Where the phrase comes from
The phrase “the law of Christ” appears twice in the New Testament, both times in Paul.
“Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”
Galatians 6:2
“to those who are without law, as without law (not being without law toward God, but under law toward Christ), that I might win those who are without law.”
1 Corinthians 9:21
Neither verse defines the phrase. Many teachers fill the gap by saying that Jesus replaced the Torah with a new and simpler law: love, or the Sermon on the Mount, or the commands found in the epistles. Before we accept that, we should let Jesus tell us where his teaching came from.
Whose teaching is it?
“Jesus therefore answered them, “My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me.”
John 7:16
Jesus says the teaching is not his. The Greek word is didache, doctrine. His doctrine belongs to the Father who sent him, and he says so again and again.
“For I spoke not from myself, but the Father who sent me gave me a commandment, what I should say and what I should speak. I know that his commandment is eternal life. The things therefore which I speak, even as the Father has said to me, so I speak.”
John 12:49-50
“The word which you hear isn’t mine, but the Father’s who sent me” (John 14:24). And “as my Father taught me, I say these things” (John 8:28). If the law of Christ were a different law from the Father’s, Jesus would be contradicting his own account of his ministry. The law of Christ is the Father’s law, taught by the Son.
Torah calls itself good doctrine
Now go back to how the Scriptures describe God’s instruction. Proverbs puts it in the mouth of a father handing the LORD’s teaching on to his sons.
“Listen, sons, to a father’s instruction. Pay attention and know understanding; for I give you sound learning. Don’t forsake my law.”
Proverbs 4:1-2
The Hebrew behind “sound learning” is leqach tov, good teaching or good doctrine, and the word behind “law” is torah. Doctrine and Torah stand side by side as one thing. So when Jesus speaks of the doctrine that is not his own but the Father’s, and Proverbs speaks of good doctrine as Torah, we are hearing the same vocabulary for the same instruction. The psalmist agrees: “The LORD’s law is perfect, restoring the soul” (Psalm 19:7), and “Your law is truth” (Psalm 119:142). A perfect and true law does not need a replacement.
The prophet like Moses
Moses foretold a prophet who would speak God’s words, and Peter said that prophet is Jesus.
“I will raise them up a prophet from among their brothers, like you. I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I shall command him. It shall happen, that whoever will not listen to my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him.”
Deuteronomy 18:18-19
Peter quotes this in Acts 3:22-23 and applies it to the Messiah. Notice the terms: God puts his words in the prophet’s mouth, and the prophet speaks what he is commanded. That is exactly what Jesus claimed in John 12:49. Moses and the Messiah drew from the same well. Jesus even said that anyone who believed Moses would believe him, because Moses wrote about him (John 5:46-47). A prophet like Moses does not bring a rival law. He brings the same God’s words to a new generation.
The nations wait for his law
Isaiah describes the Servant of the LORD and gives him a law that the far coasts are waiting for.
“He will not fail nor be discouraged, until he has set justice on the earth, and the islands wait for his law.”
Isaiah 42:4
Which law is that? Isaiah has already told us what goes out to the nations in the last days.
“Many peoples shall go and say, “Come, let’s go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths.” For the law shall go out of Zion, and the LORD’s word from Jerusalem.”
Isaiah 2:3
The law that goes out of Zion is the LORD’s law; it is his ways and his paths that the peoples come to learn. Messiah is the one who carries it to them (Matthew 28:19-20). “His law” in Isaiah 42:4 and “the law” of Isaiah 2:3 are the same Torah, now taught to the nations by the one who kept it perfectly. We take up who the Torah is for in Question 5.
The Torah as Messiah taught and lived it
So why does Paul call it the law of Christ at all? Because the Torah reached us through Messiah’s teaching and example. He is its living commentary. He kept the Sabbath, the feasts and the tzitzit; he pressed the weightier matters of the law without dropping the lesser ones (Matthew 23:23); and he invited us to learn from him.
“Come to me, all you who labor and are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Matthew 11:28-30
In Jesus’ day a teacher’s yoke meant his way of walking out the Torah. Jesus says his yoke is easy, which echoes Moses’ word that the commandment is not too hard for us (Deuteronomy 30:11-14) and John’s word that God’s commandments are not grievous (1 John 5:3). To be under law toward Christ, as Paul puts it, is to carry that yoke. John states the standard plainly: whoever claims to remain in him “ought himself also to walk just like he walked” (1 John 2:6).
What about love? Jesus said the whole law and the prophets depend on loving God and loving neighbor (Matthew 22:37-40). Both commands are quotations from the Torah (Deuteronomy 6:5; Leviticus 19:18). Love is the Torah’s summary, not its substitute. Paul says the same: love fulfills the law because the specific commandments about adultery, murder, theft and coveting are what love looks like in practice (Romans 13:8-10). That is why bearing one another’s burdens fulfills the law of Christ. It is Leviticus 19:18 with its sleeves rolled up.
The law of Christ, then, is not a different law. It is the Father’s Torah, spoken through the prophet like Moses, taught on a Galilean hillside, carried to the nations, and written on our hearts by his Spirit.