BIBLIOTHECA SACRA 158 (January-March
2001): 21-35
[Copyright © 2001 Dallas
Theological Seminary; cited with permission;
digitally prepared for use at
APPLYING THE OLD TESTAMENT
LAW TODAY
J. Daniel Hays
HOW
SHOULD CHRISTIANS APPLY the Old Testament Law?
Obviously
commands in the Mosaic Law are important, for
they make up a substantial portion of God's written revela-
tion. Yet the Old Testament
contains many laws that seem strange
to modern readers (e.g., "Do not cook a young
goat in its mother's
milk," Exod. 34:26;
"Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of
material," Lev. 19:19; "Make tassels on
the four corners of the cloak
you
wear," Deut.
Christians violate a number of Old Testament
laws with some
regularity (e.g., "A woman must not wear men's
clothing, nor a
man wear women's clothing," Deut. 22:5;
"Rise in the presence of
the aged," Lev.
split hoof, it does not chew the cud. You are not to
eat their meat or
touch their carcasses," Deut. 14:8).
Furthermore, while believers tend to ignore many
Old Testa-
ment laws, they embrace
others, especially the Ten Command-
ments, as the moral
underpinnings of Christian behavior (e.g.,
"Love
your neighbor as yourself," Lev.
murder,"
Exod.
Why do Christians adhere to some laws and ignore
others?
Which
ones are valid and which are not? Many Christians today
make this decision based merely on whether a law
seems to be
relevant. Surely this haphazard and existential
approach to inter-
preting the Old Testament Law
is inadequate. How then should
Christians
interpret the Law?
J.
Daniel Hays is Associate Professor of Biblical Studies and Theology, Ouachita
1 Unless noted otherwise, all Scripture
quotations are from the New
International
Version.
22
BIBLIOTHECA SACRA /
January-March 2001
TRADITIONAL APPROACH
Many
evangelical scholars interpret the Mosaic Law by emphasiz-
ing the distinction between
moral, civil, and ceremonial laws. They
define moral laws as those that deal with timeless
truths regarding
God's intention for human ethical behavior. "Love your
neighbor as
yourself” is a good example of a moral law. Civil
laws are those
that deal with
economics, and criminal justice. An example of a
civil law is Deu-
teronomy 15:1, "At the end
of every seven years you must cancel
debts." Ceremonial laws deal with sacrifices,
festivals, and priestly
activities. An example is in Deuteronomy 16:13,
which instructed
the Israelites to "celebrate the Feast of
Tabernacles for seven days
after you have gathered the produce of your threshing
floor and
your winepress."2
In this traditional approach the distinctions
between moral,
civil, and ceremonial laws are critically important
because this
identification allows believers to
know whether a particular law
applies to them. Moral laws, according to this
system of interpreta-
tion, are universal and
timeless. They still apply as law to Chris-
tian believers today. Civil
and ceremonial laws, on the other hand,
applied only to ancient
today.3
However, the traditional approach has numerous
critical
weaknesses, and does not reflect sound
hermeneutical methodol-
ogy.4 This approach is
inadequate for the following reasons.
THE
DISTINCTIONS ARE ARBITRARY
The
distinctions between the moral, civil, and ceremonial laws are
arbitrary, imposed on the text from outside the
text. The Old Tes-
2 Christopher J. H. Wright suggests five
categories: criminal, civil, family, cultic,
and charitable (An
Eye for an Eye: The Place of Old Testament Ethics Today [Down-
a universal, moral category.
3 Using this distinction as a guide to
moral behavior dates back to John Calvin.
He
distinguished between moral and ceremonial laws, arguing that while the gospel
has nullified the ceremonial laws, the moral laws,
on the other hand, continue as
law for the Christian (Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Henry Beveridge
[reprint,
proach see Willem A. VanGemeren, "The Law Is the Perfection of
Righteousness in
Jesus
Christ: A Reformed Perspective," in The Law, the Gospel,
and the Modern
Christian, ed. Wayne C.
Strickland (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1993), 13-58.
4 Other evangelicals have become
uncomfortable with the traditional approach as
well. For example see David Dorsey, "The Law of
Moses and the Christian: A Com-
promise," Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 34 (1991): 321-34.
