In Paul’s writings, especially in his
epistle to the Romans, some passages seem to say that God’s law should no
longer be observed: “For Christ is the
end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth” (Rom 10:4).
The grace of God, rather than the law, he
also said, now holds sway over believers. “For
sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under
grace” (Rom 6:14).
Moreover, Paul stated that, in effect,
there is no salvation in the law: “Therefore
by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight” (Rom
3:20a).
He even further declared that, when we
become members of the body of Christ, we are released from the law. “But now we are delivered from the law, that
being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and
not in the oldness of the letter” (Rom 7:6).
The law upheld.
However, Paul himself said the law is
still in force! “Do we then make void the
law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law” (Rom 3:31).
What is even more, the very people whom
God considers acceptable to Him are those who obey the law. “For not the hearers of the law are just
before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified” (Rom 2:13).
Was Paul contradicting himself? Was he
guilty of doublespeak – saying one thing and meaning another?
Tough topics
misunderstood.
The apostle Simon Peter observed that
Paul was sometimes misunderstood: “…our
beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written
unto you; As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in
which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and
unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own
destruction” (2 Peter 3:15a-16).
Did you get that? Some of the subjects
Paul wrote about were hard to understand!
Unchanging validity
Christ Himself affirmed the continuing
validity of God’s law. “Think not that I
am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to
fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one
tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled” (Matt
5:17-18).
According to the Son of God Himself,
God’s law will remain unchanged and continue to be in force until all
prophecies, including those of the end-times, shall have been realized to the
last letter.
The writer of the book of Hebrews,
thought to be also Paul himself, points out that the new covenant has not
completely replaced the old covenant. “In
that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which
decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away” (Heb 8:13).
The old covenant may be nearly obsolete,
but it is still in place. For example, God had said that “it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul” (Lev 17:11).
It still does; the law has not changed – only now it is the blood of Christ,
and not the blood of sacrificial animals, that atones for the sins of men.
Key to eternal life.
Keeping the law of God, Christ said, is
basic and instrumental to gaining eternal life.
“And,
behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do,
that I may have eternal life? And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good?
there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life,
keep the commandments” (Matt 19:16-17).
The commandments are key to being
admitted into the kingdom of heaven. Christ
told John in his visions of Revelation: “Blessed
are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of
life, and may enter in through the gates into the city” (Rev 22:14).
King Solomon
taught that obeying God’s law is mankind’s principal obligation. “Let us
hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments:
for this is the whole duty of man” (Ecc 12:13).
Sentences suspended
So, why did Paul say that we are no
longer under the law? Fausset's Bible
Dictionary notes that the law “convicted of sin and was therefore ‘a ministration of condemnation’ and ‘of death…’ (2 Cor 3:7,9).”
In other words, under the Old Covenant,
if anyone broke a commandment, judgment, the most severe of which was death,
was usually meted immediately upon the transgressor without much ado.
However, in Colossians 2:14, Paul very
clearly said that Christ has blotted “out
the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us,
and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross.”
With His teachings of love, Christ
suspended the inexorable punishments under the law, even death, which was very
much against and contrary to us.
The idea becomes quite clear in Romans
8:2 – “For the law of the Spirit of life
in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.”
Christ has liberated us from the law
which called for merciless punishments on lawbreakers. We see this illustrated
in some New Testament incidents.
The adulteress.
In John 8:3-11, the scribes and Pharisees
caught a woman in the act of adultery, but, before stoning her to death
according to the law (Deut 22:22), they brought her to Christ.
“So
when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He
that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her… And they
which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one,
beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the
woman standing in the midst. When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but
the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man
condemned thee? She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I
condemn thee: go, and sin no more.”
Christ forgave the woman, thus saving her
from immediate death. Nevertheless, adultery is still a sin (“sin no more”, He said, referring to the
commandment in Exodus 20:14). Christ therefore affirmed, even if indirectly,
that God’s law is still in force – but tempered by love and mercy under the New
Covenant.
The eunuch.
Under the Old Covenant law, “No one who is emasculated or has his male
organ cut off shall enter the assembly of the LORD” (Deut 23:1, NASU).
Yet, in Acts 8:36-38, the evangelist Philip baptized the eunuch from Ethiopia to become a member of the Christian church. “And as they went on their way, they came unto a certain water: and the eunuch said, See, here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized? And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And he commanded the chariot to stand still: and they went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch; and he baptized him.”
So, what Paul was trying to say was,
Christ set aside the harsh punishments under the law that were against and
contrary to us – giving transgressors the chance to repent and return to God –
but otherwise God’s law, i.e., its
basic precepts and principles, still stands!
