The Law of Moses in Acts 15 and Jeremiah 31

The law of Moses in Acts 15

As A.D.’s dawn peeked over the horizon at the Church, and Gentiles began entering, there arose a dispute over whether or not Gentile believers should be circumcised and keep the law of Moses. Since the quarrel began with circumcision: naturally, it wasn’t long before the law also found its way into the debate. Of primary importance, of course, to the law is the Decalogue–the Ten Commandments. The law can be summarized in the Decalogue (Rom. 13:8-10) and Deuteronomy 6:4 and 5 (Matt. 22:34-40; Mark 12:28-34; Luke 10:25-37; Gal. 5:14). Generally speaking, Gentiles would have no practical use for, or concern about, most other Mosaic teachings and practices.

Because the contention over this began taking on the nature of swords clashing, it needed a resolution. And a speedy one, at that. Consequently, believers in Jerusalem held the first Church Council to determine what the mind of the Holy Spirit and the Early Church leaders was on this matter.

When Paul and Barnabas arrived in Jerusalem to take part in the Jerusalem Council, as it came to be known, they reported the evangelistic work God had done through them among the Gentiles. Unfortunately, not everyone was cheering. Or clapping, for that matter. When some of the believing Pharisees heard the news, they said, “It is necessary to circumcise them and command them to keep the law of Moses.” In other words, Gentile Christians should be treated as Jewish proselytes.

Newton’s third law of motion

Here is where Newton’s third law of motion comes into play. . . “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” Hence, your sword is leveled at the eyeballs of your opponent in the same manner as his was leveled at yours. In other words, by talking like this, these believing Pharisees were looking for trouble. Whether they knew it or not. Seeing as how their response to Paul and Barnabas was the very thing that caused swords to cross in the first place. Which led to the need for a resolution. Which gave us the Jerusalem Council.

Carry on, old chap. . .

Following this initial exchange, the public discussion proceeded.

Members of the Council began giving their thoughts.

Discussing the law of Moses at the Jerusalem Council

Two men had a prominent role in the deliberation. (See Acts 15.)

Peter said, “Why do you test God by laying a yoke on the neck of the [Gentile] disciples, which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be saved in the same manner as they.”

James said, “I judge, not to trouble those from the nations who are turning to God, but to write to them to abstain from the pollutions of idols and fornication and what is strangled and blood. [A reference to idolatrous pagan practices. Some were violations of the law of Moses, but one originated as a command God gave to Noah in Genesis 9:4.] For Moses, from generations of old, has in every city those who proclaim him in the synagogues, being read every sabbath.”

After this, the Council reached a decision and wrote and delivered a letter to Gentile believers. It is summarized by the following lines from the letter. “The apostles, the elders, and the brothers [in Jerusalem], to the brothers who are of the Gentiles in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia. Since we heard that some who went out from us have troubled you with words, unsettling your souls, saying, ‘You must be circumcised and keep the law’–to whom we gave no such commandment. . . Having gathered together [to consider this matter], it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay no further burden on you than these necessary things [the four items James listed above].”

So, what can we learn, and what conclusions can we draw from this historic Council and its directive to Gentile churches? (See the three points that follow.)

What we learn from the Jerusalem Council

(1) To begin with. . . Notice the words that are used by the Council members to describe the law of Moses (and circumcision). They are instructive because they give us a historical, Jewish point of view on the law of Moses, from the first century, which, by the way, also reflects the perspective of the Jewish “fathers” in old covenant times.

As we look closely at the words in the text (the two quotes above from Acts 15), notice the contrast between then and now. . .

Peter characterizes the law as “a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear.” (Bold letters added for emphasis.) Whereas, Sinclair Ferguson, who holds a Reformed point of view on the law, says: “Old covenant believers really did love the law. They delighted in it.”

So, who should we believe?

As for the law of Moses as it relates to Gentiles. . . Peter described it as “a yoke on the neck” of the disciples. According to James and the members of the Council who drafted the letter to Gentile believers: it “troubled” the Gentiles when they were told they needed to be circumcised and keep the law. It was “unsettling [their] souls.” Moreover, the Holy Spirit Himself coauthored the words, “further burden,” which accurately express the ongoing slavish effect circumcision and the law of Moses would have on Gentile believers. Frankly, these words do not speak well of the law of Moses. Nor are they meant to. Instead. Curtains are pulled back so our eyes can see the true nature of circumcision and the law.

As for directives to Gentile churches. . . (There are two: #2 and 3 that follow.)

