The
End of the Law
When did the Law come
to an end? This becomes a lively issue
in arguments over baptism. They always
trot out the thief crucified alongside Jesus as proof that salvation may even
be had without baptism. If the thief got
to Paradise without being immersed, they argue, then it must be
non-essential. Our stock answer draws
upon an exact chronology of when the Law ended.
The Law ends the very instant when Jesus died on the Cross (Col.
2:13-15). That means, since Jesus was
still living when He promised Paradise to the thief, then this actually happened
in the waning moments while the OT Law yet prevailed. The New Covenant, sealed in Jesus’ blood, was
so close, but not here yet and that means baptism was not required for him.
Our response seems
valid, at first glance, but is that really when the Law ended? I want to explore that, but notice first that
we don’t need the chronology suggested above to explain why the thief got by
without baptism. I think a better
response exists.
First, Jesus had
authority on earth to forgive sins (Mark 2:10 and parallels). Truly, Jesus could forgive with or without
baptism—and He did. And that would have
made sense for this man for whom baptism was not a possibility—listen, he was
nailed to a cross! At best, the thief
might then serve as a valid example that only is valid when baptism is simply
impossible.[1] Some press us: “What
if a man in a desert reads Scripture and comes to faith, but dies of thirst
before he can be baptized—can he be saved?”
But such circumstances are unusual, hardly ever happen, and cannot
be used to establish what is normative and required for ordinary conversions. The necessity of baptism for salvation
stands.
We have argued this
point correctly: baptism was not yet in
effect when the thief was saved[2]. You see, baptism had to wait until something
significant took place—and the end of the Law was not it. No, baptism could not come until the Holy Spirit
was outpoured on Pentecost! That is what
kept the disciples waiting in Jerusalem.
The Father had made a promise and it could be considered kept only after
the experience of power from on high. Baptism
would bring salvation not only by remitting sins, but by imparting the Spirit
(Acts 2:38)—and this was not possible until Pentecost. The Spirit was unavailable before this (John
7:37-39). It was futile to consider
baptizing the thief before that occurred, because that baptism would not have
imparted the Spirit to him[3]. This is the real reason why his non-baptism
is not an issue.
So,
when did the Law end?
According to the
Bible, when did the Law end? The Law of
Moses, as it was expressed in OT Scripture, when did it lose its
jurisdiction? When did it become
obsolete and invalid? Was it replaced,
with the New Covenant taking over from the Old Covenant? Did it happen in an instant—the end of the
Old and the advent of the New? And, if
so, when?
Colossians 2:13-15
seems pretty plain and straightforward: “And you, being dead through your trespasses
and the uncircumcision of your flesh, you, I say, did he make alive together
with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses; having blotted out the bond written in ordinances that was against
us, which was contrary to us: and he hath taken it out that way, nailing it to the cross; having
despoiled the principalities and the powers, he made a show of them openly,
triumphing over them in it.” And
although some expositors and interpreters would suggest that the “bond written in ordinances” is
something different than the Law—that it might be some other written document
that contains the record of our sins, the parallel to this passage in Ephesians
3:15 makes identification with the Law undeniable: “For
[Jesus] is our peace, who made both one, and brake down the middle wall of
partition, having abolished in the flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; that he might
create in himself of the two one new man, so making peace.” Both passages declare the ending of the Law
came with the Cross-death of Jesus. The
Law had become the instrumental cause of spiritual death (Rom 7;5; 8:2; 1 Cor.
15:56; Gal. 2:19), and salvation in Jesus by necessity then entailed abolishing
that Law.
So the Cross marks
both the beginning of the New and the removal of the Law. However, it would seem that the precision of
that transition is not so punctilious that we can suggest two successive epochs
or ages, one for each covenant, and identify that the same exact moment that
begins one and ends the other. We cannot
say that each covenant is exclusively operative, separately in time, because we
also find other passages suggesting an actual overlap between the Old and the
New.
Overlap
of the Covenants
I really wish there
had been a moment of exact replacement.
I would love the simplicity of being able to claim that so long as the
Old Covenant was operative, the New Covenant was not yet. Or, if and when the New was operative, that
necessitated that the Old was done away.
