The relationship between Christians and the Law of Moses is one of the most important and discussed questions in the New Testament. It lies behind the conflict at Antioch, the Jerusalem Council, Paul’s letter to the Galatians, major sections of Romans, the argument of Hebrews, and repeated tensions between Jewish and Gentile believers. The question is larger than whether Christians should observe a particular command. It concerns the structure of redemptive history, the sufficiency of Christ, the unity of the church, and the way holiness is formed under the new covenant.

The New Testament presents the Mosaic Law as holy, righteous, good, and divinely given. It also presents it as temporary in its covenantal administration, fulfilled in Christ, and no longer binding upon the church as the covenant by which God’s people are defined. Jewish Christians could continue some ancestral customs voluntarily. Gentile Christians were never required to become Jews. Neither group could treat observance of the Mosaic Law as necessary for justification, salvation, or full membership in the people of God.

The thesis of this study is this: The Law of Moses belonged to a divinely appointed stage in the history of redemption. It revealed sin, governed Israel, preserved the messianic line, and pointed toward Christ. With the coming, death, resurrection, and exaltation of Christ, believers are justified by faith, receive the Spirit, enter the new covenant, and live under the law of Christ. Jewish Christians remained free to observe many ancestral practices as matters of culture, family, mission, and conscience. Gentile Christians remained free from circumcision and the Mosaic covenant. Both were obligated to receive one another in Christ.

I. Clarifying the Terms

1. What is meant by “the Law of Moses”?

The expression refers to the covenantal body of instruction given by God to Israel through Moses. It includes commandments concerning worship, sacrifice, priesthood, circumcision, purity, food, festivals, civil life, and moral conduct. The Old Testament often calls this whole covenantal instruction “the law,” “the book of the covenant,” or “the law of Moses.” Although later Christian theology commonly distinguishes moral, ceremonial, and civil aspects of the law, the biblical writers frequently speak of the Mosaic covenant as an integrated whole.

This matters because Paul’s argument cannot be reduced to a rejection of a few ceremonial practices while leaving the Mosaic covenant itself untouched. Circumcision, food laws, calendar observance, and table fellowship functioned as signs of covenant identity. When Paul denies that believers are “under the law,” he addresses the law as the covenantal administration that governed Israel before Christ.

2. What does “under the law” mean?

To be “under the law” means more than to know moral truth or to obey God. It means to stand within the jurisdiction of the Mosaic covenant and under its authority, sanctions, and covenantal structure. Paul can therefore say that believers are not under law but under grace while still insisting that Christians must obey God and fulfill the law of Christ (Rom 6:14-15; 1 Cor 9:20-21; Gal 6:2).

3. What is the “law of Christ”?

The law of Christ is the authoritative will of God as mediated through the crucified and risen Messiah, taught by Christ and his apostles, internalized by the Spirit, and expressed especially through love. It includes moral continuity with the Old Testament, but it is received through the new covenant and interpreted through Christ’s fulfillment. Christians do not become lawless. They come under the lordship of Christ. “To those outside the law I became as one outside the law, not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ” (1 Cor 9:21).

II. The Law Was Holy, Good, and Given by God

A Christian account of the Mosaic Law must begin with appreciation. The law was not an evil system that Christ rescued humanity from because God made a mistake. It was a gracious gift to Israel. It revealed God’s holiness, exposed sin, ordered Israel’s worship, protected the covenant people, distinguished them from the nations, and prepared the world for the Messiah. “The law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good” (Rom 7:12).

Paul’s criticism is never directed at the divine origin or moral character of the law. The problem lies in human sin and in the inability of the law to give life to fallen people. The law can command, expose, condemn, restrain, and guide. It cannot create the obedience it requires or justify sinners who have broken it.

Purposes of the Mosaic Law

• Revelation: it disclosed the holiness and will of God to Israel (Exod. 19:5–6; Lev. 19:2; Deut. 4:5–8; Rom. 7:12).

• Conviction: it named transgression and exposed the seriousness of sin (Rom. 3:19–20; 5:20; 7:7–13; Gal. 3:19).

• Government: it ordered Israel as a covenant nation (Exod. 21:1–23:33; Deut. 4:5–8; 16:18–20; 17:8–13).

• Worship: it regulated priesthood, sacrifice, purity, feasts, and sanctuary life (Exod. 25:1–31:18; Lev. 1:1–7:38; 11:1–15:33; 16:1–34; 23:1–44).

• Separation: it distinguished Israel from the surrounding nations (Lev. 18:1–5; 20:22–26; Deut. 7:1–6; 14:1–2).

• Preservation: it guarded the covenant people until the coming of Christ (Gal. 3:19, 23–25; 4:1–5).

• Typology: its sacrifices, priesthood, tabernacle, purity rites, and festivals pointed toward Christ (Col. 2:16–17; Heb. 8:1–5; 9:1–14; 10:1–14).

• Promise: it served the prior promise to Abraham rather than replacing it (Gen. 12:1–3; 15:1–6; 17:1–8; Gal. 3:15–18, 29; Rom. 4:13–17).

III. Galatians: The Law Reaches Its Goal in Christ

1. Antioch and the truth of the gospel: Galatians 2:11-21

The conflict at Antioch shows that the law question was inseparable from the fellowship and unity of the church. Peter, a Jew, had eaten with Gentile believers violating Jewish social expectations. When men associated with James arrived, he withdrew because he feared the circumcision party. 

