Must Christians obey the Old Testament?

[Jacobtm]

I have never gotten a consistent answer on this subject. There are 3 main answers I've heard:

1. Yes
2. No
3. Where Jesus contradicts the Old Testament, a Christian should follow his teachings. Where he doesn't say anything, a Christian should follow the Old Testament.

So what's the deal? Did the new covenant Jesus struck with God nullify the old covenant and with it all the teachings from the Old Testament?

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

I have never gotten a consistent answer on this subject.

that's because you don't know the difference between the Old Testament and the Law of Moses...and also because you fail to realize that Jesus' New Covenant superseded the Law of Moses...and also because you fail to realize that the NT is based on the OT and does NOT contradict it.

[Progressive Realist]

I have never gotten a consistent answer on this subject.

that's because you don't know the difference between the Old Testament and the Law of Moses...and also because you fail to realize that Jesus' New Covenant superseded the Law of Moses...and also because you fail to realize that the NT is based on the OT and does NOT contradict it.

lol

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

I have never gotten a consistent answer on this subject.

that's because you don't know the difference between the Old Testament and the Law of Moses...and also because you fail to realize that Jesus' New Covenant superseded the Law of Moses...and also because you fail to realize that the NT is based on the OT and does NOT contradict it.

lol

for a minute there, I thought you actually had something to say...but you proved me wrong

[Jacobtm]

I have never gotten a consistent answer on this subject.

that's because you don't know the difference between the Old Testament and the Law of Moses...and also because you fail to realize that Jesus' New Covenant superseded the Law of Moses...and also because you fail to realize that the NT is based on the OT and does NOT contradict it.

Can you answer my question? Do Christians have to follow the laws of the Old Testament?

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

Can you answer my question? Do Christians have to follow the laws of the Old Testament?

since you ignored my segmentation of the OT, then my simple answer is yes and no....no to the Law of Moses, yes to many things prior to the Law of Moses which came back into effect in the NT

but if you can't understand the segmentation of the OT covenants, then you wont understand the cyclical relationship between the NT laws and the rest of the bible.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

I'm going to give you an example:

in Gen 1:29, God gave man veggies to eat (Adam's diet).
in Gen 9:1-4, God added meat to man's diet (Noah's diet)
in the Law of Moses, God restricted which meats his people could eat (Moses' dietary laws)

in the NT, Moses' dietary laws have been superceded and replaced with Noah's diet.

so, although the NT is not under the diet of Moses or Adam, it is under the diet of Noah.

...during the 1000 year reign of Christ that is to come, the diet will change again and man will eat only veggies (Adam's diet)

[A cowboy always follows his beard]

Much of the Law of Moses only applied to the Jews of the day.

[The Mikado]

22 Then the apostles and elders, with the whole church, decided to choose some of their own men and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They chose Judas (called Barsabbas) and Silas, men who were leaders among the believers. 23 With them they sent the following letter:
   The apostles and elders, your brothers,

   To the Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia:

   Greetings.

 24 We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said. 25 So we all agreed to choose some men and send them to you with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul— 26 men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. 27 Therefore we are sending Judas and Silas to confirm by word of mouth what we are writing. 28 It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: 29 You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things.

   Farewell.

[Progressive Realist]

I have never gotten a consistent answer on this subject.

that's because you don't know the difference between the Old Testament and the Law of Moses...and also because you fail to realize that Jesus' New Covenant superseded the Law of Moses...and also because you fail to realize that the NT is based on the OT and does NOT contradict it.

lol

for a minute there, I thought you actually had something to say...but you proved me wrong

For a minute there, I thought you were trolling..but you proved me wrong.

[dead0man]

I have never gotten a consistent answer on this subject. There are 3 main answers I've heard:

1. Yes
2. No
3. Where Jesus contradicts the Old Testament, a Christian should follow his teachings. Where he doesn't say anything, a Christian should follow the Old Testament.

So what's the deal? Did the new covenant Jesus struck with God nullify the old covenant and with it all the teachings from the Old Testament?

The way I learned it was yes, Christ trumped everything in the OT.


To jmfcst, is there anything in the OT that current Christians are supposed to follow that isn't also mentioned in the NT?

[useful idiot]

22 Then the apostles and elders, with the whole church, decided to choose some of their own men and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They chose Judas (called Barsabbas) and Silas, men who were leaders among the believers. 23 With them they sent the following letter:
   The apostles and elders, your brothers,

   To the Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia:

   Greetings.

