How does the Old Testament Law apply to Christians?

How should you live once you've become a Christian? When reading Exodus 21, we see how God fleshes out the Ten Commandments that we looked at in Exodus 20 and He gives some more laws in this chapter. The big question to ask ourselves, as we read this long list of laws, is how does this apply to us? Exodus 21 says:

“These are the laws you are to set before them: “If you buy a Hebrew servant, he is to serve you for six years. But in the seventh year, he shall go free, without paying anything. If he comes alone, he is to go free alone; but if he has a wife when he comes, she is to go with him. If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the woman and her children shall belong to her master, and only the man shall go free. “But if the servant declares, ‘I love my master and my wife and children and do not want to go free,’ then his master must take him before the judges.[a] He shall take him to the door or the doorpost and pierce his ear with an awl. Then he will be his servant for life. “If a man sells his daughter as a servant, she is not to go free as male servants do. If she does not please the master who has selected her for himself, he must let her be redeemed. He has no right to sell her to foreigners, because he has broken faith with her. If he selects her for his son, he must grant her the rights of a daughter. If he marries another woman, he must not deprive the first one of her food, clothing and marital rights. If he does not provide her with these three things, she is to go free, without any payment of money. “Anyone who strikes a person with a fatal blow is to be put to death. However, if it is not done intentionally, but God lets it happen, they are to flee to a place I will designate. But if anyone schemes and kills someone deliberately, that person is to be taken from my altar and put to death. “Anyone who attacks[c] their father or mother is to be put to death. “Anyone who kidnaps someone is to be put to death, whether the victim has been sold or is still in the kidnapper’s possession. “Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death. “If people quarrel and one person hits another with a stone or with their fist and the victim does not die but is confined to bed, the one who struck the blow will not be held liable if the other can get up and walk around outside with a staff; however, the guilty party must pay the injured person for any loss of time and see that the victim is completely healed. “Anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod must be punished if the slave dies as a direct result, but they are not to be punished if the slave recovers after a day or two, since the slave is their property. “If people are fighting and hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely[e] but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman’s husband demands and the court allows. But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise. “An owner who hits a male or female slave in the eye and destroys it must let the slave go free to compensate for the eye. And an owner who knocks out the tooth of a male or female slave must let the slave go free to compensate for the tooth. “If a bull gores a man or woman to death, the bull is to be stoned to death, and its meat must not be eaten. But the owner of the bull will not be held responsible. If, however, the bull has had the habit of goring and the owner has been warned but has not kept it penned up and it kills a man or woman, the bull is to be stoned and its owner also is to be put to death. However, if payment is demanded, the owner may redeem his life by the payment of whatever is demanded. This law also applies if the bull gores a son or daughter. If the bull gores a male or female slave, the owner must pay thirty shekels[f] of silver to the master of the slave, and the bull is to be stoned to death. “If anyone uncovers a pit or digs one and fails to cover it and an ox or a donkey falls into it, the one who opened the pit must pay the owner for the loss and take the dead animal in exchange. “If anyone’s bull injures someone else’s bull and it dies, the two parties are to sell the live one and divide both the money and the dead animal equally. However, if it was known that the bull had the habit of goring, yet the owner did not keep it penned up, the owner must pay, animal for animal, and take the dead animal in exchange.”

I remember when I became a Christian, one of the first things I was thought was: “Now that I'm a Christian how do I live as a Christian. What is expected of me?” That thought gripped me, so I began to read God's word and saw how it applied to my life. I remember growing up in Apartheid South Africa and having to unlearn some of the things I'd learnt about my treatment of people and I had to learn that things that were the norm back then, are not Biblical. We need to conform to God's word.

When Jesus saves us, He wants us to grow up as well. He wants us to mature. He wants our love and our morals to mature, He wants our behaviour to be conformed to the behaviour of the Scriptures and our ethics to become Biblical ethics. This leads us to ask, what does the Bible say? When we get to passages like this, God gives us His laws here and we read that every part of the Bible is there to help us in some way or another, because the law teaches us to care for people and even animals as we see it listed in this passage. The Lord teaches us to really care for people. When we as Christians come to a chapter like this, we know that there is something here but we ask the question: why is this relevant to our particular circumstances here?

