The law

Torah, God's teaching

The Hebrew word, torah (תּוֹרָה), means first of all ‘instruction’. In Scripture it can name the five books of Moses (‘the Law and the Prophets’), the covenant law given at Sinai, or a single commandment; the New Testament's nomos (νόμος) is used in the same ways.

The law was given to a people already redeemed. Before any command, the Ten Commandments begin, "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery" (Exodus 20:2). So the psalmist sings, "The Law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul" (Psalm 19:7), and "Oh, how I love Your law!" (Psalm 119:97). Paul does not blame the law either:

So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good.

Romans 7:12

Jesus came not to abolish the law "but to fulfill" it (Matthew 5:17), and summed it up in the two commandments to love God and neighbour (Matthew 22:37-40). "Love is the fulfillment of the law" (Romans 13:10).

What the law does

But the law cannot justify a sinner. "Therefore no one will be justified in His sight by works of the law. For the law merely brings awareness of sin" (Romans 3:20). It "became our guardian to lead us to Christ" (Galatians 3:24). Of God's commandments Matthew Henry writes, "By them we discover our need of a Saviour; and then learn how to adorn his gospel." Matthew Henry

The Reformers gathered this into three uses of the law: a curb that restrains evil in society; a mirror that shows our sin and drives us to Christ; and a rule that teaches the regenerate the will of God. Calvin called the third the law's principal use Calvin, Institutes 2.7, and the Lutheran Formula of Concord confesses that the law remains a rule of life for believers Formula of Concord, art. 6. How the law is rightly distinguished from the gospel is the subject of law and gospel; the law written on every heart, of natural law.

Where the traditions differ

Christians explain differently which parts of the law of Moses still bind them. An old approach, set out by Thomas Aquinas and written into Reformed and Anglican confessions, divides the law into moral, ceremonial and civil Aquinas, Summa Theologiae. The sacrifices and purity rules are fulfilled in Christ and set aside; the judicial laws of Israel's state ended with it; the moral law, summed up in the Ten Commandments, remains.

The moral law doth forever bind all, as well justified persons as others, to the obedience thereof … Neither doth Christ in the gospel any way dissolve, but much strengthen, this obligation.

Westminster Confession 19.5

Wesley agrees: Christ came not to destroy "the moral law" Wesley. Lutherans affirm the third use, but because the law goes on exposing sin even in believers, they put the distinction between law and gospel first. Those who hold new covenant theology, and many dispensationalists, point out that Scripture does not divide the law in three; they hold that the whole law of Moses is fulfilled in Christ and that believers now live under "the law of Christ" (Galatians 6:2). Both sides agree that most of the moral teaching of the Ten Commandments is taught again in the New Testament.

The Catholic Church, following Aquinas, teaches that the old law of Moses prepared for the gospel, and that the new law is the grace of the Holy Spirit given through faith in Christ Catechism of the Catholic Church. Every tradition agrees that the law is holy and good, and that grace does not leave its people free to sin. See the lesson Law and covenant and Do Christians have to keep the Old Testament law?