Q: Should Christians Today Follow Old Testament Laws?

By Adam Lloyd Johnson, Ph.D.

Different Christian groups and denominations have disagreed about this issue over the years. Thus, just like with any theological disagreement, we should look into the various positions which have been put forth, make a decision as to which position seems most biblical, and then calmly and rationally explain why we hold our position while showing grace, humility, love, and respect with Christians who have taken other positions (Romans 14).

Keep in mind that the Old Testament law was given by God to the Israelites through Moses and includes over 600 commands that cover a wide range of issues including clothing, house styles, worship instructions, governmental society rules and respective punishments, food to eat and not eat, sexual practices, hygiene, etc. The Old Testament law was famously summarized in the 10 Commandments as found in the books of Exodus and Deuteronomy but the Old Testament law actually includes over 600 commands.

I’ll summarize the three major positions which have been proposed by Christians:

Christians should follow all, or nearly all, of the Old Testament laws. Groups that may hold this position include Seventh Day Adventists or folks who follow the Hebrew Roots Movement. One of the major problems with this is that some people who hold this position, but not all of them, sometimes seem to indicate that attempting to keep these laws is necessary for salvation. Paul directly confronts this idea in the book of Galatians and wholeheartedly rejects it. Paul explains that salvation (forgiveness of sins and reconciliation back to a right relationship with God) comes ONLY through faith in Christ and not through work of the law. Again, not everyone who holds this first position believes that keeping the Old Testament law is necessary for salvation; some of them affirm that salvation is by faith alone but that the Old Testament laws should be followed merely as a way to love and honor God.
Christians should follow some, but not all, of the Old Testament laws. Groups that may hold this position include some Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists, and Lutherans. Often such Christians will divide the Old Testament law into three types—civil laws about societal rules and government, ceremonial laws about worship and religion, and moral laws about ethical issues. Those who hold this position often claim that Christians today should only follow the moral laws (laws against murder, adultery, lying, stealing, etc.) but that the civil laws (how to structure government, rules for capital punishment, etc.) and the ceremonial laws (what food to eat, what clothes to wear, how to worship) don’t apply to Christians today.
Christians aren’t under the Old Testament laws at all, so none of them apply to Christians today. Groups that may hold this position include those that affirm dispensational theology. There are dispensationalists in many denominations but often time you’ll dispensationalism among Baptists and non-denominational churches.

Since I affirm position #3, the dispensational position, I’ll explain the reasons dispensationalists have come to this conclusion.

First, it seems relatively clear from the New Testament that many of the Old Testament laws don’t apply to Christians (Acts 10). But why think that none of the Old Testament laws apply to Christians today? This takes us to my second point.

Second, the Bible itself doesn’t divide the Old Testament law into different categories such as moral, civil, and ceremonial. This classification system was developed by theologians. While this doesn’t necessarily make this classification system incorrect, it does raise some red flags concerning position #2, especially since the Bible seems to describe the Old Testament law as one solid unit (see the book of Galatians). Read through the book of Galatians and you’ll see Paul says repeatedly that we’re no longer under the Law, and he’s referring to the Old Testament law in this context. Thus, dispensationalist, including myself, have come to the conclusion that we’re not under any of the Old Testament law anymore. Furthermore, it seems very difficult in many situations to know how to classify many of the Old Testament laws. For example, what about the laws about not working in the Sabbath—are those laws civil, ceremonial, or moral? Even Christian groups that hold to position #2 as described above disagree on how to classify the Sabbath laws. Some of these groups believe these laws are moral and thus are very against Christians working on Sundays.

Third, this dispensational position seems crazy to some people at first. You mean it’s OK to murder, commit adultery, lie, and steal? What about the ten commandments? No, dispensationalists don’t think it’s OK for Christians to do these things. But they’d say these things are wrong, not because the Old Testament law says they’re wrong, but because the New Testament says they’re wrong. For example, the New Testament contrasts the Old Testament law to the new “Law of Christ” (see Gal. 6:2 but this idea can be found in several places in the New Testament). To some this might seem like splitting hairs, or like a distinction without a difference. But read through the book of Galatians and you’ll see how Paul explains the purpose of the Old Testament law and how its purpose has been fulfilled and thus it no longer applies to us.

