s provision.

TK: But not temporary, not temporary provision. It’s so that it can last.

JD: So we have to think how is this working? God just provided the person walking through the woods with his breakfast for the next day. But in the process, he’s not supposed to take the mother as well. So that three months from now, or however long it takes, there will be more eggs for an omelet. That God is—so here the environment is being elevated as the context in which people from generation to generation enjoy life. And because—so I don’t think this is about environmental care. Instead, this is about love of neighbor. This is about compassion, but not to the bird. No, you just took her young. But you don’t deplete all the resources. This is about preserving resources so that more people, including you, can enjoy the provision that God has set.

So this is an example of either family law or compassion law, because what’s at stake is living long—living long in the land. This law is not about nature, it’s about humans. And yet, who are living in nature. It’s the context in which we enjoy relationship with God and in which new generations can enjoy relationship with God.

So it tells us that God is concerned about our long term welfare. Not just about our present. He doesn’t only want to satisfy us today. He wants to satisfy us tomorrow and allow others to be satisfied. And so he’s provided a context wherein humans have the responsibility to steward that context in such a way that we’re gaining benefit, yet not depleting it for ourselves or for the next generation.

So loving others and ourself means that we will preserve the God-given means for life, while not hesitating to sustain our own. That would be my love principle. Loving others and self means that we will preserve the God-given means for life, while not hesitating to sustain our own. And as I think through Jesus, I don’t see any reason why this family or compassion law would be altered. This would be a principle that would be maintained—that we can see in the old covenant and see maintained in the new.

And so what would it look like today? It could look as basic as—OK, the government has set certain fishing or hunting regulations and if they’ve said there’s a perch limit of 25 perch per day per person, then it would be improper for people to break that simply for their own selfish greed. If there’s a limit where they say you can only take so many bucks or so many does when hunting deer, well, here you have our own government that is setting parameters within our state—counties setting parameters of what is allowed, but they’re doing so because they’re trying to maintain a population that will allow for the very thing that Moses is calling for where we can enjoy life today, but we can enjoy life tomorrow as well, and where there can be benefit to our neighbor.

And so I think here this isn’t a tree hugger text, this is a love of neighbor text and even a love of self text that’s clarifying how families can live today and live next week and next year within the context of our environment. We don’t deplete its resources. We’re always thinking about how to preserve the resources while also benefiting from them today. I think that’s what’s at stake with this law. And so I think it would be a law that would find a principle maintained through the person of Christ even now.

TK: I was thinking of just even as we train up young ones or even as we think about—well, certainly ourselves. But like a family meal where you come through a line, something sitting on your counter or whatever and you see something you really like. And there’s only—whatever it might, whatever it might be. There’s some blueberries or whatever for pancakes. But if I say I love blueberries and I take all of them for myself—this text doesn’t say a word about that. But yet the law of Christ would say you ought to see this law about the birds in the nest there, because you—while you can say I love blueberries and there was enough for me to take, you ought to have left enough so it can go beyond you. It’s wrong not to.

JD: It’s a basic principle for lasting existence and. I mean, it says so that it will go well with you and so that you may live long. We all want that. And so that means we have to live in our environment in a way that is mindful of ourselves, of our neighbor and of the next generation.

TK: It’s interesting just the way the Holy Spirit works in people. I would say in a missions context, I’ve seen numerous places where the people have just attested when people met the Lord, they cared for their crops differently. And whole areas where animals really had been wiped out, where the environment looks different—not because of, like you mentioned, a worship of the environment, but because the person is seeing things and thinking in ways they never thought before.

JD: That’s right, Tom.

TK: And so they’re growing crops differently. They’re harvesting animals differently. So a thing like—it certain areas I’ve been where have been like, why am I not seeing any birds here? Why is there no wildlife here? Well, part of it is because there’s no context for people even to think in categories like this. But this is how a godly person would think.

JD: That’s right. It’s setting foundational principles that grow out of the character of God that through Jesus now we reclaim—we reappropriate. And what’s key Tom is to recognize that within the New Testament, such environmental law is not specified. God gave us Deuteronomy 22:6–7 so that he didn’t have to repeat it. And he gave us texts like this now to think about in light of Christ’s fulfillment, thinking about the character of God, thinking about the love principle behind the text. Now we have something that we can actually preach—that we can actually use for teaching and rebuking and correcting—whereas within the New Testament itself, there was no mention of such things. It would have—we would have had “love your neighbor as you love yourself.” That’s as far as we would have gotten.

But all of a sudden in the old covenant we have an example of what this could look like, specifically in relation to environmental care, but not for the environment’s sake—environmental care for the sake of love of neighbor. And ultimately, we love neighbor and we want to see ourselves preserved so that in the next generation there are more worshippers of God—that there’s a place where worship can continue after me, if indeed Christ hasn’t returned. I don’t want to make the environment so depleted and so destroyed that the church can’t flourish. That’s how we’re supposed to be thinking.

TK: That which would lead to whole conversations, even about how we spend our money then and what we spend our money on. It’s really helpful, Jason.

So as we wrap up—I’m looking forward—I’m looking at Deuteronomy 22:8–9, “You will not sow your vineyard with two kinds of seed, lest the whole field be forfeited.” Like these different laws. And I hope this has encouraged your heart of—I need to like, to say I need to look at these laws and not consider them as these are foreign things for a foreign people. They have nothing to do with me, but instead, no—they have quite a bit to do with me, and I need to see them through the lens of Christ and apply these things. But it opens up a whole window of text. Like you said, they didn’t need to say this in New Testament because it was already given to us in Deuteronomy.

JD: A whole host of examples.

TK: Yeah, enjoy the search.

JD: That’s right.

TK: Alright, Jason. Well, blessings on your weekend.

JD: Thanks Tom.

TK: OK, see ya.

JY: Thank you for joining us for GearTalk. Go to our show notes for a link to Jason DeRouchie’s book Delighting in the Old Testament. you’ll find a large number of resources, including lectures, outlines, articles and sermons at jasonderouchie.com. You’ll find many resources for teaching and preaching in a number of languages at handstotheplow.org.