Applying the Old Testament Law Today 23
tament itself gives no hint of
any such distinctions. For example
"love
your neighbor as yourself” (Lev.
next verse by the law "do not wear clothing woven
of two kinds of
material" (
verse 19 is dismissed as nonapplicable
altogether? The text gives
no indication that any kind of hermeneutical shift
has taken place
between the two verses. On what basis can one
decide that one
verse is universal and timeless, even for believers
in the Christian
era, while the commandment in the very next verse
is rejected?
Many
of the so-called moral, civil, and ceremonial laws occur to-
gether like this without any
textual indicators that there are dif-
ferences between them.
In addition it is often difficult to determine
into which category
a particular law falls.6 Because the
Mosaic Law defined the cove-
nant relationship between
God and
logical. All of the Law had theological content.
Can a law be a
theological law but not a moral law? For example
Leviticus
commands, "Do not plant your field with two
kinds of seed. Do not
wear clothing woven of two kinds of material."
One of the central
themes running throughout Leviticus is the holiness of
God. The
discourse by God in Leviticus 19 is prefaced by
the commandment
“Be
holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy.” Part of this
theme is the teaching that holy things must be kept
separate from
profane things. While the significance of these
commands against
mixing seed or mixing cloth material may not be fully
understood,
it is clear that they relate back to the holiness
of God. In fact all of
the levitical laws
regarding separation seem to relate to the over-
arching principle of God's holiness and the
separation required be-
cause of that holiness. How then can this law not be
moral?7
5 "The arbitrariness of the
distinction between moral and civil law is reinforced by
the arrangement of the material in Leviticus. Love
of neighbor immediately pre-
cedes a prohibition on mixed breeding; the holiness motto
comes just before the law
on executing unruly children (
Leviticus, New International
Commentary on the Old Testament [
(Eerdmans, 1979], 34).
6 Ibid., 32.
7 Another good example of a law that is
difficult to classify with this system is in
Numbers
5:11-31. This passage describes how a woman suspected of adultery is to
be tried by the priest. Surely adultery is a moral
issue. Is this law then a timeless
universal law for today? Should suspected
adulterers in
method described in this passage? To determine her guilt
or innocence, the priest
was to make her drink some bitter water. If she
became sick, then she was guilty. If
she did not become sick, then she was innocent.
Should this be practiced today?
Obviously not. On the other hand, if
it is not practiced, does this mean it is not a
moral law, that adultery is not a moral issue?
24
BIBLIOTHECA SACRA /
January-March 2001
Even the Ten Commandments, the clearest examples
of so-
called moral laws, present problems for the moral,
civil, and cere-
monial distinctions. For
example is the Sabbath law moral or
ceremonial? If content is the criterion, then the
Sabbath law, which
was clearly part of
not a moral one. But if content is not the
criterion for distinctions,
then what is? If location within the Ten
Commandments becomes
the litmus test for moral law, then there exists a
simple system
with only two categories: (a) the Ten Commandments,
which are
universal and timeless and which apply to
Christians as moral law,
and (b) all the rest of the Law, which is not
applicable today. Of
course this is likewise unacceptable for it does not
allow believers
to claim Leviticus
Jesus
identified as the second greatest commandment. To pull Le-
viticus
it as a moral law requires that content play the major
role in the
distinction. If content becomes the criterion, then
the Sabbath law
ought to be classified as ceremonial.
Furthermore, although many Christians claim that
the Sab-
bath law is a moral law, practically none of them
obey it. Going to
church on Sunday, the first day of the week, can
hardly be called
obedience to the Sabbath law. Moses would not have
accepted the
first day of the week as a substitute for the seventh
day. Also
obeying the Sabbath regulations was much more
involved than
mere church attendance. In the Book of Numbers a man
was exe-
cuted for gathering wood on
the Sabbath (Num.
distinctions between civil,
ceremonial, and moral laws appear to be
arbitrary and not textually based. Should
Christians use these ar-
bitrary distinctions to
determine such a critical applicational issue?
THE
LEGAL MATERIAL IS EMBEDDED IN NARRATIVE TEXTS
AND
MUST BE INTERPRETED ACCORDINGLY
The
Old Testament legal material does not appear in isolation. In-
stead, the Mosaic Law is firmly embedded in
history. It is an integral part of the story
that runs from Genesis 12
through 2 Kings 25. The Law is not presented by
itself, as some
sort of disconnected but timeless universal code of
behavior. Rather
it is presented as part of the theological
narrative that describes
how God delivered
the Promised Land as His people.