Fourth, here’s one way to conceptualize the dispensational position. Now I’ll warn you that this is an extreme oversimplification of the actual situation but I think it’s helpful for someone just to get their mind around what the dispensationalist is saying. Imagine that there is an objective absolute fixed set of moral truths that apply to all human beings (call this fixed set of moral truths MORALITY). Now God gave the Israelites in the Old Testament over 600 commands and some of these 600 commands were based on MORALITY (such as commands against murder, lying, stealing, adultery, etc). But some of these 600 commands weren’t based on MORALITY, for example the commands having to do with clothing styles, what foods to eat or not eat, how to worship, what type of houses to build, etc. I’m sure God had good reasons to command these types of laws, such as providing safety and solidarity for the Israelites, but they weren’t based on MORALITY. Even though these laws weren’t based on MORALITY, since God commanded them, it would be sin for the Israelites to violate them. However, as I explained above, Christians aren’t under the Old Testament law at all but instead are under the Law of Christ. But here’s the thing, just like the Old Testament law, some of the laws of Christ are based on MORALITY and some aren’t. So there are some commands that are found in BOTH the Old Testament law and the law of Christ, namely those based on MORALITY. And these would be things like commands against murder, lying, stealing, adultery, etc. In this way dispensationalists can say that none of the Old Testament commands apply to us, but the law of Christ does, and it just so happens that some of the commands in the law of Christ are the same as commands in the Old Testament law, namely the ones that are based on MORALITY. In other words, fixed MORALITY is the supreme standard above both the Old Testament law and the law of Christ, and then God simply communicates MORALITY in both the Old Testament law and the law of Christ.

If either position #2 or #3 are correct, would this then mean that morality is culturally relative and that God could just change what is right and wrong whenever He wants for different cultures? For this question, we must go a bit deeper; if you’re up for it, continue on!

Digging Deeper…

If someone wants to go further down this conversation concerning morality, below I’ve put together my theological position concerning the relationship between God and His commands. Ultimately morality is tied to God’s moral nature but not all of God’s commands share the same relationship to His moral nature. Here I’ll explain my position by proposing a classification of the various relationships between God’s nature and His various commands.

First, some of God’s commands have little to no relationship with, or connection to, His moral nature. For the present classification system, call these commands neutral commands. Though God’s nature places constraints on which commands He issues, not all of God’s commands are necessary, given His moral nature. For example, God could have commanded the Israelites to tithe 11% instead of 10%, and this would not have violated His moral nature.

Neutral commands, such as a hypothetical case where God commanded people to drive on the right side of the road instead of the left, are not necessitated by His moral nature. A command such as this is morally neutral in the sense that the action being commanded, driving on the right, is not good or evil in and of itself. Thus it would not be necessary for Him to command people to drive on the right; He could have commanded people to drive on the left instead, and doing so would not violate His moral nature. God necessarily cannot command things that would be inconsistent with His moral nature but, beyond this constraint, God has the freedom to command or forbid such neutral actions.

It is worth exploring possible reasons why God would give such neutral commands. Though these commands are not necessary, given His nature, it would seem reasonable that He gives such neutral commands out of good motivations, such as, for example, the well-being of those He is commanding. For instance, though driving on the right side is morally neutral in and of itself, it seems reasonable to imagine God being motivated to command this out of a desire for people’s well-being, knowing that there would be less accidents if everyone drove on the same side.

