"For the law was given by Moses, but grace and
truth came by Jesus Christ" (John 1:17). "Jesus
the mediator of the new covenant [testament, margin]"
(Heb. 12:24). "Bear ye one another's burdens, and so
fulfill the law of Christ" (Gal. 6:2). Here are
contrasted the two systems. The first was "the
law" given by Moses, its mediator; the second is
"grace and truth," the new testament, which came
by Christ, its mediator. The new testament is "the
law of Christ." This is the law Christians are now
under.
In Isa. 42:1-7 we have a clear
prediction of the coming of Christ and his redemptive
work. "And the isles shall wait for his law"
(vs. 4). The law of Moses was given to one
nation—Israel. But of the law of Christ— the new
testament—it was foretold that "the isles"
should wait for it. "The isles" here mean the
different nations of earth. The gospel is for all people
and nations. The command is, "Preach the gospel to
every creature" (Mark 16:15), "Teach all
nations" (Matt. 28:19). The gospel is "his
[Christ's] law." The isles and the ends of the earth
waited for this law; it is the standard of judgment in the
earth.
Christ is the "one law
giver" of this dispensation (Jas. 4:12). For God at
"sundry times and in divers [various] manners"
spake unto the fathers in time past, but "hath in
these last days spoken unto us by his Son" (Heb. 1:1,
2). In the presence of Moses on the mount, God said of
Christ, "This is my beloved Son; hear ye him"
(Matt. 17: 1-5). Moses and his law are ruled out of this
dispensation, and Christ and his superior law now rule in
its stead To go back to Moses is to reject Christ. To go
under the law is to ignore the gospel.
Christ taught the people "as
one having authority" (Matt. 7:29). The precepts he
taught are his law. We are under the "law of
Christ" (1 Cor. 9:21). "Under Christ's
law."—Emphatic Diaglott. His law is the truth (John
1:17). The law of Moses gendered to bondage (Gal. 4:24),
while the truth makes men free (John 8:32). We obey and
walk in the truth (3 John 3). The law of Christ is the
standard of conviction to sinners. When guilty souls fall
at the mercy seat for pardon, the law of Sinai never
enters their minds. They consider only how they have
grieved the Spirit of Christ, and broken his law— the
new testament.
The new testament is a much higher
law than the old. It not only condemns all manner of sin,
but lifts up a standard of holy living far above the stone
table law. The grandest lessons of moral and religious
truth ever spoken to men were given in Christ's Sermon on
the Mount. The New Testament condemns sin in every form,
lifts up the standard of righteousness and holiness in
life and experience, and offers life and salvation to all.
It is "the perfect law of liberty" (Jas. 1:25),
"the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus"
(Rom. 8:2). To break Moses' law— the Sabbath, etc.—was
to be stoned to death. The penalty was temporal. But to
break Christ's law is to be worthy of eternal damnation.
In the day of judgment the Decalog will not be our
standard of judgment but "the word that I [Christ]
have spoken, the same shall judge him at the last
day" (John 12:48). "When the Lord Jesus shall be
revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming
fire taking vengeance on them that know not God,"
punishment will not be meted out to those who disregard
the letter of the law as written in the tables of stone,
but punishment will then be given to those "that obey
not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ" (2 Thess.
1:7-9). The law of Christ—the gospel—will be the
standard by which we shall be judged in that day. To
disobey the precepts of Christ is to sin. And to sin
against his law is to make ourselves liable to eternal
judgment and punishment. Obedience to Christ is what the
New Testament enjoins (2 Cor. 10:5; Heb. 5:9). But not
once in all the New Testament—the law of Christ, that
law by which we shall be judged in the last day—are we
commanded to keep the seventh day Sabbath. We can observe
every precept of the law of liberty, stand clear in his
sight, and yet never observe the seventh day, which was
one of the shadows of the law dispensation.