Paul opposed Peter publicly because his conduct denied Chrisitandoctrine. Peter verbally confessed justification in Christ, yet his separation implied justification and covenant belonging through Jewish observance. Paul therefore restated the gospel with unusual force: a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ (Gal 2:16). “If righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose” (Gal 2:21).

The stakes are high and absolute. To make Mosaic observance a ground or condition of justification for Jew or Gentile empties the cross of its saving necessity. Christ does not supplement Moses. Christ fulfills the divine purpose to which Moses pointed.

Peter’s withdrawal from Gentile believers implied perhaps that Jewish Christians possessed a higher covenant standing unless Gentiles adopted Jewish customs. Paul’s rebuke therefore concerns more than table fellowship. It concerns the unity of the church itself. Justification by faith means that Jews and Gentiles stand before God on precisely the same basis. No ethnic group possesses greater covenant privilege because Christ himself has become the sole ground of acceptance before God.

2. The Spirit came through faith: Galatians 3:1-9

Paul asks the Galatians to remember how their Christian life began. It seems this section of Galatians is focused on the Jewish believers in the church. They received the Spirit by hearing with faith, not by works of the law. This appeal is experiential, historical, and theological. The gift of the Spirit is the mark of the new age. God had already authenticated Gentile believers by giving them the Spirit apart from circumcision.

Abraham confirms the point. He was a Gentile counted righteous through faith before Sinai and before circumcision functioned as a national boundary marker. Therefore, those of faith whether they be Jew or Gentile are the children of Abraham, and the blessing promised to the nations comes through Christ.

3. The curse and the cross: Galatians 3:10-14

The Law pronounces a curse upon everyone who fails to continue in all that it commands. Paul cites Deuteronomy 27:26: “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them” (Gal. 3:10). The force of the citation is comprehensive. The Law does not bless partial obedience or sincere effort. It requires continual, complete, and perfect obedience (cf. Deut. 28:15–68; Jas. 2:10). Because every person has sinned (Rom. 3:9–23), no one can obtain righteousness through the Law. The problem is not that the Law is sinful, for “the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good” (Rom. 7:12). Rather, the weakness lies in fallen humanity. As Paul explains elsewhere, “what the law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did” by sending his own Son (Rom. 8:3). Consequently, the Law reveals sin, condemns the sinner, and shuts every mouth before God, but it cannot justify the ungodly (Rom. 3:19–20; Gal. 2:16).

Christ accomplishes what the Law could never accomplish. Paul writes, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us” (Gal. 3:13). He grounds this statement in Deuteronomy 21:22–23: “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.” Jesus did not become personally sinful or deserving of God’s judgment. Rather, in his representative and substitutionary death, he bore the covenant curse that the Law pronounced against sinners (Isa. 53:4–6; 2 Cor. 5:21; 1 Pet. 2:24). The curse fell upon the obedient Son so that those united to him by faith might be released from its condemnation. Redemption therefore does not abolish God’s justice; it satisfies it through Christ’s atoning work.

Paul immediately states the twofold purpose of Christ’s redemptive death: “so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith” (Gal. 3:14). These two purposes belong together. The blessing promised to Abraham was always intended for “all the families of the earth” (Gen. 12:3; 18:18; 22:18). Christ fulfills that promise by removing the curse that excluded sinners from God’s covenant blessing. As a result, Gentiles are incorporated into the people of God without becoming Jews or placing themselves under the Mosaic covenant (Gal. 3:7–9, 26–29; Eph. 2:11–22).

The gift of the Holy Spirit demonstrates that this blessing has arrived. Earlier in the chapter Paul reminds the Galatians that they received the Spirit not “by works of the law” but “by hearing with faith” (Gal. 3:2, 5). The Spirit is pictured as blessing of the New Covenant that was superior to that which the OT saints experienced, promised by the prophets (Isa. 44:3; Ezek. 36:25–27; Joel 2:28–29) and poured out through the exalted Christ (Acts 2:16–39). Therefore, the reception of the Spirit is God’s own testimony that believers have entered the blessings promised to Abraham apart from the works of the Law. Justification, adoption, and the indwelling Spirit all come through union with Christ and are received through faith rather than through observance of the Mosaic covenant (Rom. 8:1–17; Gal. 4:4–7).

Paul’s argument is that the Law demands perfect obedience and pronounces a curse upon every transgressor. Since all have sinned, the Law cannot be the means of justification. Christ bears the curse of the Law in the place of his people, redeeming them from its condemnation. Through his death and resurrection, the Abrahamic promise reaches both Jew and Gentile alike, and all who believe receive the promised Holy Spirit as the sign and seal of the blessings of the New Covenant. The Law drives sinners to Christ, while Christ accomplishes what the Law anticipated but could never itself provide: righteousness, redemption, and the gift of the Spirit.

4. Promise precedes law: Galatians 3:15-18

The Law arrived 430 years after God’s promise to Abraham (Gal. 3:17). Paul appeals to this chronology to demonstrate that the Mosaic covenant cannot annul or modify the earlier covenant of promise. Just as a legally ratified covenant cannot be set aside or altered, God’s promise to Abraham remained firm despite the later giving of the Law (Gal. 3:15–17). If the inheritance depended upon obedience to the Mosaic Law, it would cease to be a gracious promise and would instead become a wage earned by human performance. Paul therefore concludes, “If the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise” (Gal. 3:18). The inheritance rests upon God’s faithfulness rather than human achievement (cf. Rom. 4:13–16). The Mosaic covenant was never intended to replace or nullify the Abrahamic promise. Rather, it served the promise by preserving God’s covenant people, revealing sin, and preparing the way for the promised Seed, Jesus Christ (Gal. 3:19, 24). The Law functioned within God’s redemptive plan, but the promise remained primary. Christ therefore fulfills the promise made to Abraham, and all who belong to Christ become Abraham’s offspring and heirs according to that promise (Gal. 3:16, 29).