Many of God’s commands to the Israelites in the Old Testament seem to be of this sort, morally neutral in and of themselves but commanded by God out of good motivations for the well-being of His people. Certainly we do not know all of God’s motivations, but many of the Old Testament commands seem to have served the purpose of providing safety and standardization for that particular society. This would help explain how God could rescind many of the Old Testament laws for people living today without violating His moral character, for such commands are not based on His nature. It would be as though God had commanded people to drive on the right side of the road at one time in history but now commands that people drive on the left side. This understanding is helpful in responding to those who claim that, by rescinding some of the Old Testament laws, Christianity implies that all of morality is culturally relative.

Another reason God may command a morally neutral action is to teach people about deeper moral principles. For instance, it is easy to imagine God commanding people to shake hands when they meet one another. Since shaking hands is morally neutral in and of itself, He could instead have commanded them to bow or greet one another with a kiss. His command to greet one another with a handshake may somewhat flow from His nature though, in the sense that human persons made in His image have value and thus it is good to respect people by acknowledging them when you meet them.

So why would God command people to greet one another in a specific way, if there are many other neutral ways that would also be acceptable? It may be the case that God, like a good parent, would want to instruct His children in a specific way to greet people as a teaching tool in order to help them learn about respecting people. He could also teach them about respect by commanding them to bow when they meet people instead, and that would have accomplished the same goal. The actual greeting practice is neutral, but commanding a specific greeting could be a useful way of helping people learn a deeper moral principle, the principle of respecting others. Parents in America often teach their children to respect others this way when they are younger—look them in the eye and shake their hand—because the physical act of shaking hands is easier for a child to understand than the abstract notions of respecting and valuing people. However, when they become adults and understand the deeper moral principle of respecting people, they may go about greeting people in other ways. It could be that many of the neutral Old Testament commandments served this purpose, to teach people about deeper moral principles.

Second, some of God’s commands are based more on human nature than God’s nature. For the present classification system, call these commands human-nature-based commands. These commands based on human nature, like neutral commands, have little to no relationship with, or connection to, God’s nature. Duns Scotus’s theology will be helpful in understanding and explaining this type of command.

The central idea in Scotus’s moral theology is that God’s ultimate purpose in creating human beings was that they would become co-lovers with the three members of the Trinity, that they would be brought into the loving fellowship that previously consisted only of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Entering into this loving fellowship is the ultimate end, goal, purpose, and telos of every human being. Hare, in explicating Scotus’s theology, explained “that human beings are by nature such that they are fulfilled, or they reach their end, by loving God.”¹ Thus God’s commands, including the ones here being called human-nature-based commands, serve the purpose of giving human beings a successful path to their proper end, that is, to be a loving person and fully enter into the loving fellowship of the Trinity.

Scotus maintained that commands of this second type, human-nature-based commands, are not necessary, given God’s nature. What about commands against murder or against having sex with someone who is not your spouse? Some may be hesitant to think of these as non-necessary, given God’s nature, but clearly they are based more on human nature than God’s nature for God cannot die and is not sexual. Furthermore, God could have created humans with different natures, for example, as asexual beings like angels, or to come back to life thirty seconds after we die and feel great pleasure from the experience. At a minimum, it is unclear how creating us differently in these areas would cause us to be less ‘created in His image’ in a morally pertinent way. Thus I propose that it was possible for God to have created us with a different nature, say coming back to life thirty seconds after we die, and if He did then ‘thou shalt not murder’ would not apply the way it does now. Commands such as ‘thou shalt not murder’ are contingent and relative in the sense that they are relative to the way God created our natures; if God would have created us to be different in these ways, then presumably God would have issued different commands.

Some natural law theorists maintain that all moral obligations are based on human nature and thus would see all of God’s commands as human-nature-based commands. However, I respectfully disagree with this position. While human nature plays a large and important part of morality, there are other, and more ultimate, aspects of morality, namely, God’s nature. It’s God’s triune nature, not human nature, that is the absolute core foundation of morality that is not relative in any sense. The core foundation of morality must be something that cannot be relative and so, for instance, morality cannot ultimately be based on human nature because God could have created us with different natures. This is opposed to those natural law theorists who maintain that all of morality is based on human nature.