We read here that we need to first understand that this set of laws comes in a part of the book of Exodus called, The Book of the Covenant. Now God has made a covenant with these people. He has saved them and now He says, “This is how I want you to live as saved people.” How do these laws apply to us in the light of the fact that Jesus has come and He has made a new covenant with us? From verse 21 onwards, God goes on to set laws that He lays out for His people. The point is, as He gives them to His people, they also apply to us as His new people in Christ. How do you apply obedience to the law? Is this something that God requires of His people? If we desire to have a genuine relationship with our God, then we are to obey what He tells us. This is the small print in the contract God has given us. The big broad outline seen in the Ten Commandments. In a way, we get to the fine print at the bottom of the page and here we have laws that are vertical in terms of worship and laws that are horizontal in terms of our relationships with other human beings around us. Interwoven in these vertical laws and horizontal laws, are what some have called social laws.

We need to see that they both must be together, they are married, we must never separate them. Remember when Jesus was asked by a teacher of the law in Matthew 22, an expert in the law. He asked, “What is the greatest commandment?” Jesus responded in Matthew 22:37-40. He said “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” If that's the case, then worshiping God is our way of loving Him and loving our neighbour is worked out in these “fine print” laws that we have here.

The law was given to Israel and the law was a response to their redemption. The law was a positive undertaking for Israel. It was not to be a burden. It was to be liberation and freedom. It was God's pattern for their vertical adoration and their horizontal care for one another. It was a path to maturity, a path to fuller maturity. Full of a realization of God's universal plan of salvation in their lives.

The question now is, if you have come to know Jesus and are saved by Him, what should you do? Should you sit back and do nothing? No! You are saved to love God with all your heart and to love your neighbour as yourself. How do we do that practically? Here The Book of the Covenant spells out and applies the laws for God's people and has implications for us today as we apply these in our lives. The problem has been that throughout the ages the apparent tension between the law and grace has been debated, even to this day. However, we need to remember that all of these laws are given post redemptively. In other words, they are given after we are saved. Once we are saved, they are not to be followed legalistically but they are to be followed as a gift from God to help us in the complexities of life.

If we look at these laws, the first thing we need to see here is the law and the Christian needs to be evaluated. The law was given firstly to Israel, and it was Israel's position. It was to be obeyed as Israel, by Israel, in response to God redeeming them. Interestingly enough, the nations around them were not required to obey the law but the nations around them were judged by the prophets. For instance, when they fell into idolatry and when they turned away from the Living God. We first need to turn back to the Living God. Once we are in relationship with God vertically, then these laws apply horizontally, in our lives.

The law was never meant to be a burden. It was not meant to become burdensome for Israel and it was not meant to be burdensome for you and I when we follow Jesus on His path, and in His footsteps. He gives us laws to protect us, not that we become tense about obeying the letter of the law but understanding the spirit in which God has given that to us. If the law seemed to be a burden to the Israelites at the time, it was because they were disobeying the law. In Deuteronomy 32:47, God says: “This law is not just idle words to you, they are your life.”

Isn't it true, for instance when we drive according to the rules of the road it's life to us. We don't have many accidents. However, when we break the laws, when we speed or we drive under the influence of substances, we end up in trouble. God calls us to love the law. We need to see that God has given us the law as a good thing and something to help us. As Christians we may look at the lives of legalistic people and become very cynical. God is not calling us to look at people in their legalism. God is calling us to look at His word and see how it applies in our lives. For Israel, they were to know the living God. They'd met Him. They'd heard His voice at Mount Sinai. Now the question is, how do I live in the light of this?

You might say that the New Testament speaks of the law negatively? It was not to be viewed negatively. Let's look at some of the passages in the New Testament. In Romans 3:19-21 it says: “Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin. But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify.”

Romans 3:28 goes on to say: “For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.” It was not through the law as Romans 4:13-15 says: “It was not through the law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world but through the righteousness that comes by faith. For if those who live by law heirs, faith has no value and the promise is worthless because law brings wrath and where there is no law there is no transgression.” Are all these passages speaking negativity of the law? No, they tell us the law cannot save us, only Jesus can save us. Once we are saved by Jesus, the law helps us to know how to live, in the light of that salvation.