For example the main legal material in Exodus is
recorded in
chapters 20-23. This section also contains the
Ten Command-
ments. However, the narrative
context of these chapters must be
noted. The first nineteen chapters tell the story of
the Israelites'
Applying the Old Testament Law Today 25
bondage in
God. This section describes the call of Moses and
his powerful en-
counters with Pharaoh. It presents the story of
the plagues on
Moses
led the Israelites out of
narrative describes their journey in the desert
until, in the third
month after the Exodus, the Israelites arrived at
where God called them into covenant relationship (Exod. 19). The
Ten
Commandments in Exodus 20 and the laws that follow in Exo-
dus 21-23 are part of this
big story.8
The Book of Leviticus is also painted on a
narrative canvas
against the backdrop of the encounter with God
at
(Lev.
26:46; 27:34). The Law in Leviticus is presented as part of a
dialogue between God and Moses. Such use of
dialogue is a stan-
dard feature of narrative.
The book begins, "The LORD called to
Moses
and spoke to him from the Tent of Meeting." The phrase
"The
LORD said to Moses" occurs repeatedly throughout the book.
In
addition Leviticus includes numerous time sequence phrases,9
an indication of storyline time movement, another
characteristic of
narrative.
The Book of Numbers picks up the story in the
second year
after the Exodus (Num. 1:1) and describes the
Israelites' journeys
and wanderings for the next four decades (33:38).
Central to the
book is
14.
This disobedience resulted in the years of wandering recorded
in the book. At various points during the story
God presented Is-
rael with additional laws.
As in Exodus and Leviticus the laws in
Numbers
are firmly tied into the narrative material.
The narrative setting for the Book of
Deuteronomy is the elev-
enth month of the fortieth
year of the Exodus (Deut. 1:3), just be-
fore
8 For example the Ten Commandments are
listed in Exodus 20:1-17, but the text
flows immediately back into narrative in verse 18,
which reads, "When the people
saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet
and saw the mountain in
smoke, they trembled with fear." Likewise God
presented numerous laws to
in Exodus 21-23, but these too are part of the
narrative, for they are part of the
dialogue between God and
Law by saying, "Everything the LORD has
said we will do" (24:3).
9 "Then Moses took" (Lev.
(
(9:8),
"So fire came out from the presence of the LORD and consumed them"
(10:2),
"The LORD spoke to Moses after the death of
the two sons of Aaron" (16:1).
26
BIBLIOTHECA SACRA /
January-March 2001
dering as a punishment for
refusing to enter the land. Now a new
generation had grown up and God gave them a
restatement of the
covenant that He had made with their parents
forty years earlier.
Most
of Deuteronomy consists of a series of speeches that Moses
delivered to the Israelites on God's behalf. These
speeches are con-
nected to the narrative
because they refer to the same time, place,
and main characters as the narrative does. Also the
end of the book
contains some nonlegal,
narrative material: the appointment of
Joshua
as leader (31:1-8), the song of Moses (32:1-47), a blessing
of Moses on the tribes (33:1-29), and the death of
Moses (34:1-12).
Furthermore
the events of Deuteronomy flow into the Book of
Joshua, where the story continues without
interruption.
The Law, therefore, is clearly part of the Pentateuchal narra-
tive and is firmly embedded
into the story of
dering, and conquest. One's
interpretive approach to the Law
should take this into account. Connecting texts to
their contexts is
a basic tenet of proper interpretive method. The
Law is part of a
story, and this story thus provides a critical
context for interpret-
ing the Law. The method for
interpreting Old Testament Law
should be similar to the method used in interpreting
Old Testa-
ment narrative, for the Law
is contextually part of the narrative.
Does this diminish the force and power of the
text? Do Chris-
tians have to put themselves
under the Law before they feel called
to obey the Scriptures? Is not narrative in the
Scripture as authori-
tative as Law? To give the
Mosaic Law a greater authority over the
Christian's
moral behavior than that of the other parts of the Old
Testament narratives is to create a canon
within a canon. Likewise
to say that the legal material should be
interpreted in the same
manner as the narrative material certainly does not
diminish the
divine imperative of Scripture. When the disciples
picked grain on
the Sabbath, the Pharisees accused them of
violating the Sabbath
Law
(Mark
Exodus
34:21. However, Jesus justified this apparent Sabbath vio-
lation by citing a narrative passage in 1 Samuel 21:1-9. In
essence
the Pharisees criticized Him with the details of
the Law, but Jesus
answered them with principles drawn from
narrative.