No need for Gentile believers to keep the law of Moses

(2) To put it plain and simple. There is no need for Gentile believers to keep the law of Moses (nor, for that matter, to display it on church walls). Pardon me, but this is not solely or merely about how we are saved (though it does include that). It’s not just another soteriological “law/grace” ping-pong match we are observing. As some would like to think. These Gentile believers were “disciples.” They had already experienced salvation through the grace of Jesus, as Peter indicated. But adding the law to the mix was confusing and had them pedaling in bewilderment into a Slough of Despond.

Take a moment to think about this. . .

Does anyone honestly believe these Early Church leaders were debating whether salvation comes by grace or if it comes through observing the law of Moses? (They already knew the answer to that.) Or were they deciding something broader: something that had more to do with what Gentiles do with the law of Moses after they experience salvation by grace?

No need for Gentile Christians to circumcise their children

(3) Nor are Gentile Christians required to circumcise their children: something Reformed churches practice to this day through their “covenant counterpart,” infant baptism.

So, unfortunately, that means two major pillars that support the Reformed superstructure were never intended to be implemented by Gentile churches. (Read that again. And let it sink in.) And yet, it matters not, so far as Reformed “tradition” and “orthodoxy” are concerned. Acts 15 has slipped conveniently below the radar and “through the cracks” in the vestibule.

But how many churches today, even in a general sense, adhere to this early (perhaps the earliest) epistle to Gentile churches? (“No one dared disturb the sound of silence.”)

Remember. The directive in Acts 15 was established in the first century by the Holy Spirit and Christianity’s first Church Council, shortly after Jesus began building His Church. It is a sort of Declaration of Independence for the Church as it begins its thousands-of-years journey into the future (Acts 16:4,5; 21:20-25, ad infinitum). Consequently, the Gentiles in the first century rejoiced when they read it (Acts 15:30,31) because of the consolation it gave them (cf. II Thess. 2:16,17).

It is also our consolation.

The law of Moses in Jeremiah 31

Now, let us take another journey, back in time. Perhaps we can discover a reason for the apostles’ attitude toward the law of Moses in Acts 15, by looking at Jeremiah 31.

Here is what Jeremiah wrote in 31:31, and the verses that follow. Remember. The same Holy Spirit who gave His approval for the directives in Acts 15, is also speaking through Jeremiah (Heb. 10:15-17). “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. [This covenant is] not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord. . . I will put my law in their minds, and I will write it on their hearts.”

The author of Hebrews also quotes this passage and gives his Spirit-inspired thoughts on it in Hebrews chapters 8 and 10. And Jesus refers to it at the “Last Supper” in Matthew 26:28.

The million-dollar question!

And now! It is time for the million-dollar question! . . . Drum roll, please.

Do the words, “I will put my law [Heb. 8 and 10: ‘laws’] in their minds, and will write it [Heb. 8 and 10: ‘them’] on their hearts,” refer to the Decalogue (the Ten Commandments)?

Reformed and Covenant theologians say yes.

But, if that is true, (for anyone who is interested: the following question is also worth a million dollars. . .) does that mean the new covenant is nothing more than the old wine in a new wineskin? The writer of Hebrews did not think so. The simple meaning of words can be instructive. After all. Words have a purpose. They give us understanding. Hebrews’ author took the word “new” to mean that the “first” (Mosaic) covenant had become “old” and was “ready to vanish away” (Heb. 8:13). If something is “new,” its counterpart will naturally become “old.” And will soon disappear. He made this very clear when he said, “He takes away the first that He may establish the second” (Heb. 10:9).

Consider, for a moment, life’s realities. Normally, no one keeps their old phone once they replace it with a new one. It’s like passing a baton to the next runner in a relay. You don’t both keep running alongside one another once you’ve passed the baton! That would look kind of silly. Wouldn’t it? The runner who passed the baton should trot off to the sideline, get a drink, and eat his peanut butter and jelly sandwich. He may want to keep running, but he is out of the race. His time as a runner is over in this race.

Therefore, Paul also wrote that the old is a covenant that is “passing away” (II Cor. 3:11).

Back to Jeremiah 31

Going back to Jeremiah 31. God said the new covenant would not be “according to” the covenant He gave through Moses. It would not follow or continue in the manner of the old. That would make one wonder what function the Decalogue would serve in the new covenant.

Think of it this way. . . It would be like a child who is under a schoolmaster (the old covenant law) until he’s old enough to be on his own. Then, once he grows up, he takes the schoolmaster with him! What point is there in that? Imagine graduating from college and taking all your professors with you when you leave! And so, in the same way, as you are no longer under a schoolmaster or your college professors once you are of age and have completed your studies: likewise, you are no longer under the law of Moses once you come to Jesus (Gal. 3:19f.).

