A key thing to think about when studying Galatians is what it tells us about The Law or Torah. It seems at times that Paul is quite negative towards the Old Testament Law. Some Christians therefore will emphasise that we are not under Law but under Grace and can even speak and live as though everything in the Old Testament is not just inapplicable but irrelevant to us.
Sometimes the term “antinomian” (against law). Is used to describe those who so emphasise grace as to down play or dismiss the place of law.
However, Jesus, speaking about The Torah said:
17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfil them.
Indeed, significant parts of the New Testament including James’ letter and the letters to churches through John in Revelation seem to be negative against antinomianism.
How do we resolve the temptation between Jesus’ insistence that he came to fulfil the Law and Paul’s insistence that we are no longer under the Law and have in fact died to it.
Traditionally Christians have identified a “threefold division” in the Law. This is particularly associated with Reformed/Calvinist teaching and the first serious emphasis on it seems to come from Aquinas, the medieval scholar. However, suggestions of it can be found in thought of much earlier writers. This approach divides the Law into the following categories:
- Moral
- Ceremonial
- Civil
The Moral Law concerns God’s standards for how we should live life in his creation. It’s specifically associated with the Ten Commandments. Civil Law is also called Judicial Law and those laws apply specifically to the people of Israel living in the land, it includes those laws that set out the penalties for crime and how disputes are to be settled. The Ceremonial Law describes those laws concerned with religious worship, festivals and the Temple. It includes the sacrificial laws.
Under the threefold division, Ceremonial and Civil Law no longer apply, the Civil Law because it was specific to the kingdoms of Israel and Judah and the ceremonial law because Jesus fulfilled this by becoming the true sacrifice. However, the moral law is to do with God’s standards for all time, for everyone such as not murdering, not committing adultery etc.
I think that this approach is helpful but it doesn’t completely account for everything. In particular, when you look at the Old Testament Law, it doesn’t always neatly fall into the categories. Moses doesn’t write about civil laws and them moral laws. It’s all mixed in together. One possible example of this is “The Sabbath”, is this ceremonial or moral? It is there in the Ten Commandments and so many reformers treated it as moral law, however, other Christians do not and point to Paul’s negative approach to those who feel the need to keep days and times.
Indeed, the people of Israel did not seem to work with our kind of categories. Torah itself is not just a neatly coded rule book but includes history, poetry and arguably also prophecy. Furthermore, Jesus doesn’t see the Law as detachable, notice that he came “to fulfil The Law and The Prophets”, he might well have said “I’ve not come to abolish God’s Word.”
So, another helpful way of understanding the Law might be to think of it in terms of concentric circles. Right at the middle of the Law is God’s commission/mandate to “fill and subdue the earth.” Then in the next immediate circle, we are told how to go about doing this by “loving God” and “loving our neighbour”, we then learn how to do that by seeing the Ten Commandments which are explained in more detail by all the different rules and cases in Exodus – Deuteronomy. The historical accounts then describe what life looks like either in obedience to or rebellion against God and his Law. We can then also see how the wisdom literature encourages meditation and reflection on the Law and the Prophets challenge God’s people to come back to the Law when they depart from it.
If we see a distinction introduced, it is between the Law as something external, written on stone and touching only on our outer life as seen by others versus the law as something written on our hearts that affects our thoughts, emotions, desires and will. In fact, the emphasis of Jesus and the New Testament is that the Law is now written on our hearts, we have the Holy Spirit and so, without being a heavier burden, the Law expects more of us.
So where does this leave us with Paul and Galatians? We need to consider one further aspect and that is how the Law is used. There seem to be three elements to this.
- The Law acts as teacher/guide. It tells us what God is like and shows us how to live in his presence.
- The Law as ruler. It is the Law itself that controls our life, dictates how we are to live and commands our obedience.
- The Law as judge. It condemns us and requires that we pay the penalty for failing it.
This helps us to consider how Jesus fulfilled the Law. He lived in perfect obedience to it but at the same time bore the penalty that it demands. Christians in Christ therefore know that his obedience was on our behalf and he was condemned in our place. This means that the Law no longer has power to condemn.
If the Law has no power to condemn, then it no longer has any means to control and rule over us. We are free in relation to it. Its relationship to our lives changes. This means that it still acts as teacher, it shows us what God is like, it shows us what good life in his presence is like. We should still do those things. However, we are no longer condemned and so we do not obey out of fear, hoping that this will save us, that it will get us out of trouble. Instead, we obey as those who already know we are forgiven and free, not under the compulsion of the Law but of the Holy Spirit as we seek to listen to and please him.
Faithroots 