What is even more controversial than proposing that these commands are not necessary, given God’s nature, is Scotus’s proposal that these human-nature-based commands are not necessary, even given that human nature is what it is. This is in direct opposition to most natural law theorists, possibly including Thomas Aquinas, who claim that once God decided upon and then fixed human nature to be what it is, then God’s commands based on human nature would automatically be fixed and necessary given such natures. Evans noted that on some interpretations of Aquinas, “… once God has decided to create a world in which the created objects, including humans, have the natures they have, then his commands for that world are determined. Of course God could have given humans different commands on such a view, but in order for him to do so, he would have to create different natures for some things, thereby changing what is good for them.”²

Scotus disagreed with such natural law theorists and argued that, while commands of this type fit extremely well with human nature, they are still contingent in that God could have commanded otherwise, given the same fixed human nature. In other words, though these commands provide a very proper and successful path for human beings to reach their final end of becoming a loving person and joining the loving fellowship of the Trinity, He could have commanded other paths, even without changing human nature.³ Robert Prentice explained that, according to Scotus, “it is possible that there could be another system of precepts which would lead man to union with God and to his last end…. ”⁴ Thus Scotus argued that commands of this type are contingent, even given our fixed human nature, in the sense that God could have commanded a different path for human beings. Hare carefully explained that what “… Scotus is denying is that the route that God prescribes is the only possible route [to humans’ final end], and so is mandatory for God to prescribe. He is not denying that the route fits our nature, or that once God has prescribed the route, it is necessary for us to follow it.”⁵ Scotus argued that this position helped explain how it was appropriate for God, at times, to make exceptions to commands of this type such as murder in the case of Abraham and Isaac and adultery in the case of Hosea and Gomer.⁶

It could be that Scotus and natural law theorists are both partially correct on this point. Maybe it is the case that some human-nature-based commands are necessary, given our fixed human nature, and some are contingent, given our fixed human nature. In other words, we can make a distinction within this second category, human-nature-based commands, and understand some as necessary (given human nature, they could not be otherwise) and some as contingent (given human nature, they could be otherwise). We might not be able to know for sure which commands are which, but conceptually we can understand there may be some of each. Regardless, none of these human-nature-based commands are necessary, given God’s moral nature, for that is true only of the final type of commands.

The third and final type of command is what some have called necessary commands, commands such that necessarily God issues them because of His nature. For the present classification system, call these necessary commands.⁷ Scotus maintained that with commands of this type, “God cannot make them false.”⁸ Prentice noted that, according to Scotus, unlike commands based on human nature, “precepts of this kind … contain a truth which God cannot make false by any exercise of His will….”⁹

The only necessary moral commands that are not relative in any sense, and which God must issue, given His nature, are the two greatest commandments, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets” (Matt 22:37–40). Evans agreed when he wrote that “… some of what God commands he commands necessarily…. I think the most plausible candidates for divine commands that have this character of necessity are the command to love God and the command to love our neighbors as ourselves, with the ‘neighbor’ understood as including all human beings.”¹⁰

To love God and love others are very broad commands that, by themselves, provide little direction for human beings. Hence the purpose of the second type of commands, those based on human nature. These human-nature-based commands are important because they provide the form for how humans are to express this love and are based on how God created human nature. Certainly how to love a being, or the form the love should take, would greatly depend on what that being is like. Since love is simply unselfish care for another, God created human nature in a certain way such that, given human nature, certain things humans did were loving and other things they did were unloving and selfish. For example, He created humans to be sexual but designed them such that this sexuality could be expressed lovingly and unselfishly in the context of marriage or it could be expressed unlovingly and selfishly through rape or adultery.