That leads us, naturally, to the next question.

“What purpose, then, does the law serve?” (Gal. 3:19) Or, as the Greek puts it: “Why, therefore, the law?”

Why the law?

Paul gives us the simple answer. (We like simple answers, don’t we?)

The law of Moses is a tutor: a schoolmaster who brings us to Jesus. (In fact, all OT “roads” [Scriptures] lead to and find their fulfillment in Christ: Heb. 10:7; Col. 2:16,17; Luke 24:27,44.)

. . .Here comes the bride

So, the law of Moses brings us to Jesus.

Think of it as a wedding ceremony. Moses gives away the bride, which is you and me. Jesus is the bridegroom who takes us by our hand from Moses and turns with us toward the one who is officiating. After that, Moses takes his seat among the wedding guests.

So, once we come to Jesus, like most newlyweds, we have a new address. (In fact, we are a new creation.) We are “married to another,” that is, to Him (Rom. 7:1-6). The word “another” indicates that Jesus is taking the place of Moses. Pretty simple; but it’s an arrow in the bull’s-eye! And that would mean: that after the law “introduces” us to Jesus, we let go of Moses’ hand. Right? Therefore. Using Paul’s analogy in Romans 7:1-6, you could look at it in this way. . . “Let a man leave his father and mother [think of them as Moses, or, the law of Moses]” and be joined to Jesus. Because we are now “dead to the law through the body of Christ”: our union with Him. “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes” (Rom. 10:4).

Paul cannot make it more clear than this. . . “We have been delivered from the law, having died to what held us in bondage,” through our marriage to Christ (Rom. 7:6).

The law of Moses has no power over a dead man. Nor does a dead man have any interest in it. Consequently, that means that now “we serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter” (Rom. 7:6). We have entered a new, spiritual dimension.

The heart of the matter

And that brings us to the heart of the matter. Because these words: “the newness of the Spirit and the oldness of the letter” show the contrast between the new and old covenant. It is a contrast between Spirit and letter (also see II Cor. 3:6-8; Rom. 2:29). And this gives us the answer to the key question. Which is: How is the new covenant different than the old (the law of Moses)?

May the Lord give us understanding. . .

The contrast between the Old (the law of Moses) and New Covenant

In contrast to the distant and characteristically removed way in which people looked at God through the law of Moses, typified by the experience at Mount Sinai (Heb. 12:18-21), the covering on Moses’ face (II Cor. 3:12-18), and the veil in the temple (Mark 15:37,38; Heb. 10:19-22). . .

Now, in the new covenant, we know God personally and intimately. Our knowledge of Him is no longer taught or learned primarily or exclusively by precept, or, “letters in stone”: the classic “classroom” learning most of us are familiar with, where, as children, we were no more enlightened about the moon when we left science class than when we walked in. Whereas, the new covenant says: “No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know Me, from the least to the greatest of them, says the LORD” (Jer. 31:34). Through our spiritual birth into God’s family, we now have a personal awareness of and fellowship with Him in our lives.

And so, in the words of Job: whereas, under the old, we would say, “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear”; under the new, we say, “But now my eye sees You.”

Why no other gods before Him?

Therefore, we cannot in good conscience have any other gods before Him. Not because the Ten Commandments tell us not to have any other gods before Him. But because He is our Friend and the God we know personally and walk with day by day; because His Spirit lives in us. Having other gods is not something we would even consider seriously if we have truly become His children! We could not do that to Him, without experiencing an ongoing grief in our hearts! Like a dripping faucet. Which we might try to ignore for a time. Yet we would know that the eyes of Jesus, who lives in us, never cease to look right through us. As He did to Peter. We know He knows and sees all.

This personal awareness is always present with us. Because He is always present with us and living in us (Gal. 2:20).

No child of God can be happy or content if the Spirit of God in him or her is grieved.

So. It is not possible to break His heart without, in some way, breaking our own. (I’m not talking about any fake believers.) We love Him, not because Moses told us to love Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, but because that is our greatest desire!

Christ in us

That is the nature of the “new” covenant. And that is how He has put His laws in our minds and written them on our hearts. Because Someone lives in us now, who makes all the difference. “God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27).

This is all about Christ living in us. It’s all about His love, embedded in our hearts by His Holy Spirit. It’s not about us keeping the law of Moses. Or following rules that give us “guidelines” and “security.” Tell me. Please tell me. Why do Christians look for “security” in the law of Moses, when we have Jesus? Why do we long for Moses after we have “married another”? That is something not that far removed from marital unfaithfulness.

Let’s be frank, even though that may not be our name. . .

