Jesus And Paul On Mosaic Law

Today I want to start by providing a thesis to defend: Jesus and Paul never contradicted God's Mosaic Law and spoke positively of it in the New Testament.

I will examine the words of Paul first.


--Acts 24:15--"I believe everything that agrees with the Law and that is written in the Prophets, . . ."

--Romans 3:31--"Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith?  Not at all!  Rather, we uphold the law."

--Romans 7:12--"So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good."

--Romans 7:22--"For in my inner being I delight in God's law; . . ."

--1 Timothy 1:8-10--"We know that the law is good if one uses it properly.  We also know that the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious; for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, for adulterers and perverts, for slave traders and liars and perjurers--and for whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine."


Paul is affirming repeatedly the holiness and innate objective goodness of the Law.  Interestingly, almost every sin he mentions in 1 Timothy 1 is a capital offense according to Mosaic Law.  Killing (or striking) a parent, murder, adultery, slave trading, and perjury in a capital case all deserve the death penalty according to Exodus and Deuteronomy.  Paul was no anti-nomian.


--Hebrews 2:2--"For if the message spoken through angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, . . ."


It is unclear who authored the book of Hebrews, but it seems that scholarly consensus credits Paul with writing it.  Regardless of who wrote the book, Hebrews 2:2 explicitly calls the moral and civil components of Mosaic Law just, as does Psalm 19:7.

But didn't Jesus specifically critique and revoke Mosaic Law, especially the penalties?  Didn't he intentionally call out deficiencies in the law for the sake of reforming or abandoning them?  Let's objectively inspect the text.


--Matthew 5:38-39--"You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.'  But I tell you, do not resist an evil person.  If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also."


First of all, "eye for eye" is one of the most distorted, misrepresented, and misapplied concepts in the entire Bible, so much so that an entire future blog post is likely required to address the faulty secular and Christian myths about it.  In short, no, it was not an allowance for vigilantism or revenge, it was not allowed in a way that was always or even necessarily ever literal (and at least in certain situations it was explicitly not literal), and it was limited solely to the context of serious physical injuries, nothing more (like rape, extreme torture, or slave trading) and nothing less (like minor assault or robbery).

Second of all, contrary to the seemingly universal belief of laypeople, Jesus was not dismissing "eye for eye" as a legal concept or correcting a mistake which he accidentally allowed in the Old Testament or was forced by disobedient people to temporarily permit, and I can prove it.  How, you ask?


--Matthew 5:21-22--"You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.'  But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother without cause will be subject to judgment."

--Matthew 5:27-28--"You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery.'  But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart."


Now, in each of these preceding verses in the SAME CHAPTER as Matthew 5:38-39, when Jesus referenced an Old Testament statement did he say that to abolish or suspend the principle he himself as God demanded centuries earlier?  Did he mean that because he prohibited gratuitous anger and lust that now the Mosaic teachings on murder and adultery were removed or replaced?  No!  He was merely elaborating on the ramifications of the laws themselves, and he did the same with "eye for eye".  He instructed people to respond to evil inflicted on them in a way entirely consistent with Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy.  Why then do people continue to believe that he did away with the principle of equivalent justice and then demanded something new and foreign to the Law?  He reminded people that revenge and vigilantism were not permitted.  He did not replace his own Old Testament principles of justice or teach pacifism like some people have claimed.

There is also a common mistake about Jesus' statements on sins of the heart, where people believe Jesus heightened the moral law beyond what the Old Testament encompassed.  As anyone who has studied the Old Testament thoroughly knows, in Mosaic Law God had already addressed sins of this type.


--Matthew 15:3-6--"Jesus replied, 'And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition?  For God said, "Honor your father and mother" and "Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death."  But you say that if a man says to his father or mother, "Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is a gift devoted to God," he is not to "honor his father" with it.  Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition.'"


In the Old Testament we find these two verses:


--Exodus 21:17--"Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death."

--Leviticus 20:9--"If anyone curses his father or his mother, he must be put to death.  He has curses his father or his mother, and his blood will be on his own head."


Note that while Jesus acknowledged that God commanded that those who curse their parents be executed (and anyone who believes in the Trinity believes Jesus is the same God who authorized such a law), he did not rebuke it.  Rather, he expressed harsh words for those who set aside the direct instructions of God to preserve their own tradition contrived by men.

I wanted to also explain Jesus' position on divorce in Matthew 19 and demonstrate that Jesus was not revising or annulling the Old Testament criterion for divorce, but I thought it best to create a separate post about it.  I will try to do so in the near future.

Reconstructionism, or the position that Mosaic Law is binding and objectively just today, is not opposed to gospel evangelism or rationalism, though some of its adherents may dismiss or deemphasize those things.  Rather, reconstructionism, the gospel, and evangelism fit together beautifully.  In Deuteronomy 4:5-8 the Law was said to be a beacon of light and justice to surrounding pagan nations, so even from the outset one can detect a redemptive, evangelistic spirit in the Law.  "And what other nation is so great as to have such righteous decrees and laws as this body of laws I am setting before you today?"  In the great commission Jesus included the often-neglected command to teach other nations "to obey everything I have commanded you" (Matthew 28:20).  And that, from all rational understanding, must include God's own Law, the central presentation of his moral revelation.

And so we near the conclusion of my second post on the continuing validity of Old Testament ethics.  Clearly, the New Testament does not contradict or supersede Mosaic Law when it comes to moral and civil matters.  In this post I intended to prove nothing else.  One simply cannot rationally argue that the Bible does not consistently and constantly teach that God's Law is holy, perfect, and just, including the civil penalties.  One cannot appeal Jesus in search of some nonexistent verse verifying that Jesus called the laws HE provided to Israel were outdated, sub-optimal, or evil.

Expect much more from me on the topic of reconstructionism, for there are many misunderstandings to correct and many false claims to refute.