5. Why then the law? Galatians 3:19-25

Paul answers that the law was added because of transgressions until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made. The word “until” reveals a temporal limit. The law was ordained for a definite redemptive-historical purpose. It functioned as a guardian until Christ.

The guardian metaphor describes supervision during minority. A guardian has genuine authority for a time, but the arrangement is not permanent. Once faith or the Christian era has come in its climactic, Christ-centered form, believers are no longer under the guardian of the Mosaic Law. “Now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian” (Gal 3:25).

6. One family in Christ: Galatians 3:26-29

Faith and baptism mark believers as sons of God in Christ. Paul declares, “For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith” (Gal. 3:26), immediately adding, “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (Gal. 3:27). Faith is the means by which believers are united to Christ, and baptism is the God-appointed act that publicly signifies and seals that union. To be “clothed with Christ” is to receive a new covenant identity grounded in his righteousness and life rather than in ethnic lineage or observance of the Mosaic Law (cf. Rom. 6:3–5; Col. 2:11–13). Paul is not contrasting faith and baptism as competing realities but presenting them together as belonging to conversion into Christ. Through faith believers receive Christ, and in baptism they confess and visibly enter into that new identity.

Paul’s declaration, “There is neither Jew nor Greek” (Gal. 3:28), is one of the climactic affirmations of the epistle. He is not erasing ethnic distinctions or denying Israel’s historical role in redemption. Jews remain Jews and Gentiles remain Gentiles (cf. Rom. 9:1–5; 11:1). Rather, Paul declares that ethnic identity no longer determines covenant standing before God. Under the Mosaic covenant, Israel alone possessed the Law, circumcision, temple worship, and the covenant promises (Rom. 9:4–5). Under the New Covenant, every believer possesses full covenant membership through union with Christ. No believer enters God’s family by becoming ethnically Jewish. Every believer enters by belonging to Christ.

This fulfills God’s promise to Abraham that all nations would be blessed in his offspring (Gen. 12:3; Gal. 3:8, 16). The church therefore is not divided into Jewish Christians with greater covenant privileges and Gentile Christians with lesser privileges. Together they form one people, one body, one household of God (Eph. 2:11–22).

This new identity transforms the covenant structure of God’s people. Paul therefore concludes, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28). He is not denying the continued existence of ethnic, social, or sexual distinctions. Elsewhere Paul continues to speak of Jews and Gentiles (Rom. 9:1–5; 11:1), addresses slaves and free persons (Eph. 6:5–9), and recognizes the distinct callings of men and women within the church and family (Eph. 5:22–33). Rather, he is declaring that these distinctions no longer establish differing levels of covenant privilege or access to God. Under the Mosaic covenant, Israel possessed unique covenant blessings, including “the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises” (Rom. 9:4). In the New Covenant, however, every believer stands on equal footing before God through union with Christ.

Consequently, ethnic identity remains a genuine aspect of God’s created order and redemptive history, but covenant status is no longer determined by descent from Abraham according to the flesh or by possession of the Mosaic Law. It is determined by union with Abraham’s true Seed, Jesus Christ (Gal. 3:16). Paul therefore concludes, “If you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise” (Gal. 3:29). The boundary of God’s people is no longer circumcision, food laws, or other covenant markers that distinguished Israel from the nations. The decisive question is whether one belongs to Christ. In him, both Jewish and Gentile believers inherit the same promises, receive the same Spirit, and enjoy the same standing as sons and heirs of God (Eph. 2:11–22; Rom. 8:14–17).

7. From slavery to sonship: Galatians 4:1-11

Paul compares life under the former covenant to the condition of an heir during minority. The heir is truly destined to inherit, yetremains under guardians and managers until the appointed time. God sent his Son in the fullness of time, born under the law, to redeem those under the law so that they might receive adoption. The Spirit of the Son now cries “Abba, Father” in believers.

Returning to the law as covenant obligation would therefore be a movement backward from maturity to minority, from inheritance to guardianship, and from sonship to servitude.

8. Hagar and Sarah: Galatians 4:21-31

Paul contrasts two covenantal principles through the figures of Hagar and Sarah (Gal. 4:21–31). Hagar, the slave woman, corresponds to Mount Sinai and the covenant that “bears children for slavery” (Gal. 4:24–25). Sarah, the free woman, corresponds to the promise of God and “the Jerusalem above,” who is “free, and she is our mother” (Gal. 4:26). Paul’s argument is not an attack on the goodness of the Law itself, but a redemptive-historical contrast between the old covenant centered at Sinai and the new covenant established through Christ. The Law was a temporary covenant that governed Israel until the coming of the promised Seed (Gal. 3:19–25). To remain under Sinai after the coming of Christ is to remain under a covenant whose preparatory purpose has reached its fulfillment.

Paul’s argument is also deeply polemical because his opponents claimed that covenant inheritance depended upon embracing the Mosaic Law. Against this claim, Paul demonstrates that physical descent from Abraham and possession of the Sinai covenant do not guarantee participation in God’s inheritance. Abraham himself had two sons, yet only Isaac, the son born according to God’s promise, inherited the covenant blessing (Gen. 17:15–21; 21:1–12). Ishmael was indeed Abraham’s physical descendant, but he was not the child through whom the covenant promise would continue. Paul sees in this history a divinely intended pattern that distinguishes natural descent from covenant inheritance.

