Eph 2:15 — Is the Law Abolished?

Introduction

Last week we looked at Eph. 2:14-16 but I made only passing reference to verse 15a. Therefore, this morning we are going to examine this statement more closely in light of the rest of Paul’s teaching concerning the law.

NAS: “by abolishing in his flesh the enmity, which is the law of commandments contained in ordinances” NIV: “by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations” The NIV is clearer than the NAS, but even the NAS ultimately says same thing This text logically raises the question: Is the law abolished? Let me state up front that I speak on this subject with the awareness that I am entering into a thicket of theological and exegetical questions. I am aware that volumes have been written on the question of Paul’s view of the law. It was debated at length at the time of the Reformation and it continues to be discussed today with strong opinions and emotions.

However, I don’t want to exaggerate the difficulty of this question, as if it were so complex that only theological experts could ever hope to understand it. It’s not really that hard. But it is an area of biblical interpretation that remains a point of lively discussion because Paul’s view of the law is not simplistic or one-sided.

What are we to make of this rather bold statement by Paul? Is the law really abolished in Christ? Don’t believers still have certain moral duties to not commit adultery, to not steal or bear false witness, to not covet? In fact, in Eph. 6:2 Paul quotes the 5th commandment, for it is still true that children must obey their parents. Does Paul really mean it, then, when he says that Christ abolished the law in his flesh?

The traditional explanation is that Christ abolished the Mosaic ceremonies concerning food, feasts, offerings, circumcision, etc.. A division was created by means of the ceremonial Law. God gave the Law to Israel to make her separate, unique. It was a barrier intended to prevent any mingling of Jews and Gentiles: dietary restrictions, marriage restrictions, the Sabbath, circumcision, laws pertaining to uncleanness. The advantage of this explanation is that it fits the context well, where Paul is concerned with the dividing wall that separated Jews and Gentiles.

But the wording Paul chose to refer to the law (“the law with its commandments and regulations”) strongly suggests more than the ceremonial law. It seems to imply the entirety of the Mosaic Law in its character as the old covenant. Furthermore, the ceremonial law wasn’t the only barrier. The curse of the moral law also separated the Gentiles from God’s covenant family.

Another weakness of this explanation is that it cannot explain the drastic solution that was required. If the issue was simply the ceremonial law, God could have simply repealed the ceremonial law. But instead, he sent his Son to be made flesh in order to be crucified under the curse of the Law. “By abolishing in his flesh the law …” It is hard to understand why a method as drastic as the death of Christ would be necessary to bring an end to the ceremonies. I believe, then, that Paul means the entire law, moral, ceremonial, and civil has been abolished, or better, rendered inoperative, through the death of Christ.

No doubt, Paul has the ceremonial law primarily in view, since that was the dividing wall that created the hostility between Jews and Gentiles. But Paul is not referring only to the ceremonial law. He is referring to the law as a covenant of works.

Now this may seem radical, but it is what Paul consistently, repeatedly, and emphatically teaches. The death and resurrection of Christ brought an end to the law, changing the believer’s relationship to the law from bondage to freedom. The law was given for a specific time to be the supervisor and guardian of Israel until the coming of Christ Read Gal. 3:17, 19, 23-25. As a result, the believer is not a bondservant or a child under the guardianship of the law but is a free son who has entered into the fullness of his privileges.

Read Gal. 4:1-5 Paul calls all New Covenant believers to live no longer as children of the bondwoman Hagar but as children of the free woman.

Read Gal. 4: 21, 31; 5:1, 18 Through the death of Christ believers have been set free from the law, released from its binding authority.

Read Rom. 7:4-6 To want to be under the law as a covenant is to want to go back to the Old Covenant period when God gave the Law to his people to govern them in their childhood. The authoritative rules and regulations of the Mosaic Law are for the immature. Those who understand the newness of the new covenant and their standing as mature sons in Christ do not need to be hand-held by an external code.

Objection: Doesn’t this interpretation leave the Christian without any law?

Answer: the law of Christ.

The believer is not without law, but is under the law of Christ. The law does have relevance for the Christian, but not directly. It is ought to be studied and applied in light of Christ.

1 Cor. 9:20-21 (cp. Gal. 6:2)

The believer’s state is not one of being “without law”, but “subject to the law of Christ”. Paul’s reference to the ultimate revelation of law as “the Law of Christ” was probably intended as a substitute for the parallel phrase, “the Law of Moses” (occurs 22x in Scripture). Just as the provisional revelation of law was called the Law of Moses, because Moses was the mediator of the Old Covenant and its law, so the eschatological revelation of law is called the Law of Christ, because Christ is the Mediator of the eschatological New Covenant and its law.

Matt. 5:17

In the Sermon on the Mount we behold the New Moses revealing the New Law on the New Mountain. See verse 2. The symbolism here is unmistakable. Just as Moses received the Law on Mount Sinai and delivered it to the people of God in the Old Covenant, so Christ, as the New Moses of the New People of God, delivers the ultimate revelation of God’s will from a mountain.

There is newness here. It is clear that Jesus is not merely explaining or interpreting the Law of Moses, as if he were merely correcting the false interpretations of the Pharisees - “for Jesus was teaching them as one having authority, not as the scribes” (7:29). The magisterial antitheses - “You have heard it said … but I say unto you” (repeated six times: vv. 21-22, 27-28, 31-32, 33-34, 38-39, 43-44) - place Jesus in a position of unheard-of authority over the Law. Jesus is above the Law as sovereign Law-giver, not under it as a scribe who merely exegetes its original intent.

