What about the moral law? Done away with?
J.
I have the book and have read it…but need to read it at least 5 times to grasp some of it…
You can use C.A. Carson as well.
J.
For myself I believe in Christ there is no law.
Nor under the OC directed to the flesh that from our direct abilities we could fill.
I believe what He is talking about is natural laws.
Hence if you are good…good breeds good….And if you are bad inwardly bad leads to bad.
Like the natural way the seed of an apple grows to bear apples. So if first the inside is made good then its fruit will be. Hence How do you think on doing evil if you are good.
Or maybe…
Romans
Imperative: “Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law” (Romans 13:8).
OT Root: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18). Paul explicitly cites this command, showing that love is the fulfillment of the Law.
Imperative: “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh” (Romans 13:14).
OT Root: “You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy” (Leviticus 19:2). Paul echoes the call to holiness, now realized in Christ.
1 Corinthians
Imperative: “Flee from sexual immorality” (1 Corinthians 6:18).
OT Root: “You shall not commit adultery” (Exodus 20:14). Paul applies the seventh commandment directly to the Corinthian context.
Imperative: “Glorify God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:20).
OT Root: “So you shall keep my commandments and do them: I am the LORD” (Leviticus 22:31). Both stress obedience expressed in the body and life.
Galatians
Imperative: “Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16).
OT Root: “I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes” (Ezekiel 36:27). Paul sees the Spirit as the fulfillment of God’s promise to enable obedience.
Imperative: “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2).
OT Root: “You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor” (Deuteronomy 15:11). The law of Christ fulfills the compassion commanded in Torah.
Ephesians
Imperative: “Put off your old self… and put on the new self” (Ephesians 4:22–24).
OT Root: “Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed, and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit” (Ezekiel 18:31). Paul echoes the prophetic call to renewal.
Imperative: “Walk in love, as Christ loved us” (Ephesians 5:2).
OT Root: “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart” (Deuteronomy 6:5) and “love your neighbor” (Leviticus 19:18). Paul unites both commands in Christ’s example.
Colossians
Imperative: “Put to death what is earthly in you” (Colossians 3:5).
OT Root: “Put away the evil from your midst” (Deuteronomy 17:7). Paul intensifies the command, applying it inwardly to the believer’s heart.
Imperative: “Put on… compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience” (Colossians 3:12).
OT Root: “The LORD your God loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. Love the sojourner therefore” (Deuteronomy 10:18–19). Paul grounds Christian virtues in God’s own compassionate character.
1 Thessalonians
Imperative: “Abstain from sexual immorality” (1 Thessalonians 4:3).
OT Root: “You shall not commit adultery” (Exodus 20:14). Again, Paul reaffirms the seventh commandment.
Imperative: “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thessalonians 5:16–18).
OT Root: “Rejoice in the LORD always” (Psalm 32:11; Psalm 100:4). Paul draws on the Psalms’ imperatives of joy and thanksgiving.
The Pattern
Paul’s imperatives are not new laws but Spirit‑empowered applications of the Old Testament commands. He consistently:
Reaffirms the Ten Commandments (Romans 13, 1 Corinthians 6, 1 Thessalonians 4).
Draws on Leviticus and Deuteronomy for love, holiness, and compassion.
Echoes the prophets (Ezekiel, Jeremiah) about renewal and Spirit‑empowered obedience.
Thus…
Paul’s imperatives show continuity with the Old Testament moral law. The difference is covenantal: believers are not “under the Law” as a system of works, but the Law’s moral imperatives are fulfilled in Christ and written on the heart by the Spirit.
The OT commands remain, but they are now lived out in the new covenant as the “law of Christ.”
Make sense?
J.
I would agree with you that Paul insists believers are not “under the Law” as a covenant of works. Romans 6:14 says plainly, “You are not under law but under grace.” The Mosaic covenant, with its external commands and rituals, was indeed directed to the flesh and exposed human inability.