Applying this pattern to the church, Paul concludes, “Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise” (Gal. 4:28). The true heirs of Abraham are therefore identified not by physical lineage, circumcision, or membership in the Mosaic covenant, but by God’s promise fulfilled in Christ. This conclusion echoes Paul’s earlier argument that “if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise” (Gal. 3:29). The inheritance belongs to those who are united to Christ, Abraham’s singular Seed (Gal. 3:16), whether Jew or Gentile. Paul’s allegory therefore reinforces the central argument of Galatians: the people of God are constituted by divine promise fulfilled in Christ rather than by the covenant established at Sinai. The church inherits the promises made to Abraham because those promises have reached their fulfillment in the Messiah, who creates a free people living in the liberty of the New Covenant rather than under the guardianship of the old.

9. Freedom and circumcision: Galatians 5:1-12

Circumcision could be practiced as an ethnic custom, as Paul’s treatment of Timothy shows. Yet circumcision received as a covenantal requirement changes its meaning. A Gentile who accepts circumcision as necessary for standing before God becomes obligated to keep the whole law and abandons the sufficiency of Christ. “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love” (Gal 5:6).

10. Life in the Spirit: Galatians 5:13-26

Freedom from the Mosaic covenant does not create moral chaos. Christian liberty serves love. The whole law finds its ethical concentration in the command to love one’s neighbor. The Spirit produces the character the law could command but could not create. The fruit of the Spirit is therefore the moral form of new-covenant life.

11. The new creation: Galatians 6:11-16

Paul concludes by relativizing both circumcision and uncircumcision. Neither Jewish status nor Gentile status defines the people of God. What matters is new creation, produced through union with the crucified Christ and the gift of the Spirit.

IV. Acts: Jewish Practice and Gentile Freedom in the Early Church

1. The earliest believers remained deeply Jewish

The church began within Israel. Jesus, the apostles, and the earliest disciples were Jews. Their Scriptures were Israel’s Scriptures. They prayed at Jewish hours, entered the temple, attended synagogues, observed customary rhythms, and continued family practices. The appearance of Jewish forms in Acts should therefore cause no surprise.

The decisive question is how these practices functioned after Christ. Did they remain necessary covenant obligations for all believers, or could they continue voluntarily among Jewish Christians while Gentiles entered the people of God apart from them? Acts consistently supports the second answer.

2. Temple attendance and Jewish hours of prayer

The Jerusalem believers met in the temple courts (Acts 2:46). Peter and John went to the temple at the hour of prayer (Acts 3:1). The temple remained the central public gathering place in Jerusalem and provided a natural setting for witness. Continued attendance did not imply that the Levitical sacrifices remained sufficient for atonement. The apostles proclaimed that forgiveness and life came through the crucified and risen Jesus.

The early Christians lived during a historical overlap. Christ had inaugurated the new covenant, while the temple still stood until AD 70. Jewish believers could enter the temple for prayer, public teaching, and mission even though the sacrificial system had reached its theological fulfillment in Christ.

3. Stephen and the widening conflict

Stephen’s speech in Acts 7 challenged any attempt to confine God’s presence to the temple or to identify faithfulness with resistance to God’s messengers. His death revealed the growing separation between the church’s Christ-centered reading of Israel’s story and leaders who rejected Jesus. The issue was not contempt for Israel. It was the fulfillment of Israel’s hope in the Righteous One.

4. Cornelius and divine initiative: Acts 10-11

Peter’s vision and the conversion of Cornelius mark a decisive turning point. Peter initially resisted eating foods considered unclean. God taught him that the cleansing signified the acceptance of Gentiles. The Spirit fell upon Cornelius and his household before circumcision and without conversion to Judaism. God himself demonstrated that Gentiles could enter the messianic people as Gentiles. “What God has made clean, do not call common” (Acts 10:15).

Peter’s conclusion concerns people as well as food: God shows no partiality, and those who fear him and receive Christ are accepted. The gift of the Spirit became the decisive evidence that God had granted repentance unto life to the Gentiles (Acts 11:15-18).

5. The Jerusalem Council: Acts 15

The presenting claim was direct: “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” The apostles and elders rejected this teaching. Peter reminded the assembly that God gave the Holy Spirit to Gentiles and cleansed their hearts by faith. He warned against placing upon Gentile disciples a yoke that neither previous generations nor the apostles had been able to bear. “We believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will” (Acts 15:11).

The council’s letter did not require circumcision or full Torah observance. It asked Gentile believers to abstain from idolatrous pollution, sexual immorality, things strangled, and blood. These instructions separated converts from pagan worship and facilitated table fellowship with Jewish Christians. Whatever one’s precise interpretation of each item, the letter explicitly refuses to make Gentiles live as Jews in order to belong to Christ.

The central issue before the apostles was not simply circumcision but the identity of the people of God. Must Gentiles become Jews in order to belong to God’s covenant family? Peter answers that both Jews and Gentiles are saved “through the grace of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 15:11). James concludes that Gentiles should not be burdened with the Mosaic Law (Acts 15:19–21). The council therefore recognizes one church composed of Jew and Gentile together, not two covenant communities with different terms of membership.

