Well, how does Jesus change our relationship to the Old Testament? It's a question we get all the time. Here's two recent examples, Micah in Buffalo, New York. "Hello, Pastor John. What role did the Ten Commandments play in the life and ministry of the New Testament Church? If these commandments are part of God's conditional covenant with the nation of Israel, which was broken, is there any abiding use for these commands in evangelism or moral instruction?" Here's another version of the same question from a listener named Pat.

"Pastor John, are there any helpful rules of thumb for interpreting which particular commandments in the Old Testament apply to Christians today and why? For example, Leviticus 18 and 19 contain various commandments against sexual immorality and child sacrifice. I think it's safe to say that most listeners of the show would agree that these commandments apply to the Christian today.

However, the same chapter is worn against wearing a garment that is made of two kinds of material, rounding off the hair on your temples, and forbidding tattoos. Are there any helpful ways to approach the Old Testament that would help make sense of these various commandments?" Pastor John, how do you come at these questions like these from Micah and Pat?

The question I am trying to answer is basically how should New Testament Christians who believe in Jesus Christ, the Messiah, appropriate Old Testament laws in our day? I would start by saying even the writers of the Old Testament would agree that it would be contrary to the Old Testament to appropriate Old Testament laws after the Messiah has come as though He hadn't come.

Amen. Even Old Testament authors would say that. And the Messiah has come. Jesus Christ is the Messiah, and therefore we dare not simply appropriate the Old Testament laws for our lives as though He had not come. So let me point to four ways that the New Testament talks about the change in how we use the Old Testament laws since Jesus has come.

Here's the first one. The simplest way to see the massive implications of His coming is to realize that when He died, when Christ died for our sins, He put an end to the entire sacrificial system of the Old Testament because the sacrifice of all those animals and the performance of all those rituals in the temple or tabernacle were pointing toward a great final sacrifice described in Isaiah 53 when the Messiah comes.

So hundreds of commandments and rules regarding animal sacrifices and priestly activity are brought to an end, fulfilled, as Jesus says in Matthew 5:17, by Jesus' life and death as our final sacrifice and our final high priest. This is what the book of Hebrews is written to show. For example, Hebrews 7, 27, He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for His own sins and then for those of the people, since He did this once for all.

That's one of the most important phrases in Hebrews, "once for all," when He offered up Himself. That phrase "once for all" is so important. Track it down in all of its uses in Hebrews. So here's the second massive change that came about with the coming of Jesus that points to a change in how the law is used.

Jesus is forming a new people of God made up not only of Jews but of all the peoples of the world who believe in Him. So at the end of the book of Matthew, "Go make disciples of all nations," Jews and all the other thousands of people groups on the planet.

So the time is past for God's focusing primarily on Israel as His redeemed covenant people, which He did for 2,000 years. The new covenant has been inaugurated with the blood of Jesus, Luke 22, 20, which includes everyone who believes in the Messiah and has a new heart. So Jesus spoke these ominous words in Matthew 21, 43.

He said, "The kingdom of God will be taken away from you," addressing the Jewish leaders as representative of Israel. "Will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits." That's the church, which includes any Jews who believe. So all the nations and all the Jews who believe are the new fruit-producing people, and the shift has happened from the focus on Israel to the focus on this new people of God.

The implication this has for the appropriation of the Old Testament laws is that all the laws which had as their design a ritual distinction between Israel and the nations have come to an end because those nations are now being folded into the very people of God, and the cultural stumbling blocks are being removed, like circumcision, like food and dietary laws, like the weaving together of two different fabrics that you're not supposed to wear in order to show that there's a distinction between Israel and the nations.

And Jesus says explicitly in Mark 7, 19, "All foods are now clean for you." A third way to see the change that Jesus has brought about is that he now goes behind the Old Testament mosaic laws to God's original design in creation, and argues that the law in some cases was a temporary compromise with sin, but in the beginning it was not so.

It was different. That's the way he deals in the Old Testament, for example, with the laws of divorce. I think the same thing with polygamy. He says the law permitting divorce was "owing to your hardness of heart." And then he reaches back to Genesis 2, 24 to say, "When God made man one flesh, let no one separate this union," Mark 10, 4 through 6.

So there's this creational dimension which in the coming of Jesus takes precedent over the legal compromises in the Old Testament. Here's the fourth and last thing I'll say. The fourth way to see how things have changed with the coming of Christ is to realize that Christ by his death and his indwelling Spirit have put our relationship with God on a new footing.

The mosaic law doesn't have the same standing for those who have died with Christ and risen to walk in newness of life. The key passage here is Romans 7, 4 and 6. It goes like this. You have died to the law through the body of Christ so that you may belong to another.

So once you belong to the law, now you belong to another, namely to him who has been raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God. In other words, there's a new footing, a new way to pursue righteousness, and it isn't list keeping or law keeping.

It's bearing fruit because you belong to Jesus Christ. Now verse 6, "Now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, not in the old way of the written code." This doesn't mean that commandments have no place in the Christian life.

For example, 1 Corinthians 7, 19, "Neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but keeping the commandments of God," which is a puzzling text because circumcision was a command, right? So he's making some kind of distinction there of what commandments are still binding and which aren't. Or 1 John 5, 3, "This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments, and his commandments are not burdensome." So last question then is, within this fourth way of looking at the change, what criteria does the New Testament give us for appropriating God's abiding commandments?

And let me mention just three. One, love. I'm thinking of Matthew 22, 40, "On these two commandments, love God and love your neighbor, depend all the law and the prophets." Or Matthew 12, 7, "If you had known what this means, 'I desire mercy and not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the guiltless." In other words, there are mercy and law commandments which sum up the entire legal, moral code and become a guideline for us today.

Number two, sound doctrine in accord with the gospel. I'm thinking of 1 Timothy 1, 8, "Now we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully," and gives a list of commandments and says, "Whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine." So that's what laws are for. What is contrary to sound doctrine?

And then he adds, "In accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God." What laws accord with this? And finally, third, what is rooted in nature as God created it. That's how he argues in 1 Timothy 2, 13 as it relates to woman's authority over man, and that's how he argues in Romans 1 with regard to homosexuality.

Now there are more pointers in the New Testament for how to appropriate the Old Testament laws, but these may suffice to point the way. And I think if I were helping a child—I want to try to make it real simple now as I close—if I were helping a child read the Bible, I would say something like this, "Honey, some things commanded in the Old Testament are not what we are supposed to do today.

They were right and what God's people were supposed to do in that day, but now Jesus has come and important things have changed." And you might take a month helping your kid understand what that is. And then I'd finish like this, "Now, in our day, the safest way to know what's right and wrong is to make sure that the New Testament commands it or forbids it." Very good counsel on how to make sense of the Old Testament now that we are in Christ.

Thank you, Pastor John. Well over at our online home, you can explore all 1,250 or so of our episodes. You can scan a list of our most popular ones, read full transcripts, even send us a question of your own. Go to DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn. And to get new episodes delivered to you three times per week, subscribe to the Ask Pastor John Podcast and favorite podcast app.

Should we ever take an action that we don't have peace about? It's a great question from a listener and it's the question we begin the week with on the other side of the weekend. I'm your host Tony Reinke. We'll see you then. 1 you you