As we observe some of the specifics in this passage, we need to unpack them because here we are told, not only does the law apply to us as Christians, but we see that these laws teach us very simply that people are precious. We look at these laws in Exodus 21 and we'll see some more in the coming chapters, they teach us that here are some regulations. Now the interesting thing is it starts off with regulations for slavery. God was speaking to ex-slaves. They had been mistreated in Egypt and God is saying that you now only understand a slave economy, and if you take slaves of your own people, people who get into debt, who can't survive and sell themselves, how are you to treat them. He spells out a period of slavery. He spells out how it's to function within that situation and He lays all of that out.

You might say, but why does God not just abolish slavery? Well very simply, because that was the way that the economy worked in those days. Later on when we get to the New Testament, we hear phrases that encourage slaves to be free. We know that by the time of William Wilberforce, who read the whole Bible and saw that slavery was not God's original intention for us. That there could be a better way. We as Christians have historically brought about the abolition of slavery.

However, in this context these were regulations within the assumption that slavery existed already. They were the very poor that could not feed themselves or work. God says that if somebody now gets land and they can't look after it, and they sell themselves and their land, how does that function? The land would be returned to them after a period in the year of jubilee and they themselves will be released after seven years. There was a system that God put in place to protect people because people are precious. God didn't come when He freed the Israelites as slaves, who only knew slavery. He didn't set them free never to have slaves again but for this period of time, they would, as their economy was developing and changing. Likewise we can't twist this passage to justify slavery as has happening during Colonial times.

How do we apply this? We can apply it by protecting the lives of labourers today. Labourers’ rights and labour relations in our day and age, are all to be viewed in the light of God's word here. We are to remember always that the principle in these laws is that people are precious. If you're an employer then treat people as precious. If you're an employee value your employer and work as unto Christ in that context as the New Testament lays out. These are the laws and we can look at them, see how they apply in our context and see how we can draw principles from them.

When we go on to the laws from verse 12 to 36 onwards and we see how God expands on the Ten Commandments as you’ve read previously. This is a little bit like the fine print at the bottom of the contract. There is a clarification. When the sixth Commandment says: “You shall not kill.” What does that mean? What about if I kill somebody accidentally? Or what about if I kill somebody intentionally? Here these laws specify that there is a distinction to be made between killing somebody unintentionally, in an unpremeditated way. When it's unintentional, that is called manslaughter. But when somebody plans to kill in a premeditated way, that is called murder. That is killing with an intent to kill, and that murder is to be punished in a non-negotiable way. The person, the murderer is to be put to death. However, we see manslaughter is given forgiveness. There are however some consequences, like exile to a city of refuge.

We see if somebody is injured in the workplace, in verses 26 and 27 how there should be workman's compensation. In these contexts, all of these laws are there to point us as God's people living in the 21st century, to justice and fairness. Reading His Word (that was given 3 000 years ago( we see that God cares about people because people are precious. You and I are to care in whatever sphere God has put us.

What can be said in conclusion? When we apply these laws we need to look at them as a big picture. The big picture of all of the covenant that God has given to His people. Jesus now says that these laws apply also to us. That He's not come to abolish them because remember what He said in Matthew 5:17-20: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfil them. F)or truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these command and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.” We can clearly see that Jesus is not anti-law. What we see is that He Himself says that He has come to fulfil the law of Moses. In a way He says that every detail of these laws are important. We need to remember that heaven and earth will pass away but His laws will remain to protect the preciousness of people, as we love our neighbour as ourselves. This is how that love is broken down into its composite parts. You see there are consequences for those who do not obey God's laws, and to those who teach others not to obey, they will be the least in the Kingdom of Heaven.