 

6. Timothy and Titus: the meaning of a practice depends on its theological use

Paul circumcised Timothy because Timothy had a Jewish mother and would accompany Paul in Jewish mission settings (Acts 16:1-3). This was a voluntary missionary accommodation. Paul refused to circumcise Titus because false brothers demanded circumcision as a requirement of gospel freedom and full membership (Gal 2:3-5).

The contrast gives a governing principle: a Jewish practice may be used freely for love, family, culture, or mission. The same practice must be resisted when imposed as necessary for justification or covenant standing.

7. Paul’s vows and purification rites

Acts records Paul cutting his hair because of a vow (Acts 18:18) and participating in purification with Jewish believers in Jerusalem (Acts 21:20-26). These actions show that Paul did not teach Jewish Christians to despise their ancestry or erase every traditional practice. His participation should be interpreted in harmony with his letters. He could observe customs voluntarily while denying that he stood under the Mosaic law as the covenant of justification and identity.

Acts 21 also demonstrates the pastoral complexity of the transition. Thousands of Jewish believers remained zealous for the law. James sought to prevent unnecessary scandal. Paul accepted a course of action designed to show that he did not forbid Jewish believers from living as Jews. Yet the same passage explicitly recalls the earlier decision concerning Gentiles: they were not placed under the Mosaic law.

V. Paul’s Missionary Principle: Freedom for the Sake of Love

1 Corinthians 9:19-23

Paul interprets his own behavior through missionary freedom. To Jews he became as a Jew. To those under the law he became as one under the law, while immediately clarifying that he was not himself under the law. To those outside the law he became as one outside the law, while clarifying that he was not outside God’s law but under Christ’s law.

This passage keeps several truths together:

• Paul no longer regarded himself as covenantally under Moses.

• Paul remained morally accountable to God under Christ.

• Paul could adopt Jewish patterns when doing so advanced the gospel.

• Paul could live among Gentiles without adopting Jewish boundary markers.

• Christian freedom is governed by love, mission, holiness, and the lordship of Christ.

VI. Romans: Christ, Law, Grace, and the Spirit

1. All stand condemned: Romans 1-3

Gentiles sin without possessing the written law, and Jews sin while possessing it. The law gives knowledge of sin but does not provide a ground for boasting. Justification is God’s gift through the redemption in Christ Jesus. God is therefore the God of Jews and Gentiles, justifying both through faith.

2. Abraham before circumcision: Romans 4

Abraham was counted righteous before circumcision. Circumcision became a sign and seal of the righteousness he had by faith. Paul uses Abraham to prove that Gentiles can become his children through faith without first becoming Jews.

3. Not under law but under grace: Romans 6:14-15

Paul’s statement concerns covenantal dominion. Sin will not rule believers because they stand under grace rather than under law. He immediately rejects the inference that grace permits sin. Freedom from the Mosaic covenant places believers under a new master, righteousness, and a new pattern of obedience from the heart.

4. The law and the sinful flesh: Romans 7

The law is spiritual and good, but sin seizes the commandment and produces death. The problem lies in fallen humanity. The commandment reveals and intensifies the crisis of sin, yet cannot liberate the captive sinner. Deliverance comes through Jesus Christ and the Spirit.

5. What the law could not do: Romans 8:1-4

God accomplished through the sending of his Son what the law could not accomplish because of human flesh. The righteous requirement of the law is fulfilled in those who walk according to the Spirit. This fulfillment is neither justification by Torah observance nor antinomianism. It is the Spirit-produced obedience of those united to Christ.

6. Christ is the goal of the law: Romans 10:4

Paul declares that Christ is the telos of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. The term can convey goal, culmination, completion, and end. Christ is the destination toward which the law moved. In him, its saving-historical purpose reaches completion, and righteousness is received through faith.

7. Disputable days and foods: Romans 14-15

Some Roman Christians observed particular days and avoided certain foods. Others regarded all foods alike and every day as suitable. Paul did not require uniformity in voluntary practice. He commanded both groups to honor the Lord, refuse contempt, avoid judgment, and pursue peace.

Romans 14 is particularly important for Jewish-Gentile relations. A Jewish Christian might continue food restrictions or calendar observance as a matter of conscience. A Gentile Christian need not adopt them. Neither practice establishes superiority. The kingdom of God consists in righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.

VII. Hebrews: Fulfillment of Sacrifice, Priesthood, and Covenant

1. The Son is greater

Hebrews presents Christ as the fulfillment and surpassing reality to which the former covenant pointed. He is greater than angels, Moses, Joshua, Aaron, and the Levitical priesthood. The argument honors the old covenant by showing its intended movement toward the Son.

2. A change of priesthood entails a change of law

“When there is a change in the priesthood, there is necessarily a change in the law as well” (Heb 7:12). Jesus belongs to Judah rather than Levi and serves as priest according to the order of Melchizedek. His indestructible life establishes a superior priesthood. The former commandment is set aside because of its weakness and uselessness with respect to perfection, while a better hope is introduced through which believers draw near to God.

3. A better covenant

Hebrews 8 quotes Jeremiah’s promise of a new covenant. By speaking of a new covenant, Scripture made the first obsolete and aging. The new covenant writes God’s laws upon the heart, brings definitive knowledge of God, and grants final forgiveness.

4. One sacrifice for sins

Animal sacrifices could never perfect the conscience or finally remove sin. Christ entered the heavenly sanctuary by his own blood and offered himself once for all. His single sacrifice perfects those who are being sanctified. Christians therefore do not return to the Levitical sacrificial system as though Christ’s work required completion.

