The Law of Moses: How Should Christians Read It?
A Christian can misunderstand Moses in more than one direction. Trying to earn righteousness through his commands ignores what Scripture says about guilt and grace. Dismissing those commands as irrelevant leaves inspired teaching unread and can become an excuse for disobedience. I want to hear what God said to Israel within its covenant, follow that teaching to its fulfillment in Christ, and understand how people saved by grace should now obey.
The Law in Scripture and the Mosaic Covenant
The Hebrew torah includes instruction, teaching, and direction. Its teaching carries authority rather than offering optional advice. The Greek nomos can refer to the Mosaic Law, a particular command, Scripture more broadly, or a governing principle such as the law of sin. The expression “The Law” can also name the first five books of Scripture, Genesis through Deuteronomy. Those books contain promises and accounts of God’s dealings alongside commandments. Each writer’s context must tell us which meaning he intends; we cannot assume every occurrence refers only to the Ten Commandments.
A covenant is a binding relationship with stated promises and obligations. God made the Mosaic covenant with Israel at Sinai after bringing the nation out of Egypt. Its commands ordered worship through sacrifices and priesthood, established a calendar, regulated national courts, and assigned blessings and penalties. Living under that Law meant being subject to the whole arrangement. It was not merely agreeing that murder and theft are wrong.
God’s moral authority preceded Sinai. Adam had already violated a command, and Cain was guilty of murder. God judged the violent world through the Flood and afterward gave Noah commands about life and blood. He also judged Sodom and commended Abraham’s faith and obedience. Romans 5 explains that sin and death were present before Moses. The Mosaic covenant made Israel accountable to a detailed, publicly administered standard. It did not create holiness or make wrongdoing wrong for the first time.
The Ten Commandments themselves begin with the LORD identifying Himself as the God who brought Israel from Egypt. Israel did not first obey enough commands to persuade Him to rescue them. National deliverance also did not mean every Israelite was eternally saved: the wilderness generation included rebels who refused to believe. We need to distinguish God’s covenant dealings with the nation from an individual’s justification before Him.
No one earned justification through Moses. Before Sinai, Abraham believed the LORD and was counted righteous. David later spoke of forgiven sin, and Habakkuk declared that the just shall live by faith. The Law governed a nation already delivered from slavery without providing guilty people a means of earning eternal life.
In the third month after the exodus, Israel reached Sinai, where thunder, lightning, smoke, a trumpet, and boundaries around the mountain confronted the people with God’s holiness. The LORD reminded them that He had brought them to Himself. If they obeyed His voice and kept His covenant, they would be His special treasure, a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. He also declared His ownership of the whole earth. Choosing Israel did not put the other nations beyond His authority.
Exodus 20 records the Ten Commandments, and chapters 21-23 apply covenant justice to worship and daily life. In chapter 24, Moses read the Book of the Covenant, the people agreed to obey, and he sprinkled covenant blood on them. Leviticus explains priesthood, sacrifice, and purity. Deuteronomy addresses the generation preparing to enter the land, restating the covenant and its blessings and curses. These conditions governed Israel as a nation, with exile among the consequences of rebellion. The people’s repeated failure exposed their need for inward change and the better covenant the prophets promised.
Christians often describe Mosaic commands as moral, ceremonial, or civil. Those labels help distinguish commands about right and wrong from instructions for worship or national justice. A prohibition of adultery serves a different purpose from directions for a sin offering or a rule about liability when an uncovered pit injures an animal. Yet Scripture did not give Israel three independent codes. Moral, ritual, and national obligations were interwoven in one covenant. I would not claim, “I am under the moral third of Sinai,” as though I could select my covenant obligations. The New Testament releases believers from the Mosaic covenant while reaffirming God’s moral will under Christ.
That release does not make Moses’ writings defective. Psalm 19 moves from creation’s witness to God’s written revelation, praising His law as perfect and His testimony as sure. The expression “converting the soul” can describe restoration or refreshment. It does not teach that keeping Sinai’s rules produces regeneration, the new birth. God’s reliable instruction gives wisdom and joy, warns His servants, and brings light to their understanding. David prays for cleansing from hidden faults and protection from presumptuous sin, which is deliberate defiance of God’s known commands. I need to receive that correction instead of merely admiring the words.
