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[Note: This MS is available in larger font on our Brief Articles-3 page.]
Having seen that the Bible covers three distinct periods of time, marked off by God’s communicating with man through three distinct bodies of law, (the laws of Patriarchs, the Law of Moses, and the Gospel of Christ) and having seen the impossibility of any generation of men living under even two, much less three, bodies of law simultaneously, let us ask again, to which body of religious law are we responsible?
The Israelites were never enjoined to keep the commands God gave to the Patriarchs, such as Cain, Abel, Noah, Abraham, and others who lived prior to the giving of Moses’ Law. While some of the pre-Mosaic (i.e., Patriarchal) commands were included in the Mosaic Law, the Israelites were not amenable to them because of their Patriarchal inclusion, but because they were in that body of Divine Law God gave through Moses. Likewise, while the New Testament contains some elements found in the Mosaic system, we who live under the New Testament are bound to these inclusions solely because they are included in Jesus’ New Testament—not because they were in the old, abrogated Law.
God has given two great written “Testaments” or “Covenants.” The first one is the “Old Testament” part of our Bibles. It was never intended to be God’s permanent body of religious law. Rather, its ordinances were preparatory, and its practices and features were typical of much more glorious things to come through Christ in the second, or “New Testament” (Gal. 3:24; Heb. 8:8–10). The Old Testament prophesied the coming of the New Testament (Jer. 31:31–34; Heb. 10:16–17).
The Old Testament’s purpose was fulfilled in the coming of Christ and His death on the cross; therefore, “He hath taken it (the Old Covenant–DM) out of the way, nailing it to the cross” (Mat. 15:17–18; Col. 2:14). “He taketh away the first that He may establish the second” (Heb. 10:9). The first, or Old Testament was never intended to be universal, rather it was a covenant between God and the children of Israel or the Jews (Deu. 5:1–13). Since Christ came, God no longer speaks through Moses or the prophets, but through His Son (Mat. 17:3–5; Heb. 1:1–2).
Keep reading subsequent Brief Articles to learn more.
[Note: I wrote this article for, and it was published in the “Bible Thoughts” Column for the Hood County News, Granbury, Texas, October 30, 1977.]
Attribution: From thescripturecache.com; Dub McClish, owner and administrator.