There needs to be that obedience as we enter into this new covenant with Jesus. How do we live and learn from these laws? We apply them in our lives and teach others all these things that Jesus has taught us, to go as He tells us in this passage, even beyond the laws that were written down in this passage, but to grapple with the spirit of the law. The spirit of the law is to care for people. Jesus says don't murder people. Don't just say: “Well I'm a good person, I've never murdered somebody.” However, if you hate somebody in your heart it's as good as if you've murdered them. When we cut people off, when we ghost them on social media, when we treat somebody as if they do not exist; we've become a murderer and we need to turn back to God, not in a legalistic way but in a way of saying, “Oh Lord forgive me. Help me to treat other people as precious as You have loved me and saved me.”

If you have seen people as precious and Jesus teaches us these principles. Then God has prepared good works in advance for us to do and those good works are obeying His law as He shows us. Here in this workplace situation. We need to do this when my dog bites somebody and injures, then I need to make restitution. When my dog kills somebody, then I am guilty if I knew that that dog was trained as a killer. We need to once again, go back to God's word and see how they apply. The Gospel is a radical message. Jesus Christ coming into this world has changed everything and He has brought about a new era and a new covenant, no longer the Old Testament but a New Testament combining the old and the new together. The Old Testament shows us how to live and the New Testament shows us how we can be saved so that we can live in the light of all of God's Word. If we use Paul's words in Romans 3:21 which says: “But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify.” Jesus has made us right with the Father. We are now saved by Jesus. Vertically we worship Him in a new way in spirit and in truth but horizontally we now love our neighbour practically, and also in the way we treat our animals. The way we treat employees and employers, and all of those ramifications are fleshed out and built up slowly, law by law as we go along through this passage.

What then is our Christian response to the law? Firstly we are not saved by the law. We are not saved by trying. We are not saved by our own efforts. We are saved 100% by Jesus, and Jesus Christ alone. Once we are saved by Jesus, we then ask: "How do I live?” We go to the Lord to get to the spirit of he law; to get to the application, to get to an understanding of God's desire as He reveals His heart. His heart is one that looks at you and me and all people as precious. Now the world may say that we're a nothing. We're a loser. We're a rubbish. God says, “No, you are precious and you are loved, and you need to treat others as precious and as loved.” How does that love look? It's not just a feeling. It's an act of your will. The law gives us the way our will is to act. The temptation is perhaps to suppress the law and to say, “No, we don't have to abide the law.” Instead, we follow the law of love. The law of love is to do unto others what we would like them to do to us. If we own a bull and we're a farmer then those bull laws apply. If we own a dog in the city and our dog bites, those laws would be applied. The spirit would help us if we're in working, no longer as slaves but as employees. That helps us in that context. We are to love others as Christ has loved us and we are to love God vertically and others horizontally. The great challenge of this passage is that this law has been given to teach us to care for people. Are you caring? Do you know this Lord Jesus who died for you? Won't you trust Him? Perhaps if you've never done that or if you have done that now, read the fine print. Grow to maturity in your care for others and in your worship of God.

Let us pray together. O Lord Jesus, thank you for your law. Thank you that there is a place for the whole Bible in our lives. Help us not to think that the Old Testament is simply old but to see that it is there to teach us how to live once we are saved by You. As You gave this law to your people when they had come out of Egypt and You saved them. You give us Your law Lord Jesus, not to discount or to ignore but to apply in our lives. In our particular context, that always we might love the Lord our God with all our being and love our neighbour as ourselves. Teach us Lord Jesus. For some of us we never knew that you could save us and that we don't have to try. Right now Lord Jesus, for those that come to that realisation, help them to cry out to You. Jesus save me I'm a sinner and come into my life and give me Your salvation. Once you have saved me, teach me how to learn from Your laws and live by them in these days. Not to save myself but to mature and grow in my care for others. For this I pray, Lord Jesus as I ask You, firstly to save me and then to lead me by Your Spirit, to glorify You in everything that I do and say. I pray this in the Almighty name of Jesus Christ, my Saviour and God, amen.

Well my prayer for you is that you might begin to understand more and more of the law as you read through this passage again. Grow up, grapple with it and learn from it but may God bless you as you go into this week. May you seek to apply His law in the areas that you face day by day, in different contexts. We live in a complex world and each of us have different contexts but may God add to your life all that you need for life and for Godliness and may your life be lived to the glory of God both now and forevermore, amen.