THE
TRADITIONAL APPROACH OVERLOOKS THE LAW'S
THEOLOGICAL
CONTEXT
God
clearly introduced the Law in a covenant context, saying,
"Now
if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all
nations you will be my treasured
possession" (Exod. 19:5), The peo-
ple agreed to keep the
terms of the covenant (24:3), and Moses
sealed the agreement in blood (24:8).
Applying the Old Testament Law Today 27
A critical part of this covenant was God's
promise to dwell in
Exodus (25:8; 29:45; 33:14-17; 40:34-38). Associated with God's
presence are the instructions for constructing
the ark and the tab-
ernacle, the place where God
would dwell (Exod. 25-31, 35-40).
Leviticus
is thus the natural sequence to the latter half of Exodus,
for it addresses how
should they approach Him? How should they deal with personal
and national sin before a holy God who dwelt among
them? How
should they worship and fellowship with this holy,
awesome God in
their midst? Leviticus provides the answers to these
questions,
giving practical guidelines for living with God under
the terms of
the Mosaic Covenant.
After
God
allowed that disobedient generation to die. He then led the
people back toward
called them to a covenant renewal. Deuteronomy
describes this
renewed call to covenant that God made with
they entered the Promised Land. Deuteronomy
describes in detail
the terms by which
Land
successfully and be blessed by God.
Obviously, then, the Law is tightly intertwined
as part of the
Mosaic
Covenant. Several important observations about the Mosaic
Covenant, therefore, merit discussion.
First, the
Mosaic Covenant is closely associated with
conquest and occupation of the Promised Land. The Mosaic Cove-
nant is neither
geographically neutral nor universal. It provided
the framework by which
with God in the Promised Land. The close connection
between the
covenant and the land is stressed repeatedly in
the Book of Deu-
teronomy.10 This connection between
Law and land cuts across the
distinction between so-called civil, ceremonial, and
moral laws.
Furthermore
the loss of the land in 587 B.C. has profound implica-
tions for the way the Law is
to be viewed, precisely because the
Law
defined the terms for blessing in the land. In addition, when
of the Lord in the temple (Ezek. 10). Possession
of the land and the
presence of the Lord in the tabernacle and temple
are two critical
aspects of the Mosaic Covenant. When the exiles
returned to their
10 The Hebrew word for "land"
occurs almost two hundred times in Deuteronomy.
A
representative selection of passages that directly connect the terms of the
cove-
nant with life in the land include 4:1, 5, 14, 40;
5:16; 6:1, 18, 20-25; 8:1; 11:8; 12:1;
15:4-5;
26:1-2; 27:1-3; 30:5, 17-18; and 31:13.
28
BIBLIOTHECA SACRA /
January-March 2001
land, they did not return to the way things had
been. The blessings
described in Deuteronomy 28 were never again
realized in any sig-
nificant fashion--political
independence, regional economic domi-
nation, regional military domination, and so forth--nor
is there
any statement about God's returning to the temple,
in contrast to
earlier passages that focused on His presence in
the tabernacle
(Exod. 40:34-38) and
the temple (1 Kings 8:9-10; 2 Chron. 7:1-2).
Things
were certainly not the same as they were before the Exile.
Second,
the blessings from the Mosaic Covenant were condi-
tional. In
Deuteronomy God informed
covenant would bring blessing, but that
disobedience to the Cove-
nant would bring punishment
and curses. Deuteronomy 28 is par-
ticularly explicit regarding the
conditional nature of the Law.
Verses
1-14 list the blessings for
the covenant (the Mosaic Law), and verses 15-68
spell out the ter-
rible consequences for them
if they did not obey the terms of the
covenant. Also the association of the covenant
with the land and
the conditional aspect of the covenant blessings
are often linked in
Deuteronomy (30:15-18).
Third, the
Mosaic Covenant is no longer a functional covenant.
The
New Testament affirms the fact that the Mosaic Covenant has
ceased to function as a valid covenant. Hebrews 8-9
makes it clear
that Jesus came as the Mediator of a covenant that
replaced the
old one. "By calling this covenant 'new,' he
has made the first one
obsolete" (Heb.
tional or valid as a covenant.