The Law’s Functions and Its Limits
The Law reveals what God’s holiness requires. Idolatry rejects His unique right to receive worship, while murder takes the life of someone made in His image. Adultery violates marriage, theft disregards a neighbor’s rights, and false testimony opposes truth. The prohibition of coveting reaches desires that other people cannot see. Moses also commands love for God and neighbor and applies it to honest business, care for the poor, and justice for strangers. A respectable public appearance could never satisfy all that God required.
Yet a command can identify the heart we ought to have without creating it. Politeness may conceal resentment, and outward restraint may leave greed or lust governing the imagination. Jesus exposed that inward rebellion in the Sermon on the Mount. We need more than a revised list of behaviors: we need the new birth and the Holy Spirit’s work within us.
Israel’s ceremonial commands taught sinful people how to approach a holy God. Burnt, grain, and peace offerings served different purposes from sin and trespass offerings. Through this worship, Israel learned dedication, thanksgiving, and fellowship, along with cleansing, restitution, and atonement. The Day of Atonement included annual cleansing of the sanctuary and nation. The people also lived with distinctions concerning food, bodily conditions, disease, and washing, while the feasts shaped their year. These requirements brought covenant holiness into ordinary life and taught the need for cleansing and mediation, with an appointed priest acting on their behalf before God.
Paul explains in Hebrews that the Law was a shadow of good things to come. The repeated offerings could not finally perfect worshipers or cleanse the conscience. Christ has provided the sufficient sacrifice and serves as our eternal High Priest. We therefore do not return to Levitical offerings or seek mediation at a temple. Ceremonial washings no longer determine our standing before God. Those instructions were holy teaching for their appointed time, and studying them helps us understand the work Christ completed.
Israel’s civil commands governed a nation with judges and an inheritance in the land. They addressed property and debt, along with responsibilities toward servants and rules for warfare. They also governed criminal proceedings, witnesses, restitution, and public penalties. “Eye for eye” required proper authorities to keep judgment proportionate to the wrong. It did not authorize private revenge. Multiple witnesses guarded against unsupported accusations. A parapet, a protective barrier around a roof, guarded neighbors against foreseeable danger, while restitution required an offender to restore what he had taken or pay for damage he had caused.
The church is not a nation-state and possesses no civil sword to impose Israel’s criminal penalties or land laws. Modern rulers remain accountable to justice without being commanded to adopt Israel’s whole covenant code. We can still learn that punishment should fit the wrong, accusations need reliable evidence, property brings responsibility, and power must not be used to exploit the vulnerable.
The Ten Commandments, or Decalogue, had a foundational place in the covenant. God spoke them publicly and wrote them on tablets later placed in the ark. That prominence does not detach them from Sinai, since Deuteronomy calls them the words of the covenant. The New Testament directly reaffirms the moral truths expressed in nine of the commandments. Christ and His apostles require faithfulness to God and honor for parents, while condemning idolatry and blasphemy. They also reject murder, adultery, theft, falsehood, and coveting. We obey those truths under Christ without taking on Sinai’s administration and penalties.
The Sabbath had a distinct role within that covenant. Genesis gives the pattern of God’s seventh-day rest, and the manna cycle prepared Israel to observe it. The command at Sinai draws on creation, while Deuteronomy also connects Sabbath observance with deliverance from Egypt. Exodus 31 calls it a perpetual sign between the LORD and Israel and assigns a national death penalty for violation. We cannot reduce that command to general advice about taking a break. When Paul addresses the church in Colossians, he refuses to make these observances a basis for judgment.
So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ.
Festivals, new moons, and Sabbaths describe annual, monthly, and weekly observances. Paul identifies them as shadows whose substance is Christ and refuses to make them grounds for judging believers. Romans 14 likewise allows esteem for a particular day or for every day alike, with each person acting toward the Lord. Saturday observance is not a condition of salvation or fellowship.