But Paul doesn’t reduce everything to natural cause and effect. He sees something deeper: the Law was holy, but powerless to change the heart. That’s why he says in Romans 8:3–4, “God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do… in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”
So yes, there is a principle that evil leads to corruption and good leads to blessing, that’s woven into creation itself. But Paul’s point is that true goodness cannot come from our natural abilities or simply from observing natural law. It comes from the Spirit writing God’s law on our hearts, fulfilling Jeremiah 31:33: “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts.” That’s why he calls it the “law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2). It’s not external regulation, nor merely natural cause and effect, but the Spirit’s inward transformation.
Think of Romans 13:8–10. Paul says love fulfills the law, and then he quotes the commandments: “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet.” He doesn’t abolish them; he shows that in Christ they are fulfilled through love. That’s more than natural law, it’s supernatural grace producing obedience from the heart.
So I’d say: you’re right that the Old Covenant law directed to the flesh is no longer binding, and you’re right that there is a natural moral order. But Paul’s imperatives go beyond that. They are Spirit‑empowered commands that fulfill the moral law inwardly, not abolish it. In Christ, we don’t live lawlessly; we live under grace, which produces obedience that natural law alone could never achieve.
You agree @Corlove13 ? Heck, I always want to type “Corvette”
J.
Thanks, Jonann, for helping to keep this discussion grounded in spiritual truth.
Yeshua said, in John 14:15,16, if you love me, you will keep my commands and I will ask the Father and He will give you another comforter the spirit of truth, to be with you forever.
The love Jesus, spoke about, is based on both love and obedience, both mercy and justice.
Jesus confirms also, John 15: 16, “I’ll paraphrase”, Yeshua is speaking, I have commissioned you to go and bare fruit, fruit that will last. Also, verse 17, this is what I command you: keep loving each other.
Shalom
1 Like
Johann,
Looks like you summed it up nicely.
And we are both learning @rstrats -correct?
J.
Johann,
”And we are both learning @rstrats -correct?”
Only what you think the Mosaic law is.
But I still haven’t learned what the penalty was/is that the Messiah experienced that would otherwise have to be experienced by us.
By the way, under your Moral Law category you mention the 10 commandments which would include the Sabbath. I think many would place it under your Ceremonial Law category.
Only the Ten Commandments were not given in isolation, but as the clearest summary of the moral law that reveals both the character of God and the condition of man, showing that under the law no man can obtain righteousness or secure his own salvation. For the law, though holy and good, does not save, but exposes, condemning both the sinner and the sin by bringing the knowledge of guilt before a holy God. Yet in the cross there is a greater work, for there sin is judged fully and finally in the person of Christ, so that the condemnation due to the sinner falls upon him, and those who are in him are no longer condemned. Therefore the law is not made void, but fulfilled, and all confidence in righteousness derived from the law is counted as nothing, as Paul the Apostle declares, for any righteousness sought apart from Christ is empty and cannot justify. The law remains as a witness to God’s holiness and man’s need, but salvation is found in Christ alone, who has accomplished what the law nor man could never do.
1 Like
@Steppingstone, this is a big subject, but I’ll try to summarize my understanding of it briefly. First, the Old Testament laws’ external forms as the old covenant have disappeared, since they were Israel’s national laws.
Second, Jesus has replaced the external forms of the laws of the OT with the internal principles or main ideas of the OT and NT, that Christians need to obey as God’s will for our lives.
Third, Jesus did not abolish the old covenant laws, but he fulfilled them with his perfect life, death, and resurrection.
Fourth, notice the following two passages which say what I have tried to summarize:
Mat 5:17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.
Mat 5:18 For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.
Mat 5:19 Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
Mat 5:20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
Col 2:13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses,
Col 2:14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.
Col 2:15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.
Col 2:16 Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath.
Fifth, the Apostle Paul categorically denies that our good works earn our salvation, but he says that after we receive God’s free gift of salvation, we must do good works following the principles of the Bible according to God’s power in us:
Eph 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,
Eph 2:9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
Eph 2:10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
2 Likes