Jesus’ rod and staff provide all the security we need. It’s not: “The Lord is my Shepherd, but I want more.” But, as the chorus goes: “I’m satisfied in Him alone.”

So. Does that mean we are free? (You’re looking at me with such hope and expectation!)

(I won’t disappoint you.)

Yes! It does (Gal. 4)! We can be secure and also be free.

Imagine that.

After all, why would prison bars give anyone a sense of security?

At the Covenant crossroads: being free or being under the law of Moses

We are free! “Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free. And do not be held again in a yoke of bondage” (Gal. 5).

“Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you hear the law? For. . .Abraham had two sons: the one by a bondwoman, the other by a freewoman. These are the two covenants: the one from Mount Sinai which gives birth to bondage, which is Hagar–for this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and corresponds to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children; but the Jerusalem above is free, which is the mother of us all. So then, brothers, we are not children of the bondwoman but of the free” (Gal. 4:21-31).

“But now, after you have known God [Jer. 31:34],. . .how is it that you turn again to the weak and beggarly elements, to which you desire again to be in bondage? You observe days and months and seasons and years. I am afraid of you, lest I have labored in vain” (Gal. 4:9-11; also Col. 2:16,17). “This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?” (Gal. 3:2,3).

“Sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace” (Rom. 6:14).

“Therefore, you are no longer a slave but a son” (Gal. 4:7).

Are we walking in the flesh or by the Spirit?

I am not putting down the law of Moses (or the Decalogue). God gave it to us through Moses. It is good and holy. And it has a purpose. But it is time to embrace, with all our hearts, the new covenant, and recognize that we are not under the law. Let us fly freely! And mount up with wings as eagles! We are no longer servants to the law of Moses. “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death” (Rom. 8:2) also known as “the ministry of death, written and engraved on stones” (II Cor. 3:7). I will be direct. When one lives by the law, they are walking in the flesh and not by the Spirit (Rom. 8:1-17). No matter how many Reformed pastors and theologians may say otherwise.

After all. Echo chambers aren’t usually known for championing truth.

Remember the contrast between the Spirit and letter above, under the subtitle “The heart of the matter.” Living by the law (the letter) is not the same as walking by the Spirit. They are polar opposites. We see the same contrast in Galatians 3:2 and 3 quoted above. “This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?” “The works of the law” in Galatians 3:2 are the antecedent of “the flesh” in Galatians 3:3. Therefore, “the righteous requirement of the law [is] fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh [or, the law] but according to the Spirit” (Rom. 8:3,4).

A word in behalf of brothers and sisters who love and live by the law of Moses

Yet I’m sure brothers and sisters I love (who are true believers in Jesus), who love the law of Moses (viz. the Decalogue) and live by it, sincerely believe they are walking by the Spirit when they practice it in their lives.

But, I will say this in closing. . .

Is the law of Moses the same yesterday, today, and forever?

Just because God gave the law of Moses, and it reflects His character and His holiness, does not mean that the law is “the same yesterday, today, and forever,” in the same way as He is. There was a “yesterday” when the law did not exist. “It was added” (Gal. 3:19) when the time came for it to appear (John 1:17; Gal. 3:17). And it has no “today” for the righteous, in the same way as it did before we came to Jesus. “The law was not made for a righteous man” (I Tim. 1:9-11; Rom. 3:19-22; also Gal. 3:23-25). As for “forever”: after Jesus fulfilled its moral, ceremonial, and judicial requirements through His obedient life (Matt. 3:15) and His death on the cross (Matt. 5:17,18; Luke 16:17), it achieved the ultimate purpose for which God gave it. . .

It magnifies the righteousness and holiness of God through the completed work of Jesus Christ on the cross (John 19:28-30).

So. You could say, “It is finished!” means, not only that all our sins have been fully paid for for all eternity, but also, that the law of Moses was completely fulfilled at the moment Jesus spoke these words. And, seeing as how they were spoken in the perfect tense, the whole course of human history was altered as well, from that point on, and forevermore!

And so, it is here, at the cross, where Moses and Jesus shake hands (Col. 2:14). It is here, at the cross, where law and grace kiss. Where they stand united. Where the law has found its total fulfillment: every last jot and tittle.

There is no need to look farther than the cross to find the total fulfillment of the law of Moses.

Grateful

We are grateful for this. Because that means, that through His death, Jesus crossed a chasm we could not, nor will ever have to cross. We will never have to look into those dark and dismal depths of eternal debt! Or feel the wind rush from there against our cheeks!

Therefore, we will walk with Him in white. Because we will wear His righteousness.

Not because of any acclamation we may have gained by keeping the law of Moses.

“But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe” (Rom 3:21,22).