Old Testament? New Testament? Or Just the Bible?

I’ve been seeing a number of friends on Facebook posting questions that then lead to mini-controversies in the comments about the necessity of the Old Testament laws in the lives of Christians today. (The two most recent examples involve tithing and keeping the Sabbath, but others have been cropping up here and there as well.) The general argument goes like this: Christ fulfilled the law, therefore we are no longer under the law, therefore we don’t need to worry about it – they don’t apply to us once we’re saved through Jesus’ blood.

Well, I have no problem with the first two statements – Christ did absolutely fulfill the law. He’s the only human who could ever do so because in addition to being fully human, He was also fully divine. The law was never something that could be kept, in its entirety, all the time by anyone. And because of that, God set up the sacrificial system of the Old Testament. Everyone – even the Priests – had to sacrifice under the Old Testament system, because our very nature, rife with sin, keeps us apart from God. Only the shedding of blood could cover that sin and restore our relationship with Him. But the nation of Israel was still commanded to try and keep the law – because that set up the rules for relationship with God and community with one another. It set up the rules of worship and told us how to interact with families, friends, and random strangers on the street. Would they ever do it perfectly? No. But the attempt did a lot to keep order.

Thankfully, today we no longer need to sacrifice – Jesus’ death on the cross was the once-for-all, final sacrifice. Because He is the blameless High Priest – not a High Priest who has to sacrifice for himself before he can sacrifice for others like all the other only human priests – but a High Priest who fulfilled the law to the letter and was, therefore, able to Himself be the sacrifice that would bridge the gap between sinful man and Holy God once and for all when we accept His spilled blood on our behalf. But, just like sacrifices of the Old (and New) Testament – Christ’s death doesn’t remove the need for us to attempt to keep the law. The Ten Commandments are just as relevant today as they were when they were inscribed on stone tablets. The need for a cheerful and willing submission of our first fruits (the tithe – but not just a monetary tithe, our time and talent are part of that as well) to provide for those who lack and help maintain our priests (or pastors, if you prefer a more modern term.) These are all still things we must, as Christians, do.

Do we do them right all the time? No, of course not. But we ask God’s forgiveness through the blood of Jesus and we start fresh and try again. And we don’t do it because we’re trying to check boxes or be some kind of super-spiritual person – we don’t need to become modern day Pharisees. We do it because we’re called to be holy as He is holy – and how can we do that if not through trying to be like Jesus – the perfect fulfillment of the law. Jesus broke it down into two commandments that sum up the whole of the law – love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and love our neighbors as ourselves. If we’re doing those things – then we’ll also keep the Sabbath (how is a day devoted to rest and worship not loving Him with all our heart?), we’ll tithe (not only does this show our love of God, but of our neighbors), we’ll honor our parents, we’ll refrain from murder and adultery, we won’t make graven images…and so forth and so on.

We can’t choose to rid ourselves of the Old Testament – nor should we want to. Jesus didn’t. He quoted it extensively. (Nor should we choose to only keep the parts that He quoted as a few commenters in various posts suggested.) The Bible, as a whole, is to be our instruction manual. Paul said it best in his second letter to Timothy: All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work (2 Tim 3:16-17).