There are obviously differences between the Old and New Testaments. Augustine said that the New is in the Old concealed, and the Old is in the New revealed. Changes do indeed come through the course of redemptive history, so that there certainly are exceptions to the general continuity that characterizes the relation between Old and New Covenants. God has the right to make alterations for the New Age. In the transition to this New Age we observe that advances are made over the Old Covenant, with some laws laid aside and some laws observed in a new fashion.
Given the progress of revelation, we must be committed to the rule that the New Testament should interpret the Old Testament for us; the attitude of Jesus and the Apostles to the Mosaic law, for instance, must be determinative of the Christian ethic. Thus a simplistic equation between Old and New Testament ethics—one that abstractly absolutizes the New Testament teaching about continuity with the Old Testament (not recognizing qualifications revealed elsewhere)—is not advanced by the position taken here. What is maintained is that our obligation to God’s Old Testament law should be interpreted and qualified by the New Testament Scripture, not by relative human opinion which can cite no Biblical warrant for departing from God’s stipulations.
It should be recognized that certain aspects of the Old Covenant are not authoritative today. For instance, in addition to the standing laws by which the Jews were always to live, God gave certain localized imperatives to them—commands for specified use in one concrete situation, not principles with the continuing force of law from generation to generation. An example would be the command to go to war and gain the land of Palestine by the sword; this is not an enduring requirement for us today.
By This Standard
God's Law is Christianity's tool of dominion. This is where any discussion of God's law ultimately arrives: the issue of dominion. Ask yourself: Who is to rule on earth, Christ or Satan? Whose followers have the ethically acceptable tool of dominion, Christ's or Satan's? What is this tool of dominion, the Biblically revealed law of God, or the law of self-proclaimed autonomous man? Whose word is sovereign, God's or man's?
Buy NowIn this concluding part of his interview with Pastor Evan McClanahan, Gary discusses what applying God’s Law looks like today. Jesus said that everything written in the Old Testament points to Him, but does this mean that all those laws are now null and void? Does God’s Law still inform our ethics and morality? If so, how? If not, what does?