By His Blood – What Part have Believers with the Law of Moses?

Hebrews 8:10  For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:

There is no greater confusion for some believers as to what is supposed to be our relationship to the Ten Commandments and the Mosaic Law. Many believe that once we are born again, we have now been empowered to keep the Law of Moses. Many people think that we are done with the Dietary Laws and the Ceremonial Laws but we are still under the moral Law.

Nowhere in the bible is the law broken up into pieces. There is no division between the Dietary restrictions and the ten commandments, they are all summed up into one all or nothing group, called The Law and the commandments. Even James reminds us that the Law is an All or nothing Proposition, if we break a piece of the Law, we are guilty of All. (James 2:10) That simply means we cannot ignore any part of it when we speak about The Law.

But we read something so subtle in the New Covenant as in Hebrews 8:10. The author does not write “The Law,” (Jeremiah 31:33) but instead the author wrote, “The Laws.” That small differences means everything to understanding the new covenant.

Paul writes an analogy of what our relationship is to the Law, when he describes that a woman is bound to her husband under the law, as long as he is alive, but if the husband dies, she is free from the law to married to another. (Romans 7:1-6) Paul is explaining that once we were bound to the law, but when we died once in Christ, we are now dead to the Law, that we can be joined to Christ. (Romans 7:6) Even the Ten Commandments were referred to as the ministration of Death (2 Corinthians 3:7), yet we have been described as being set free from the ministry of sin and death by the Law of the Spirit. (Romans 8:2)

When we appeal to Jesus, we appeal to an outsider, apart from the Law. According to the Law, the high priest for the people must be from the tribe of Levi. Yet we know that our Lord is from the Tribe of Judah. (Hebrews 7:12  For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law.) Jesus Christ lived the Law perfectly, and fullfilled the Law in it’s entirety (Matthew 5:17), when something is fulfilled it no longer has any demands.  To use an earthly analogy, if we fulfill our mortgage payment, we no longer owe the bank anything and our payment can stop. Therefore, I believe God intentionally brought forth Jesus from the tribe of Judah, to show that Jesus and the Law do not mix.  It is impossible to obey all the Law of Moses, while maintaining our high priest is from the tribe of Judah.

Further, since the destruction of the Jewish temple in 70AD, it has also become impossible to make the various offerings that the law requires.  Things like the offerings for child birth as discussed in Leviticus 12 or the sin and guilt offerings.  Many would claim, rightly so, that Jesus has become the ultimate offering for all these things, and therefore the offering portions of the old testament no longer apply.  There is still no place in the scriptures that says we can break up the law of Moses (James 2:10).  It’s an all or nothing proposition.

Contrary to what most people call antinomianism, which is the belief that we are under no laws at all, the New Covenant is not about the Law of Moses being written on our hearts, rather its about something James called the Royal Law (James 2:8). New covenant believers live under the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:2). Whatever is true about him, is true about us, and those are the things written on our heart; constant reminders of our Righteousness, Holiness, Forgiveness and Perfection by His Blood, through His Spirit in us.  As we trust the Spirit of Christ in us, He will manifest the Life of Christ through us.

Andrew Farley talking about Freedom from the Law of Moses, living under the Law of the Life of the Spirit in Christ.

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