 24 We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said. 25 So we all agreed to choose some men and send them to you with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul— 26 men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. 27 Therefore we are sending Judas and Silas to confirm by word of mouth what we are writing. 28 It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: 29 You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things.

   Farewell.

That has nothing to do with the moral law. Those are the only ritual laws that the church has to obey. The disagreement that led to the Jerusalem Council was over circumcision, not whether you can lie or murder.

There's only one aspect of the OT law that is still in effect for the church and that's the moral aspect, not the ceremonial or judicial. Obviously that above statement from Acts does away with ceremony and the judicial laws have no bearing because God isn't working through national Israel during this "dispensation".

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

22 Then the apostles and elders, with the whole church, decided to choose some of their own men and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They chose Judas (called Barsabbas) and Silas, men who were leaders among the believers. 23 With them they sent the following letter:
   The apostles and elders, your brothers,

   To the Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia:

   Greetings.

 24 We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said. 25 So we all agreed to choose some men and send them to you with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul— 26 men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. 27 Therefore we are sending Judas and Silas to confirm by word of mouth what we are writing. 28 It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: 29 You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things.

   Farewell.

That has nothing to do with the moral law. Those are the only ritual laws that the church has to obey. The disagreement that led to the Jerusalem Council was over circumcision, not whether you can lie or murder.

There's only one aspect of the OT law that is still in effect for the church and that's the moral aspect, not the ceremonial or judicial. Obviously that above statement from Acts does away with ceremony and the judicial laws have no bearing because God isn't working through national Israel during this "dispensation".

Just a couple of points of clarification:

1)   the disagreement that led to the Jerusalem Council encompassed BOTH the requirement for physical circumcision (which PRECEDED the Law of Moses) and the requirement to obey the Law of Moses:

Acts 15:  5 Then some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, “The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to keep the law of Moses.” 6 The apostles and elders met to consider this question.

2)   the portion from Acts 15:29 pertaining to blood is the same dietary restriction that was placed on Noah:

Gen 9:4 “But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it.”

So, even though we are free from the dietary restrictions within the Law of Moses, we are back to being under the dietary restrictions of Noah (which are the most lenient dietary restrictions in the entire bible).


---

Wow, been a long time since anything biblical was discussed on this board.

[The Mikado]

22 Then the apostles and elders, with the whole church, decided to choose some of their own men and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They chose Judas (called Barsabbas) and Silas, men who were leaders among the believers. 23 With them they sent the following letter:
   The apostles and elders, your brothers,

   To the Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia:

   Greetings.

 24 We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said. 25 So we all agreed to choose some men and send them to you with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul— 26 men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. 27 Therefore we are sending Judas and Silas to confirm by word of mouth what we are writing. 28 It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: 29 You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things.

   Farewell.

That has nothing to do with the moral law. Those are the only ritual laws that the church has to obey. The disagreement that led to the Jerusalem Council was over circumcision, not whether you can lie or murder.

There's only one aspect of the OT law that is still in effect for the church and that's the moral aspect, not the ceremonial or judicial. Obviously that above statement from Acts does away with ceremony and the judicial laws have no bearing because God isn't working through national Israel during this "dispensation".

But the question becomes where to the ritual laws end and the moral laws begin?  Is keeping the Sabbath a ritual law or a moral one, for example?

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

To jmfcst, is there anything in the OT that current Christians are supposed to follow that isn't also mentioned in the NT?

There is a lot of common sense rules that can be gleaned from scripture that aren’t explicitly spelled out in scripture…that is true in the NT and in the OT.  Example:

The Law of Moses permitted divorce, but the acceptable grounds for divorce were not explicitly given.  This seemingly lack of clarity was presented to Jesus as a test (see Mat ch 19).  But Jesus easily derived the acceptable grounds for divorce by going back to the definition of marriage (which preceded the Law of Moses) and what set marriage apart – that is was a sexual bond.  Example:

“It is not good for man to be alone” is a sexual statement…”the two will become one flesh” is a sexual statement…what Adam, who was made a sexual being, lacked was a sexual mate… which led to God creating Eve…which led to the first marriage and sex.  

Therefore, Jesus concluded that since marriage was defined as a sexual bond, breakage of that sexual bond was the only acceptable grounds for divorce, since breakage of that sexual bond would nullify the very definition of marriage. (again, see Mat ch 19)

---

So, there are probably HUNDREDS of common sense cases like this, both in the NT and in the OT, where something not explicitly mentioned but can be derived.