VIII. Christ Creates One New Humanity

Ephesians 2:11–22

Paul’s argument in Ephesians 2 explains the ecclesiological implications of the gospel proclaimed in Galatians. Galatians answers the question, “How is a sinner justified before God?” Ephesians answers the related question, “What kind of people has Christ created through his saving work?” The answer is that Christ has not merely saved individual Jews and Gentiles. He has united them into one covenant people by removing the barriers established under the Mosaic covenant. The passage therefore moves from alienation to reconciliation, from separation to unity, and from two covenant communities to one new humanity in Christ.

Before Christ, Gentiles occupied a position of covenant distance. Paul reminds his readers that they were “at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world” (Eph. 2:12). This separation was not merely social or political. It was covenantal. Israel alone had received the Law, the temple worship, the priesthood, the sacrificial system, and the covenant promises (cf. Rom. 9:4–5). Gentiles lived outside these covenant privileges and therefore outside the visible administration of God’s redemptive economy. Their exclusion demonstrates that the Mosaic covenant established real distinctions between Israel and the nations.

Everything changes through the work of Christ. Paul announces, “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ” (Eph. 2:13). The movement from “far off” to “near” echoes the prophetic promise that God would extend peace to both Israel and the nations (Isa. 57:19). Access to God no longer comes through Israel’s covenant institutions but through the crucified and risen Messiah. Christ’s blood accomplishes what the Mosaic covenant anticipated but could never fully secure: lasting reconciliation between sinners and God.

Paul then identifies Christ himself as the source of this reconciliation. “For he himself is our peace” (Eph. 2:14). Peace is not merely one of Christ’s gifts; it is the result of his reconciling work. Through his death, Christ “has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility” (Eph. 2:14). The language recalls the barrier in the Jerusalem temple that marked the boundary beyond which Gentiles could not pass under penalty of death. More fundamentally, however, the dividing wall symbolizes the covenant distinctions established through the Mosaic Law. Circumcision, food laws, ritual purity regulations, sacrificial worship, and Israel’s distinctive covenant obligations all marked Israel as separate from the nations. These ordinances faithfully served God’s purposes during the administration of the old covenant, but they also functioned as boundaries separating Jew and Gentile.

Paul explains how this barrier was removed: Christ acted “by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances” (Eph. 2:15). The context indicates that Paul is speaking specifically of the Mosaic covenant as a body of covenantal ordinances that distinguished Israel from the nations. He is not declaring that God’s moral character has changed or that righteousness has ceased to matter. Elsewhere Paul affirms that “the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good” (Rom. 7:12). Rather, the covenantal administration centered at Sinai has reached its appointed fulfillment in Christ. The ceremonial and covenantal regulations that once defined the people of God no longer govern access to him because Christ has fulfilled their purpose (cf. Col. 2:16–17; Heb. 8:13; 10:1).

The purpose of removing this dividing wall is: “that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace” (Eph. 2:15). This is one of Paul’s most significant ecclesiological statements. Christ does not preserve two covenant peoples, one Jewish and one Gentile, each possessing separate covenant responsibilities and privileges. Neither does he require Gentiles to become Jews through circumcision and observance of the Mosaic Law. Instead, he creates an entirely new covenant community united in himself. The expression “one new man” refers to a new corporate humanity whose identity is union with Christ rather than ethnicity or possession of the Mosaic covenant. Jewish believers remain ethnically Jewish, and Gentile believers remain ethnically Gentile, yet these distinctions do not determine covenant standing before God. The dividing line has shifted from ethnicity to relationship with Christ.

Paul continues, “and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility” (Eph. 2:16). The reconciliation accomplished by Christ is vertical before it is horizontal. Jews and Gentiles are first reconciled to God through the cross, and because both stand before God on the same gracious basis, they are also reconciled to one another. The cross therefore removes both forms of hostility: humanity’s alienation from God and the covenantal division between Jew and Gentile. There is one Savior, one atoning sacrifice, one faith, and consequently one redeemed people.

This unity is further emphasized as Paul describes Christ proclaiming peace “to you who were far off and peace to those who were near” (Eph. 2:17). Gentiles were “far off,” while Jews were “near” because they possessed the covenants, temple, priesthood, and promises. Yet both groups now hear the same gospel and receive the same access to the Father. Paul concludes, “For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father” (Eph. 2:18). The entire Trinity is active in this work of reconciliation: access comes through the Son, in the Spirit, to the Father. There are not two covenant paths or two levels of access. Every believer approaches God through the same Mediator and by the same Spirit.

The result is a complete redefinition of covenant identity. “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God” (Eph. 2:19). Gentiles become full members of God’s household alongside believing Jews. Paul concludes with the imagery of a temple. The church is “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone” (Eph. 2:20). The old temple, with its courts and barriers separating Jew from Gentile, gives way to a living temple composed of believers from every nation. “In him the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord” (Eph. 2:21). The people themselves have become God’s dwelling place: “In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit” (Eph. 2:22). God’s presence is no longer localized within the sanctuary of the old covenant but dwells among his united people through the Holy Spirit.

Ephesians 2 therefore provides the ecclesiological counterpart to Paul’s argument in Galatians. Galatians teaches that justification comes through faith apart from the works of the Mosaic Law. Ephesians shows the result of that justification: Christ has created one redeemed humanity in which Jew and Gentile possess equal standing before God. The Mosaic covenant once distinguished Israel from the nations as part of God’s unfolding plan of redemption. With the coming of Christ, those covenantal barriers have fulfilled their purpose. The mark of God’s people is no longer circumcision, possession of the Law, or descent from Abraham according to the flesh. It is union with Christ, who has reconciled both Jew and Gentile into one body, one household, one temple, and one new humanity through his cross.