How can Jesus adopt this superior stance toward the Law? Because of his Messianic mission (“I have come”). This one who sovereignly re-interprets the Law is the Messiah who by his person and work brings in the Kingdom of God in the fullness of time.

In view of the above, Christ makes an important qualification in order to forestall a potential misunderstanding: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.” It would be a grave error to interpret Jesus as saying that the Mosaic Law has been utterly abolished in the sense that it has no value for us today. Jesus came not to destroy but to fulfill.

However, the word “fulfill” does not mean to confirm, as some have argued. Instead, it means that the Law of Moses revealed only a provisional righteousness that pointed ahead to the ultimate righteousness of Christ. Now that the Kingdom has come in the person and work of Jesus Christ, the righteousness which the Law intended to teach has finally been brought to light in its fullness.

It is not that the Law of Christ and the Law of Moses are contradictory, or that the Law of Christ is a totally new law without any precedents in the Law of Moses. Rather it is that the Law of Moses was only a type and shadow. The Law of Christ is the substance and the reality.

The fact that the Law of Christ does not contradict the Law of Moses is stated in verses 19-20, where Jesus speaks of the superlative righteousness of the Kingdom demanded of disciples. The Law is to be preserved not by a punctilious, scribal interpretation, but by following the commandments of Jesus. To follow the ethical teaching of Jesus, then IS to be faithful to the whole meaning of the Law, indeed, to its every jot and tittle.

In verse 20, Jesus demands a righteousness that exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. This is not to be interpreted quantitatively - as if Jesus meant, “Be even more preoccupied with legal minutiae than the scribes!” - but qualitatively. Jesus demands a new and higher kind of righteousness that rests on the presence of the Kingdom brought by Christ, and that finds its definition and content in his authoritative exposition of the Law.

The fulfillment of the Law in the person, work, and teaching of Jesus does not constitute the abandonment of the Law but expresses that which the Law had intended from the beginning. The Law was never an end in itself, but all along it pointed ahead to the coming of One greater than Moses.

So Jesus teaches that the Mosaic Law has been rendered inoperative in light of the superlative righteousness. He brings. But it has been abolished not as an end in itself - it has been abolished in order that it might be transcended and fulfilled.

Note that Paul’s argument follows the same pattern as Jesus’. There is a sort of tension in both Jesus and Paul. On the one hand, they both stress the discontinuity. Jesus says, “You have heard that the ancients were told … by I say unto you.” Paul says the New Covenant believer is free from the Mosaic code, that Christ abolished the Law with its commandments and regulations. Yet, on the other hand, they both immediately strive to avoid a misunderstanding. “Do not think that I came to abolish the Law,” Jesus says. “Although not without the Law of God,” says Paul.

In conclusion, both Jesus and Paul teach that the believer is not under the Law of Moses. Rather, as those united to Christ be faith, we are under the Law of Christ.

Summation

Believers have been set free from the Law by means of their union with Christ in his death. “By abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations.” We are “not under law” (a phrase Paul uses 10 times). This means they are free from its condemning power as a covenant of works.

This freedom from the Law does not mean that believers have been set free from all ethical standards. For not only have they been crucified with Christ and made dead to the Law, but they have been raised with Christ and are thus under a new commanding authority - the authority of Christ himself. They are under “the law of Christ.”

Although the law of Christ is not identical with the Law of Moses, it does reach back to the Law of Moses in order to bring over some of its teaching, but not directly. Any aspect of the Law of Moses that is brought over into the law of Christ must pass through the redemptive historical prism of Christ’s death and resurrection in order to be Christologically and eschatologically transformed.

Example: the command to love our neighbor becomes the new commandment. The content of the law itself is transformed as it is taken up in Christ.

Read John 13:34. The law must not be abandoned, nor must we stop studying it or teaching it. But after the cross it no longer stands as the immediate standard of conduct for God’s people. It must always be studied and applied through the lens of Christ.

The law of Christ is not merely a law-code. Although it places ethical demands upon us it does not do so in the form of a rigorous covenant of works.

We are called upon to have our minds transformed by an all-encompassing worldview - namely, the worldview of the gospel, which is the good news that the old man has died, it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. To live this way is much harder than being giving a list of do’s and dont’s. You must meditate upon the word of Christ and let it dwell in you richly in order that it might shape your whole way of thinking and living.

Read Eph. 5:10 Doesn’t this lead to license, the idea that we can live however we please? If we no longer have a precise, external code to regulate our conduct, aren’t we giving people too much freedom? And won’t they abuse that freedom? Paul’s answer is the constraining power of the Spirit, expressing itself through love.

Read Gal. 5:13-16.

The law of Christ constrains us to obedience not merely as an external command compelling us to obey but as an internal power living within us by the Spirit. We are called to walk in the Spirit, that is, to walk in the conscious awareness of and enjoyment of our union with Christ. This in turn causes us to love one another, and in this way the righteous requirement of the law will be fulfilled, not by us, but in us.

So is the Law abolished in Christ?

Yes and no. Yes, in the sense that Christ has fulfilled the Law by his death and resurrection, with the result that we are no longer under the Law as a covenant of works. No, in the sense that the believer is not “without Law” but “under the Law of Christ.”