We should gather faithfully with the church and establish wise patterns of rest and worship. The New Testament records believers gathering on the first day, but it does not rename Sunday as the Mosaic Sabbath with the same sanctions. Revelation 1:10 alone also does not establish that “the Lord’s Day” means Sunday. A conscience shaped by Scripture can honor a day without imposing Israel’s covenant sign on everyone.
Moses’ teaching remains useful even though we are no longer under the Mosaic covenant. The Law reveals God’s character, exposes transgression, restrains public evil, and directs expectation toward Christ. It also takes away our grounds for boasting by examining conduct and motives, secret desires and neglected duties. A command that exposes my guilt cannot, by itself, remove it.
The Law and the Gospel of Grace
Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
In Romans 1-3, Paul shows that both Gentiles and Jews are guilty before God. Gentiles have the witness of creation and conscience. Jews possess the written Law, yet violate it. Their greater knowledge increases accountability instead of giving them an exemption. Neither group can establish its innocence by comparing itself favorably with the other.
A command can expose guilt without removing it. Promising to behave tomorrow cannot make yesterday’s wrongdoing innocent. Romans 7 calls the Law holy, just, good, and spiritual while locating the weakness in sinful flesh. Sin seizes the command and brings death. The failure is ours, not a defect in what God required.
Galatians says that if a law could impart life, righteousness could come through it. But no such law was given. We need forgiveness and justification, as well as the new birth and the indwelling Spirit. Those gifts do not come through Gentiles’ moral awareness either. Romans 2 describes the work of the law in their hearts, with conscience and thoughts accusing or excusing them. Paul is describing a moral witness, rather than instinctive knowledge of Israel’s sacrifices, food rules, or court procedures.
Conscience is a witness, not an infallible Bible within. It may be weak, defiled, wrongly trained, or seared through persistent sin. People recognize obligations while suppressing or inconsistently applying what they know. Scripture must correct that witness. Moral awareness makes us accountable; it cannot announce the saving gospel by itself.
Galatians places Moses within the history of God’s promise. The Law was added because of transgressions until the promised Seed came. Paul’s image of a guardian describes a household custodian who supervised a child before maturity, rather than simply a modern classroom teacher. Paul uses that picture to explain how the Mosaic covenant supervised Israel for a time and directed the nation’s expectation toward Christ.
I would not turn that tutor language into a rule that every sinner must feel guilty enough before he may believe. The Law certainly exposes personal guilt, but Paul’s argument concerns its historical place between the promise and Christ. The covenant at Sinai did not cancel God’s earlier promise to Abraham. With Christ’s coming, believers are no longer under that guardian. Gentiles receive Abraham’s blessing through faith without first entering the Mosaic covenant.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus had already addressed the idea that His teaching opposed Moses and the Prophets.
"Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.
Jesus’ promise to fulfill the Law cannot mean either “continue every covenant form unchanged” or “throw the Old Testament away.” He fulfills prophecy, lives the righteousness the Law requires, completes its sacrificial patterns, and brings the covenant to its intended goal. His assurance about the smallest letter and stroke means God’s revelation cannot fail before its purpose is accomplished. It does not require every covenant form to remain unchanged after fulfillment.
The New Testament explains how the sacrifices and Levitical priesthood reach their fulfillment in Christ, along with the purity distinctions and covenant signs. Jesus also exposes shallow righteousness in His teaching about anger, lust, divorce, truthful speech, response to injury, and love for enemies. He requires obedience from the heart. Appearing compliant while finding ways around God’s will does not meet that requirement. Jesus Himself lived as an Israelite under the Law and obeyed without sin. His perfect obedience qualifies Him as the sinless Savior; it does not give sinners a way to earn salvation by reproducing His record.
Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree"), that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
Deuteronomy 21 describes the body of an executed offender displayed on a tree as bearing a public curse. Paul applies that language to Christ’s death on the cross, although Jesus was entirely innocent. Wicked men mocked and scourged Him before nailing Him there. I understand Paul’s words about becoming a curse for us in terms of the shameful death Christ freely accepted to redeem us. He willingly gave His perfect life as a sacrifice for our sins. Through that death, the blessing promised to Abraham reaches Gentiles who believe.