 

IX. Jewish Christians after Christ

1. Jewish identity was not sinful

The gospel did not require Jewish believers to renounce ethnicity, family heritage, language, or every ancestral custom. Paul remained a Jew and could speak positively of Israel’s privileges (Rom 9:1-5). He loved his people and adapted himself to Jewish audiences. The new covenant does not erase created or historical differences. It removes those differences as grounds of covenant privilege and superiority.

2. Practices Jewish Christians could continue voluntarily

Depending upon circumstance and conscience, Jewish believers could continue activities such as:

• Attending synagogue or temple settings for prayer and study while they remained accessible (Acts 2:46; 3:1; 5:42; 13:14–15; 17:1–2; 18:4).

• Observing Jewish feast days as remembrance or family custom (Acts 20:16; 1 Cor. 16:8; cf. John 7:2, 10, 37; Acts 2:1). 

• Following dietary practices as a matter of conscience (Rom. 14:2–6, 14–23; 1 Cor. 8:1–13; 10:23–33).

• Circumcising children as an ethnic and family custom rather than a saving ordinance (Acts 16:1–3; Gal. 5:6; 6:15; 1 Cor. 7:18–19).

• Keeping vows or participating in customary purification practices (Acts 18:18; 21:20–26).

• Using Jewish forms of prayer and patterns of daily devotion (Acts 2:42; 3:1; 10:9; 16:13; 1 Thess. 5:17).

Such practices became incompatible with the gospel whenever they were treated as necessary for justification, imposed upon believers, used to deny fellowship, or trusted as a means of attaining covenant status.

Although many Jewish Christians continued aspects of their ancestral way of life, the New Testament consistently teaches that they were not obligated to remain under the Mosaic covenant as a covenantal requirement before God. The Jerusalem Council addressed this controversy concerned whether Gentiles must be circumcised, Peter grounded the council’s decision in a principle that applied equally to Jewish believers: “We believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will” (Acts 15:11). Salvation was no longer mediated through the covenant established at Sinai but through Christ alone. Paul likewise teaches that Jewish believers have “died to the law through the body of Christ” so that they might “belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead” (Rom. 7:4). He includes himself in this statement, demonstrating that believing Jews as well as Gentiles have been released from the covenantal authority of the Mosaic Law. He later concludes, “But 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 and not in the old way of the written code” (Rom. 7:6).

Paul makes this point even more explicitly in his own life. Although he willingly observed certain Jewish customs for the sake of evangelism, he carefully distinguishes voluntary practice from covenant obligation. He explains, “To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) … that I might win those under the law” (1 Cor. 9:20). Paul, a Jewish apostle, expressly denies that he himself remains under the Mosaic Law, even while accommodating Jewish customs to remove unnecessary obstacles to the gospel. Instead, he describes himself as “under the law of Christ” (1 Cor. 9:21), indicating that the believer’s covenant obligation is now defined by union with Christ rather than by the legislation given at Sinai.

The Epistle to the Hebrews reaches the same conclusion by demonstrating that Christ’s priesthood has inaugurated a new covenant. “When there is a change in the priesthood, there is necessarily a change in the law as well” (Heb. 7:12). Christ is the mediator of “a better covenant” (Heb. 8:6), and by establishing this new covenant “he makes the first one obsolete” (Heb. 8:13). The sacrificial system, Levitical priesthood, and sanctuary regulations have reached their fulfillment in Christ’s once-for-all sacrifice (Heb. 9:11–14; 10:1–18). Consequently, Jewish believers were no longer required to maintain the Mosaic covenant as a divine obligation, because its purpose had been fulfilled in the Messiah.

This distinction is essential for interpreting the book of Acts. Jewish Christians often continued circumcision, feast observance, temple attendance, vows, and other ancestral customs as matters of conscience, heritage, family identity, or missionary wisdom (Acts 2:46; 3:1; 18:18; 21:20–26). Yet these practices were no longer covenant obligations required for justification or covenant membership. Their standing before God rested on the same foundation as that of Gentile believers: union with Christ through faith, participation in the New Covenant, and the indwelling Holy Spirit (Gal. 3:26–29; Eph. 2:11–22). The question was therefore no longer, “Does this believer keep the Law of Moses?” but “Does this believer belong to Christ?” (Gal. 3:29).

 

3. Jewish believers were called to recognize Gentile equality

The more difficult command for many Jewish Christians was not permission to retain customs but the demand to receive uncircumcised Gentiles as full brothers and sisters. Peter’s vision, Cornelius’s conversion, the Jerusalem Council, and Paul’s letters all press this point. God had cleansed Gentiles through faith and given them the same Spirit. Jewish Christians could not require Gentiles to pass through Moses to reach Christ.

IX. Gentile Christians after Christ

1. Gentiles were not required to become Jews

The apostolic decision is clear: Gentile believers did not need circumcision, proselyte conversion, food laws, Jewish calendar observance, or the full Mosaic covenant in order to be saved. They entered Abraham’s family through faith in Christ and received the Spirit as Gentiles.

2. Gentile freedom did not permit paganism

Freedom from Moses was never freedom to retain idolatry, sexual immorality, exploitation, drunkenness, hatred, or injustice. The apostles commanded Gentile believers to abandon pagan worship and submit to the teaching of Christ. The new covenant has commands, discipline, worship, moral expectations, and communal responsibilities.

