Believers in Jesus understand that the Mosaic Law was given by God to His chosen people. It was as a sacred covenant between God and Israel designed to teach righteousness. Galatians 3:19 says “Wherefore then serves the law?  It was added because of transgressions.” However, because the Law was a perfect law, it could not be kept by imperfect men. 

The Apostle Paul explains that the purpose of the Mosaic Law was to show the Jewish people their need for a redeemer.  “Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.” (Galatians 3:24)  Jesus said:  “Think not that I am come to destroy the law… I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.”  (Matthew 5:17)  

Jesus’s death on the cross changed everything for the Jewish people. Justification, or standing with God, was now available through Jesus’s sacrifice, not by the law’s animal sacrifices.  “Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.” (Hebrews 9:12)   A foundation text is “without the shedding of blood is no remission.” (Hebrews 9:22)  

The Apostle Paul clarified this new arrangement in Galatians 3:25, “But after faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.”  The law no longer had any hold on the minds and the lives of believers in Christ. (See Galatians 3 and Hebrews 8 and 9.) 

What was true for believers then is true for believers now. The Mosaic law is not the way to salvation. However, Christians do appreciate the righteous and compassionate provisions of the law as many of our modern Judeo-Christian laws have roots in the Mosaic law.

Finally we understand that God has promised a New (Law) covenant for the future.  God’s laws will be written in men’s hearts during God and Jesus’s righteous kingdom on earth, beginning in Jerusalem and filling the whole earth.  God’s plan is for all to have a standing with Him through Christ.  “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”  (Matthew 6:10)  

  • Jeremiah 31:33,  "But this shall be 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 hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. "
  • Micah 4:2,   And many nations shall come and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD and 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 forth of Zion, and the world of the LORD from Jerusalem."

Additional Resource: Christian Questions Podcast Episode #1084: "Does the Old Testament Law Apply to Me?" Understanding what to take and what to leave from the Jewish Law