I wish that the covenants were mutually exclusive according to
time. But I find evidence in the NT that,
for a time, the Old and New Covenants were both operating simultaneously. They overlap.
First, if there had
been sharp closure of the Old that began at Jesus’ death, don’t you think the
early post-Resurrection church would have preached that? The perfect place for that to be declared
would have been when Peter, Paul and Stephen spoke to other Jewish people. For
example: Paul begins his apostolic
ministry by preaching Gospel in the synagogues.
The Gospel was given “first to the
Jew; then to the Greek (= gentiles)” (Romans 1:16), just as Jesus had first
given His efforts to “the lost sheep of
the house of Israel” (Matt. 10:6; 15:24).
If Good Friday spelled the end of the Law, Paul should have really
driven it home, perhaps like this: “Listen up, fellow Jews and my brothers
according to the flesh: Your Law on
which you rely was brought to an end at the crucifixion of Jesus! Keeping the Law no longer brings reward from
God! The Law passed on from our
forefathers has been nailed to the Cross!”
But Paul never preaches that; nor Peter; nor Stephen. Their message is not the end of the Law, but its fulfillment. Jesus, especially in His death and resurrection,
was God’s sure answer to the Messianic promises made by the Prophets. The promised Messiah was Jesus—that was the
message! If the Law really ended when
Jesus died, a valuable opportunity to say so was missed, wasn’t it?
Second, we find two
Scriptures that discuss Old and New Covenants, and the transition from one to
the other. Both would seem to have a
strong motive to declare the Law to be ended, abolished, past-tense. But neither of them do so.
The
first passage is 2 Corinthians 3. Paul reflects on OT glory that suffers in
comparison with the NT glory through Spirit.
Nowhere in this extended discussion is any declaration that the Law is
done away, even though this is written
after the Crucifixion! I wish it
had. I applied all of my Greek skills to
make it say that, consulted the best grammars, and it just isn’t in there—not
one clear declaration that the Law is now kaput. I might hope for some past-tense form like an
aorist, or perfect, or pluperfect applied to the ending of the Law, but the Law
has present-tense continuation. The end
of the Law’s glory is attached not to the Cross, but to the act of one who
turns to the Lord (v. 16). Paul
describes in v. 9 “what is passing away”
(present tense). Every indication is
that the Law somehow continues, fading glory and all, “to the present day” (vs. 14 and 15). The Law is going away; however at the time of
writing, it is not yet gone. Every
indication is that both Covenants are operating so as to overlap in time.
The
second passage is Hebrews 8. Similarly to the previous passage, it compares
the Covenants from a post-Cross perspective.
The New is clearly superior, and the Old has faults, but again there is
no absolute declaration that the Old has passed. In v. 13 we read: “In
that he saith, A new covenant he hath made the first old. But
that which is becoming old and waxeth aged is nigh unto vanishing away.” Doesn’t sound like the Law is yet gone, does
it? The ASV replicates into English the
underlying Greek so closely that my Greek professor claimed he could fairly
reproduce that Greek by looking at the English.
The ASV shows the writer of Hebrews describing the Law as “becoming old” and being “nigh unto vanishing away”—and this
statement comes decades after the death of the Christ! Again, we do not find the past-tense that we
would like. The indication here also is
that the Law continues and overlaps with the New Covenant.
The
“Personal End” of the Law
The Scriptures
actually set forth two ways that the Law is brought to an end, one personal and
the other historical. We had expected to
find the Law terminated by the death of Jesus.
However, I notice in several Scriptures that the Law may be terminated
by someone else’s death.
One enters union with
Christ by sharing His death. Paul
declares that he had been “crucified with Christ” (Gal. 2:20). We are baptized into His death (Rom.
6:3). He took up His Cross and,
responsively, we take up our own Crosses.
Although He dies first historically and we die after, it is as though
Christ and His follower share a common death-experience. In some sense, our baptismal death-experience
transports us back into His death-experience on the Cross. We die with Him, even if much time separates
our experiences of death.