Thus the two types of commands are complementary to one another but differ in their necessity, given God’s moral nature. Hare explained that “the commandments that tell us to love … have the kind of necessity … [that] the commandments that tell us how to love … do not.”¹¹ The necessary commands to love others provide the broad direction, irrespective of human nature, whereas human-nature-based commands instruct us on how to be loving, given that He created human nature to be a certain way. Elsewhere Hare noted that “… Scotus is not saying that love of the neighbor is contingently commanded …, but that the form in which this love is to be shown is contingent.”¹²

To love God and love others are the two greatest commands for the very reason that they summarize, and are necessitated by, the core foundation of morality, that is, God’s triune nature. These commands flow necessarily from God’s triune nature in that He could not command otherwise. It may be helpful to summarize my proposed classification system of various relationships between God’s nature and His various commands.

Neutral Commands: these commands are not connected to, or based upon, God’s nature nor human nature. Possible examples include driving on the right side of the road or tithing 10% instead of 11%.
Human-Nature-Based Commands: these commands are not connected to, or based upon, God’s nature but on human nature. Once God decided to create human nature to be a certain way, it is possible some of these commands were necessary (could not be otherwise), given human nature, while others, though still based on human nature, were contingent (could be otherwise). Thus:
1. Some of these commands might be necessary, given human nature. Possible examples include commands concerning murder and sex.
2. Some of these commands might be contingent, given human nature. Possible examples include commands concerning private property such as ownership and stealing.¹³
Necessary Commands: these commands are such that necessarily God issues them because of His nature. He could not command otherwise. Possibly the only examples are the commands to love God and to love others.

Footnotes

[1] Hare, God’s Command, 101.

[2] Evans, God and Moral Obligation, 34. On this page Evans noted that natural law theorist John Finnis seemed to suggest this view of Aquinas but that natural law theorist Jean Porter argued Aquinas believed God has some discretion with respect to commands of this type because human nature underdetermines the moral law.

[3] Duns Scotus, Duns Scotus On the Will and Morality, ed. William A. Frank, trans. Allan B. Wolter, 2nd ed. (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1997), 202.

[4] Robert Prentice, “The Contingent Element Governing the Natural Law on the Last Seven Precepts of the Decalogue, According to Duns Scotus,” Antonianum 42 (1967): 277.

[5] John Hare, God and Morality: A Philosophical History (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2009), 99.

[6] Prentice, “The Contingent Element Governing the Natural Law on the Last Seven Precepts of the Decalogue, According to Duns Scotus,” 277. See also Scotus, Duns Scotus On the Will and Morality, xiv.

[7] Scotus, Duns Scotus On the Will and Morality, 202. Though Scotus explained these various types of commands similarly to how they are being explained here, he used different terms to classify them. What are being called here necessary commands, Scotus called ‘natural law in a strict sense’ and what are being called here human-nature-based commands, Scotus called ‘natural law in an extended sense.’ Since Scotus used the term ‘natural law’ to mean something quite different from what most natural law theorists mean when they use the term ‘natural law,’ using Scotus’s classification terms can cause confusion. Most natural law theorists use the term ‘natural law’ to refer to moral truths that are based on, or true because of, human nature, whereas Scotus used the term ‘natural law’ to mean moral truths that can be known immediately once one understands the terms in the particular moral truth statement. The classification terms used are not at all as important as the explanation of the various classification categories. The three categories of commands here could have been labeled A, B, and C for that matter, or purple, red, and black. The category labels themselves are merely names which, though useful for purposes of summarization, are ultimately incidental.

[8] Scotus, Duns Scotus On the Will and Morality, 199.

[9] Prentice, “The Contingent Element Governing the Natural Law on the Last Seven Precepts of the Decalogue, According to Duns Scotus,” 262.

[10] Evans, God and Moral Obligation, 143.

[11] John E. Hare, God’s Call: Moral Realism, God’s Commands, and Human Autonomy (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001), 67. Emphasis added.

[12] Hare, God’s Call: Moral Realism, God’s Commands, and Human Autonomy, 68.

[13] For a discussion on how commands concerning private property may be contingent, even given our fixed human nature, see Hare, God’s Call: Moral Realism, God’s Commands, and Human Autonomy, 69.