Start with grace
Before we say a word about commandments, we want to say this plainly: nobody is saved by keeping the law. We are saved by grace, through faith, as a gift. Obedience is not the way in; it is what love does once we are in.
“for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, that no one would boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared before that we would walk in them.”
Ephesians 2:8-10
Notice where the passage lands. Grace saves us, and then it sets us walking in good works that God prepared in advance. Jesus put it the same way: “If you love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15). John adds that loving God simply is keeping his commandments, and that they are not grievous (1 John 5:3). Grace itself instructs us to live godly lives (Titus 2:11-12). So the question is not whether we obey. The question is what God has actually told us to do, and whether any of it has been withdrawn.
God’s word does not expire
Our first reason is the simplest. God said his word stands forever, and he did not attach an expiration date to any part of it.
“The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God stands forever.”
Isaiah 40:8
Peter quotes that very line and calls it “the word of Good News which was preached to you” (1 Peter 1:24-25). For Peter, the enduring word of Isaiah and the gospel he preached were one word, not two. The psalmist says the same thing about the law in particular.
“The LORD, your word is settled in heaven forever. Your faithfulness is to all generations. You have established the earth, and it remains. Your laws remain to this day, for all things serve you.”
Psalm 119:89-91
“Every one of your righteous ordinances endures forever” (Psalm 119:160). When Paul told Timothy that every Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for instruction in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16-17), the Scriptures Timothy had grown up on were Genesis through Malachi. If the Torah no longer applied, that was a strange way to say so. God does not change (Malachi 3:6), and neither does his standard.
The law tells us what sin is
Everyone agrees that believers should not sin. But sin has a definition, and Scripture gives it.
“Everyone who sins also commits lawlessness. Sin is lawlessness.”
1 John 3:4
“What shall we say then? Is the law sin? May it never be! However, I wouldn’t have known sin except through the law. For I wouldn’t have known coveting unless the law had said, “You shall not covet.”
Romans 7:7
Paul does not call the law sin. He calls it the thing that shows us sin. If the commandments had been set aside, there would be no such thing as sin anymore, and no need for a Savior. The law is not the problem; it is “perfect, restoring the soul” (Psalm 19:7). What the law exposes is the problem, and that is exactly why we need grace.
What Jesus said about the law
Jesus was without sin, so by John’s definition he kept the whole law. He also told us, in plain words, what he thought of it and how long it would last.
“Don’t think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets. I didn’t come to destroy, but to fulfill. For most certainly, I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not even one smallest letter or one tiny pen stroke shall in any way pass away from the law, until all things are accomplished. Therefore, whoever shall break one of these least commandments and teach others to do so, shall be called least in the Kingdom of Heaven; but whoever shall do and teach them shall be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven.”
Matthew 5:17-19
Heaven and earth have not passed away; John saw that happen at the very end (Revelation 21:1). So not one pen stroke has passed from the law. Jesus went further: whoever breaks even the least commandment and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom. If Jesus himself had taught against the law, he would have fallen under his own sentence. He did not.
After his resurrection he sent his disciples to teach the nations “to observe all things that I commanded you” (Matthew 28:19-20). Everything he commanded includes what he said here about the least of the commandments. That commission is how the Torah reaches us, the nations.
Jesus opposed tradition, not Torah
People remember that Jesus argued with the Pharisees and assume he was arguing against the law. Read the arguments. Each time, he is defending God’s commandment against a human rule that had grown up around it.
“For you set aside the commandment of God, and hold tightly to the tradition of men—the washing of pitchers and cups, and you do many other such things.” He said to them, “Full well do you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition.”
Mark 7:8-9
His example is the commandment to honor father and mother, which a tradition about dedicated gifts had made void (Mark 7:10-12). The charge he lays is “making void the word of God by your tradition” (Mark 7:13). Jesus stood on the side of the commandment. Even when he rebuked the scribes for neglecting justice, mercy and faith, he told them to do those weightier matters without leaving the lesser ones undone (Matthew 23:23).
Written on the heart, not erased
The prophets did announce a new covenant. But look at what is new in it. God does not promise a new law. He promises to put the same law somewhere it never stayed before.
“But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” says the LORD: “I will put my law in their inward parts, and I will write it in their heart. I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”
Jeremiah 31:33
“I will also give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you. I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes. You will keep my ordinances and do them.”
Ezekiel 36:26-27
Hebrews quotes Jeremiah and applies it to us (Hebrews 8:10). The Spirit’s work in the new covenant is to cause us to walk in God’s statutes, not to excuse us from them. That is why the commandments still apply: they are the content of the promise. We look at this more closely in Question 10.
So we do what Israel was told to do from the beginning. We keep these words on our hearts and teach them diligently to our children, at home and on the road, lying down and rising up (Deuteronomy 6:6-7). We do not add to them or take from them (Deuteronomy 4:2). And we take to heart the warning not to forget the covenant the LORD made with us (Deuteronomy 4:23-24).
Some commandments cannot be carried out today because there is no temple and no Levitical priesthood. That is a question of what is possible, not of what still applies. See Question 8 and Question 15.