This has important implications for
one's understanding of the Law. The Old Testament Law
specified
the terms by which
the Old (Mosaic) Covenant. If the Old Covenant is
no longer valid,
how can the laws that make up that covenant still
be valid? If the
Old
Covenant is obsolete, should not also the laws in that Old
Covenant
be seen as obsolete?
Paul stated repeatedly that Christians are not
under the Old
Testament Law. For example in
Galatians
man is not justified by observing the law, but by
faith in Jesus
Christ."
In Romans 7:4 Paul stated, "You also died to the law
through the body of Christ." In Galatians
that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision
of the
law." Paul argued vigorously against
Christians returning to the
Old Testament Law. If there was a
distinction between civil, cere-
monial, and moral laws, it was
unusual that Paul ignored it. Fur-
thermore, if the moral laws were
to be understood as universally
applicable, one would expect Paul at least to use
them as the basis
for Christian moral behavior. However, as Goldingay points out,
Applying the Old Testament Law Today 29
Paul
"does not generally base his moral teaching on this foundation
but on the nature of the gospel, the guidance of
the Spirit, and the
practice of the churches."11
How, then, should Jesus' words in Matthew
stood? He said, "Do not think that I have come
to abolish the Law
or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them
but to fulfill
them." Did Jesus and Paul contradict each
other? Not at all. First,
the phrase "the Law and the Prophets"
refers to the entire Old Tes-
tament. So in this verse Jesus
was not speaking of only the Mosaic
Law. Also the antithesis is not between
"abolish" and "observe," but
between "abolish" and
"fulfill." Jesus did not claim that He came to
observe the Law or to keep the Law; rather He
came to fulfill it.
The
word plhro<w ("to
fulfill") occurs numerous times in Matthew,
and it normally means, "to bring to its
intended meaning." Jesus
was not stating that the Law is eternally binding
on New Testa-
ment believers. If that were
the case, Christians today would be
required to keep the sacrificial and ceremonial
laws as well as the
moral ones, and that would clearly violate other
portions of the
New Testament.
Jesus was saying that He did not come to sweep
away the
righteous demands of the Law, but that He came to
fulfill its right-
eous demands. As the climax
of this aspect of salvation history,
Jesus
fulfilled all the righteous demands and all the prophetic fore-
shadowing of the Law and of the Prophets. In
addition Jesus was
the final Interpreter of and Authority over the Law
and its mean-
ing, as other passages in
Matthew indicate. Jesus restated some of
the Old Testament laws (
(
changed significantly (
gated entirely (Mark
tinuation of the traditional
Jewish approach of adherence to the
Law. Nor was He advocating that the Law be dismissed
altogether.
He
was proclaiming that the meaning of the Law must be inter-
preted in light of His coming
and in light of the profound changes
introduced by the New Covenant.12
11 John Goldingay,
Models for Interpretation of Scripture
(
mans, 1995), 103.
12 For similar views on
Matthew 5:17-47 see D. A. Carson, "Matthew," in The Ex-
positor's Bible Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan,
1984), 8:142-44; R. T.
France,
Matthew: Evangelist and Teacher (Grand
Rapids: Zondervan, 1989),
194-95;
and Donald Hagner, Matthew 1-13, Word Biblical Commentary (
Word, 1993), 104-6.
30
BIBLIOTHECA SACRA / January-March
2001
CONCLUSION
The
Law is tied to the Mosaic Covenant, which is integrally con-
nected to
blessing related to their living obediently in
the land. Christians
are not related to that land, nor are they related
to the conditions
for being blessed in the land. Also the Mosaic
Covenant is obsolete,
having been replaced by the New Covenant. Therefore
the Mosaic
Law,
a critical component of the Old Covenant, is not valid as law
over believers in the church age.
So the traditional approach to the Mosaic Law,
which divides
it into moral, civil, and ceremonial categories,
suffers from three
major weaknesses: It is arbitrary and without any
textual support,
it ignores the narrative context, and it fails to
reflect the signifi-
cant implications of the change from Old Covenant to
New Cove-
nant. This approach,
therefore, is inadequate as a hermeneutic
method for interpreting and applying the Law.
A SUGGESTED APPROACH
What
approach should believers follow in interpreting the Old Tes-
tament Law? In accord with
sound hermeneutical method, it
should