Paul’s language about the curse does not mean the Father punished or cursed His Son. He did not abandon, strike, bruise, or pour wrath on Jesus. Wicked men inflicted the suffering He willingly endured, and the cross did not divide the Trinity. Christ’s blood redeems believers from guilt. They receive the promised Spirit through faith, as Paul says here, and Mosaic circumcision cannot add to their redemption.
The New Covenant and the Law of Christ
Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another–to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God. For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death. But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.
Paul begins Romans 7 with marriage to illustrate how death changes a legal bond. He then applies it to people who have died to the Law’s covenant claim through Christ’s body and now belong to the risen Lord. The Law has not died or become evil. Our release has a purpose: belonging to Christ so we can bear fruit to God.
Paul’s words “Not under law but under grace” do not give believers permission to disregard the Lord. We serve in the newness of the Spirit, whose indwelling work changes desires and produces fruit. An external command identifies the right response; the Spirit enables us to respond willingly from within. Our standing before God rests in Christ, and the Mosaic covenant no longer governs our service to Him.
Jeremiah promised a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, different from the one broken after the exodus. God would write His law within His people, forgive their iniquity, and be known personally by every covenant member. Jesus announced that covenant in His blood at the final Passover meal before His crucifixion.
Paul explains in Hebrews that Christ’s once-for-all offering and eternal priesthood establish better access to God and forgiveness. The first covenant is obsolete because the promised better covenant has been established. It has not been set aside because Moses was mistaken or uninspired. The church shares new-covenant spiritual blessings through union with Christ without erasing the promise to Israel and Judah or cancelling God’s future purposes for Israel.
God’s truth written within us does not make believers sinlessly perfect or grant private revelation above Scripture. The Spirit applies the truth He inspired and leads us to obey it. A claim that “The Spirit led me” cannot excuse conduct the written Word forbids.
In describing his ministry to Jews and Gentiles, Paul explained the authority that still governed him.
and to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews; to those who are under the law, as under the law, that I might win those who are under the law; to those who are without law, as without law (not being without law toward God, but under law toward Christ), that I might win those who are without law;
Paul could adapt to Jewish or Gentile customs in order to share the gospel, since those customs could not determine justification. His freedom did not leave him independent of God. Christ’s authority governed his conduct among both peoples, and the Lord’s commands, including those given through His apostles, still govern His people. Galatians calls believers to bear one another’s burdens and fulfill the law of Christ. In Romans 13, Paul explains how love fulfills what God’s commands require.
Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, "You shall not commit adultery," "You shall not murder," "You shall not steal," "You shall not bear false witness," "You shall not covet," and if there is any other commandment, are all summed up in this saying, namely, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.
Paul does not replace God’s commands with a vague feeling of kindness. Love refuses adultery because it betrays a marriage, and it refuses murder because it destroys a life. It does not steal a neighbor’s property or injure him through falsehood. Nor does it cherish covetous desires against his good. Jesus joins love for God and neighbor as the great summary of the Law and Prophets. Such love seeks what is truly good according to God’s character.
Approving sin cannot become loving because it feels gentle. Concealing abuse or flattering someone in rebellion can cause serious harm. Seeking another person’s good may require truthful correction and a difficult conversation. We cannot use grace or affection to remove the authority of the Lord who commands us to love.
Applying Scripture Without Legalism
When I read a command from Moses, I begin with the people and covenant to which it was given. What did it require, what wrong did it address, and how did it function in Israel’s worship or national life? Then I follow it through the rest of Scripture. The New Testament may reaffirm the duty, explain fulfillment in Christ, release believers from its covenant observance, or apply an enduring moral principle without imposing its Israelite form.
That is why we do not offer animals, seek purity through Levitical washings, impose Israel’s food distinctions, or recreate its criminal penalties. Circumcision and the feast calendar are not requirements for salvation or fellowship. Acts 15 separately tells Gentile believers to abstain from blood, a concern reaching back before Sinai. We should preserve that instruction rather than treating every command about food as the same Mosaic rule.