3. Gentiles must not despise Jewish believers

Paul’s warnings in Romans 11 and 14 restrain Gentile arrogance. Gentile believers were grafted into the rich root of God’s promises. They must not boast over Jewish branches or mock Jewish consciences. Grace produces humility.

X. Continuity and Discontinuity

What continues?

• The one God of Israel remains the God and Father of Jesus Christ.

• The Old Testament remains Christian Scripture.

• The moral character of God remains unchanged.

• Love for God and neighbor remains the summary of faithful obedience.

• The law continues to reveal sin and instruct the church when read through Christ.

• The promises to Abraham reach the nations through Christ.

• The holiness anticipated in Israel is realized through the Spirit in the church.

What changes?

• The Mosaic covenant no longer defines the people of God.

• Circumcision is no longer the covenant boundary marker.

• Food laws no longer divide clean people from unclean peoples.

• The Levitical priesthood is fulfilled in Christ’s priesthood.

• Animal sacrifices are fulfilled in Christ’s once-for-all offering.

• The earthly sanctuary is surpassed by Christ’s heavenly ministry and the Spirit-indwelt people.

• Jewish calendar observance cannot be imposed upon the church.

• Gentiles enter God’s people through Christ without becoming Jews.

XI. Common Errors to Avoid

1. Treating the Old Testament as worthless

The Mosaic law is fulfilled, not discarded as meaningless. Christians read it as divine Scripture that reveals God, exposes sin, teaches wisdom, and points to Christ. Its covenantal form has reached completion, but its revelatory and typological value remains.

2. Dividing the law too mechanically

The moral, ceremonial, and civil distinction can be useful, but Scripture often treats the covenant as a whole. Christian moral reasoning must therefore ask how a command is fulfilled and transformed in Christ rather than simply assigning it to a category.

3. Assuming every Jewish practice is legalism

A Jewish believer may observe a feast, avoid certain foods, or circumcise a son without trusting these practices for justification. Legalism lies in the theological use of the practice, especially when it becomes a ground of righteousness or a test of fellowship.

4. Assuming freedom means moral autonomy

Christians are free from the Mosaic covenant, sin’s dominion, condemnation, and humanly imposed conditions of justification. They are not free from Christ. Christian freedom is the Spirit-given capacity to love and obey God.

5. Reading Acts without recognizing transition

Acts records the church moving from a Jewish center in Jerusalem to a Jew-Gentile mission throughout the nations. Some practices reflect this transitional setting. Doctrine should be formed by reading Acts together with the apostolic explanations in Galatians, Romans, Corinthians, and Hebrews.

XII. A Theological Synthesis

1. The law within the works of God

God gave the law from his wisdom and holiness. It belongs to the ordered history by which God prepared for the incarnation. The law named the disease, guarded the people, shaped the symbols, and cultivated the hope that Christ would fulfill.

2. Christ fulfills the law personally and redemptively

Jesus was born under the law, obeyed the Father, fulfilled righteousness, bore the curse, embodied the true temple, offered the final sacrifice, and established the new covenant in his blood. The law reaches its theological center in his person and work.

3. The Spirit creates the obedience the law anticipated

The new covenant does not lower God’s holiness. It gives the Spirit, writes God’s will upon the heart, unites believers to Christ, and produces love. The righteousness anticipated by the law takes communal and personal form through the Spirit.

4. The church is one people from Jews and Gentiles

The church does not replace Israel through ethnic contempt, nor does it divide into two saving peoples governed by two covenants. In Christ, believing Jews and Gentiles become one body, one temple, one new humanity, and one family of Abraham. Their different histories remain, but their access to God, justification, inheritance, and Spirit are shared.

XIII. Practical Implications for the Church

1. Teach the Old Testament as Christian Scripture that reaches its goal in Christ.

2. Refuse every attempt to add ethnic, ceremonial, or cultural requirements to the gospel.

3. Make room for voluntary practices governed by conscience and love.

4. Distinguish personal devotion from conditions of church fellowship.

5. Receive Jewish believers without demanding cultural erasure.

6. Receive Gentile believers without demanding Jewish conversion.

7. Pursue table fellowship as a visible expression of justification by faith.

8. Teach holiness through union with Christ and the work of the Spirit.

9. Let love, rather than superiority, govern disagreement over days and foods.

10. Center the identity of the church in Christ, baptism, faith, the Spirit, and new creation.

Conclusion

The law came from God, revealed his holiness, governed Israel, exposed sin, and prepared for Christ. It could not justify sinners, give the Spirit, perfect the conscience, or create the promised inheritance. Christ accomplished what the law anticipated. He obeyed under the law, bore its curse, fulfilled its types, offered the final sacrifice, established the new covenant, and poured out the Spirit.

Jewish Christians therefore did not need to despise their heritage or immediately abandon every ancestral custom. They could attend Jewish settings, observe days, retain food practices, circumcise their children, or participate in customary rites when these actions served family, conscience, peace, and mission. Yet they could never make such practices conditions of justification, salvation, or full fellowship. Gentile Christians entered the people of God through faith in Christ and the gift of the Spirit without becoming Jews. They were called to holiness under the law of Christ, while also refusing arrogance toward Jewish believers.

The church’s unity rests in a shared Lord rather than a shared ethnicity. Its righteousness comes through faith rather than works of the law. Its holiness arises from the Spirit rather than the flesh. The mark of a Christian is neither circumcision nor uncircumcision, but new creation. The law has therefore reached its goal in Christ, and all who belong to Christ are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise, and members of one redeemed family.

 

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