[Jacobtm]

Ok, so can someone explain which parts of the OT can be ignored by Christians and which parts must be followed?

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

Ok, so can someone explain which parts of the OT can be ignored by Christians and which parts must be followed?

since you're obviously not trying to comprehend what we're attempting to explain to you, why do you just concentrate on obeying the NT...then, once you learn to walk in that, we'll discuss the fulfillment of OT theology.  Deal?

[Jacobtm]

Ok, so can someone explain which parts of the OT can be ignored by Christians and which parts must be followed?

since you're obviously not trying to comprehend what we're attempting to explain to you, why do you just concentrate on obeying the NT...then, once you learn to walk in that, we'll discuss the fulfillment of OT theology.  Deal?

I will not follow Jesus or Moses or anyone like that. I just want to understand the people who do.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

I just want to understand the people who do.

if you truly wanted to understand Christian theology, then you would be seeking to understand the different covenants God made and how they overlap in some areas and how they are different in others.

A simple example is the change to the dietary laws:  Adam was only allowed to eat veggies, Noah was allowed to eat veggies and all meats, the Israelis under the Law of Moses were allowed to eat veggies and meats that were deemed "clean".  So, in some areas the different dietary laws have some things in common (they all allowed veggies), but in the area of meats they had differences.

The Law of Moses NO LONGER EXISTS, it was superseded by the New Covenant…but that doesn’t mean some restrictions (and freedoms) aren’t common to both – e.g. murder was forbidden under the Law of Moses as it is now under the New Covenant.

So, even though we are not under the Law of Moses, doesn’t necessarily mean we have freedom to do everything the Law of Moses forbid.

To answer your question:  Christians follow the NT laws, but some of those laws are not explicitly spelled out to the nth degree:  e.g. bestiality is not even mentioned in the NT, but it can be derived, both from the NT and from the OT (even from Genesis which preceded the Law of Moses).  This is where common sense comes into play – if you don’t have it, then a complete set of fully disclosed laws wouldn’t do you any good anyway.

[useful idiot]

22 Then the apostles and elders, with the whole church, decided to choose some of their own men and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They chose Judas (called Barsabbas) and Silas, men who were leaders among the believers. 23 With them they sent the following letter:
   The apostles and elders, your brothers,

   To the Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia:

   Greetings.

 24 We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said. 25 So we all agreed to choose some men and send them to you with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul— 26 men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. 27 Therefore we are sending Judas and Silas to confirm by word of mouth what we are writing. 28 It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: 29 You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things.

   Farewell.

That has nothing to do with the moral law. Those are the only ritual laws that the church has to obey. The disagreement that led to the Jerusalem Council was over circumcision, not whether you can lie or murder.

There's only one aspect of the OT law that is still in effect for the church and that's the moral aspect, not the ceremonial or judicial. Obviously that above statement from Acts does away with ceremony and the judicial laws have no bearing because God isn't working through national Israel during this "dispensation".

But the question becomes where to the ritual laws end and the moral laws begin?  Is keeping the Sabbath a ritual law or a moral one, for example?

Good Christians have disagreed about the Sabbath. The confession that I have generally pointed to in the past as a good exposition of my beliefs, The London Baptist Confession of 1689, affirms sabbatarianism, however I do not. I think it's ceremonial. I think that the fact that early church celebrated the first day of the week as the Lord's Day, without any major fuss being made about it indicates as much. Paul in Colossians 2:16 says "Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day".

As for other laws, I think you can clearly see where a moral principle is involved in the Mosaic Law and distinguish it from something ceremonial. Let's take two verses from Leviticus 18:

"Do not have sexual relations with your brother's wife; that would dishonor your brother"

"Do not approach a woman to have sexual relations during the uncleanness of her monthly period"

Obviously one is moral, the other ceremonial. If I were to have sexual relations with my brothers wife, then I would be breaking God's law. If I were to have sex with my wife who was menstruating, I wouldn't be.

Given the fact that the judicial aspect passed away with national Israel, we are largely left with the Spirit to guide us in these matters. Hence why I can disagree with someone about working on Sunday, and no one is going to get executed over it. Jmfcst wrote earlier about God's commands to Noah in Genesis 9. There is one legal principle that God established over the whole world, that of capital punishment in response to someone taking another's life. This principle is applicable and clearly re-iterated in the New Testament. Even if it weren't reiterated, it is still binding because it's not part of the Mosaic Law...