Israel’s tithes supported worship and national obligations within the covenant. Believers should give willingly and generously, in proportion to what God has provided and with accountability for how the gifts are used. We cannot purchase His blessing by treating a gift as a religious tax. Gleaning likewise teaches us to care generously for the poor, though it does not require the church to reproduce Israel’s agricultural arrangements.
The command for a parapet teaches responsibility for another person’s safety. Requirements for witnesses teach us to seek reliable evidence, and restitution calls an offender to repair the loss he has caused. Honest measures bring righteousness into everyday business. These commands still instruct us, even though their exact national arrangements do not bind every Christian.
A slogan about mixed fabrics cannot replace reading the actual command in its covenant setting. Leviticus 19:19 and Deuteronomy 22:11 address mixed garments, naming wool and linen in the NKJV. We can recognize Israel’s visible covenant boundaries without inventing a hidden explanation or condemning every modern blended fabric. The New Testament does not impose that clothing rule on the church.
Leviticus 19:28 raises a related question by placing cutting the flesh for the dead alongside tattoo marks. We should reject pagan devotion, self-harm, and markings that honor evil. The church is not under Israel’s covenant code, however, so quoting that verse alone does not settle every question about a modern marking. New Testament teaching about holiness and the body must guide the application. A believer needs to consider his witness and conscience, submit to rightful authority, and reject idolatry.
We become legalistic when we try to obtain justification through works, keep ourselves saved through performance, or use our conduct to claim spiritual superiority. Legalism also makes a tradition or personal conviction binding as though God had commanded it. Jesus condemned leaders who displaced God’s command with human rules. Circumcision cannot improve Christ’s saving work, and neither can food restrictions, special days, clothing, or generous giving. Religious performance cannot complete what He has already accomplished.
A real act of obedience does not become legalism when it costs us something. Sexual purity, truthful speech, proper church discipline, and practical love can require self-denial. Calling every difficult duty legalism empties the term of meaning. Christian liberty operates where God has left us free; conscience cannot turn an explicit sin into an optional preference. Paul’s words in Titus explain how grace teaches redeemed people to live.
For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.
Grace teaches us to refuse ungodliness and pursue righteous living while awaiting Christ. A person genuinely born again is indwelt and sealed by the Holy Spirit and eternally secure. That security gives no permission for rebellion. The Father corrects His child, and within that secure relationship we confess sin and continue learning obedience. A profession without transformation should not be confused with new birth. Obedience shows the new life God gives; it neither purchases salvation nor keeps us saved.
The Gospel and Our Response
The Law leaves me without a moral defense. Comparing myself with someone worse cannot erase my guilt, and keeping selected commands cannot undo my disobedience to God. A promise to improve does not change the past. I need the mercy provided by the Savior, not another attempt to justify myself.
Jesus Christ is the eternal Son who became fully man through the virgin birth without ceasing to be fully God. He lived without sin and willingly gave Himself to be slain as the perfect sacrifice for our sins. Wicked people tortured and crucified Him, and He shed His blood and died. His saving sacrifice was complete through that death, before His burial and bodily resurrection. The Father did not punish, curse, abandon, strike, bruise, or pour wrath on Jesus. Father and Son remained united in the work of redemption.
Christ died for the whole world, and salvation is genuinely offered to every person. We receive it by grace through repentant faith; the offer can be resisted and rejected. God justifies the believer, granting righteous standing before Him, and gives genuine new birth. The Holy Spirit indwells and seals that person, and God keeps His child eternally.
That assurance gives us reason to obey from a transformed heart, depending on the Spirit’s power. I want to hear Moses as he speaks to Israel and then follow that teaching through Christ and the apostles. We can learn from every part of inspired Scripture without returning the church to Sinai or inventing commands God has not given.
My Final Thoughts
The Law reveals God’s holiness and exposes the guilt we cannot remove through effort. Christ fulfilled its purposes and redeemed believers from its curse, so we depend on His finished work rather than a selected record of obedience. That freedom should make me more attentive to His commands. Saved by grace and taught by the Spirit, we can receive Moses’ instruction rightly and learn to love God and our neighbors under Christ’s authority.