[True Federalist]

There is one aspect of OT law that most Christian churches blatantly ignore that is still in force, the Sabbath.  Granted, they have a day of rest one day per week, but it is the wrong day.

Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the sabbath, to observe the sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant.

Note that it is possible to worship on Sunday and keep the Sabbath on its proper day if one wishes.  Nowhere in the Bible is worship ever restricted to just the Sabbath day.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

There is one aspect of OT law that most Christian churches blatantly ignore that is still in force, the Sabbath.  Granted, they have a day of rest one day per week, but it is the wrong day.

Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the sabbath, to observe the sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant.

Note that it is possible to worship on Sunday and keep the Sabbath on its proper day if one wishes.  Nowhere in the Bible is worship ever restricted to just the Sabbath day.

I totally disagree with this. 

The original Sabbath, the one mentioned in Gen ch 1, was an eternal rest, not a 24 hour rest, and it PRECEDED the 24 hour Sabbath given to Israel, that 24 hour Sabbath was simply SYMBOLIC of that eternal rest, and it is that eternal rest that believers will enter into upon the resurrection – basically the eternal rest is the eternal state – a.k.a. Heaven.

For the New Covenant, the symbolic 24 hour rest was done away with, along with the Law of Moses, and we will inherent the eternal rest through our faith in Christ.  (See Hebrews 3:7-4:10)

So, the promise of a real eternal Sabbath rest is an eternal covenant, and only those who are saved will be able to enter into it….but the 24 hour Sabbath was just a shadow (simply symbolic) of the real thing.

The 24 hour day we are now to be concerned about is NOT the 24 hour Sabbath, rather it is TODAY, for it is today that God favors what you do, because today is the day of salvation.  You can’t say, “well, I was saved yesterday so I can do what I want today”, nor can you say "I’ll worry about salvation tomorrow”…you can’t rewrite yesterday and tomorrow never comes, so if you’re going to be saved, you have to be saved in the here and now – today.  And if you are saved through Christ today, they you will enter the true Sabbath, the one that lasts an eternity.

[True Federalist]

So you are saying God lied about the seventh day being perpetually ordained as the sabbath?

I could see the argument that the perpetual covenant to follow the seventh-day sabbath laid out by God in Exodus 31:12-17 applies not to the Gentiles, but only to the Jews, as an obligation of their status as his "kingdom of priests" (Exodus 19:6), but holding such a distinction between Jew and Gentile would be at odds with the structural supersessionism you espouse.

[useful idiot]

So you are saying God lied about the seventh day being perpetually ordained as the sabbath?

I could see the argument that the perpetual covenant to follow the seventh-day sabbath laid out by God in Exodus 31:12-17 applies not to the Gentiles, but only to the Jews, as an obligation of their status as his "kingdom of priests" (Exodus 19:6), but holding such a distinction between Jew and Gentile would be at odds with the structural supersessionism you espouse.

The NT reads the OT Christologically. If that's supersessionism then the NT is a supersessionist document. Jmfcst alluded to it, but let's look at the next verse

 "It is a sign between Me and the sons of Israel forever; for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, but on the seventh day He ceased from labor, and was refreshed." (Ex. 31:17 NASB)

In its context the passage is speaking of the Sabbath as something holy only because of its significance, not because it's holy in and of itself. It's made clear from the context WITHIN the OT that it is symbolic. It's perfectly within God's right to change the mode of how that symbolism is expressed.

If you accept the fact that both the NT and OT are of God then there is no contradiction there. This is a matter of presuppositions. If you don't accept the authority of the NT you're going to see contradictions, and if you do accept it then you won't.

[True Federalist]

If you accept the fact that both the NT and OT are of God then there is no contradiction there. This is a matter of presuppositions. If you don't accept the authority of the NT you're going to see contradictions, and if you do accept it then you won't.

What contradictions?  I don't see any verse of the NT that explicitly sets aside the Saturday sabbath, and even those who torture the text to find an implicit setting aside can find no authority in the NT for establishing a Sunday sabbath in its place.  (Unless you make the mistake of conflating the Sabbath with the Lord's Day.)

There are fairly few places in the OT where YHWH speaks of something as being perpetual. The seventh day sabbath is perpetual. The Aharonic priesthood is perpetual, the covenant to never flood the earth again is perpetual.  Perpetuity is not something that God takes lightly in the OT. When he says perpetual, he damn well means perpetual.