What I find is that
the death-experience of a Jewish believer[4]
(who came under the Law because of being Jewish) comes to the end of the Law at
the instant of dying with Jesus. In
other words, it is the death of the believer that ends the Law rather than the
death of Jesus (but in saying that, it must be remembered that the Jew shares
death with Jesus). This conversionary
experience brings a “personal end” to the Law for that Jewish Christian.
·
2
Cor. 3. We saw
earlier that Paul here refused to say the Law ended at the Cross. What then brings the end? He suggests a veil shielding God’s true
revelation in the reading of the Old, and suggests that “only in Christ is it set aside” (3:14). He notes that the veil remains to this very
day at the reading of Moses, but “when
one turns to Christ the veil is removed” (3:16). It is not the Cross per se, but a personal making the Cross one’s own that sets aside
the Law and replaces its diminished glory. Paul would see that decisive moment taking
place when one dies with Christ.
·
Romans
7. Paul begins by noting on analogy that as a
woman is bound to her husband only until his death, so in like manner those who
“die to the Law through the body of
Christ” (7:4) in order to belong to another, to Christ. Now, he says in v. 6, we are discharged from
the Law, dead to its captivity so as to transfer slavery from “the old written
code” (v. 6) to new life in the Spirit.
All of that happens not because Christ died on the Cross, “But
now we have been discharged from the law, having died [this is plural] to that wherein we were held.” Again, the death of the believer that brought
union with Christ, that death brought discharge from the Law, a “personal end”
to the Law.
·
Galatians
2. Paul draws
contrast between justification by “works
of the Law” (2:16) and by “faith in
Christ” (or better, by “the
faithfulness of Christ”), and relates personally. He apparently had “once tore down” such a justifying role for the Law and determines
not to rebuild it (or his reconstructive activity would thus be transgression). Stepping out of the Law like this positions a
Jew like Paul with Gentile sinners, necessitating their justification in
Christ. When describing his actual
departure from the Law, Paul does not draw attention to the death of Jesus, but
”through the Law I died to the Law” (v.
19). He then makes explicit his
death-with-Christ experience, “I have
been crucified with Christ” and declares that his life in the flesh (rather
than continuing with “works of the Law”) is lived by “faith in the Son of God”
(or better, by “the faithfulness of the Son of God”). Once again, Paul broke with the Law through
his own death-with-Christ.
·
Colossians
2:8-15.
Notice: this is the passage that
normally is cited as proof that the Law ended with the Cross. However, as with the passages above, a close
reading ties the end of the Law to an in-conversion dying with Christ. It is the believer’s spiritual-death which
enters oneness with Jesus’ death on the Cross—and that spells the Law’s
end. That end is conditioned on both
deaths—not just on the Cross. The
baptismal-death also is a factor. A
circumcision done without human hands takes place in one’s burial of baptism—here
is the death. That death brings a
resurrection; we are raised with Jesus because we died with Jesus. The death and raising-up we share with Jesus spells
our “personal end” of the Law, and we read: “having been buried
with him in baptism, wherein
ye were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised
him from the dead. And you, being dead
through your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, you, I say, did
he make alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses; having blotted out the bond written in
ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us: and he hath taken
it out that way, nailing it to the cross.”
Each of the passages
above declares the end of the Law. That
end is not placed with the death of Jesus on the Cross[5]. Rather, the law comes to an end for each
person who dies with Jesus. That means
that Old and New operate together in overlapping fashion, but one may leave the
Old and enter the New by sharing death with Jesus in baptism. The end that the Law meets is personal rather
a matter of chronology. Put another way,
the two covenants are distinguished by exclusively different memberships rather
than by exclusively different historical eras.
One question
remains: is the overlap of Old and New
Covenants temporary or permanent? Does
the Old (with its Law) continue in perpetuity?
Or does it come to some historical finality?
The
“historical end” of the Law
The OT order of
things ends when God brings final judgment over it in 70 AD[6]. The Romans besiege Jerusalem and destroy the
Temple. This effectively ends the
priesthood and sacrificial system. Jesus
foretold this judgment (Matthew 24 and parallels) and it spells the end of the
Old Covenant as a means to join with God in a saving relationship.
A span of about 40
years then was allotted for the Jewish people to respond to the preached Gospel
and to enter the New Covenant with God through Jesus Christ. It seems fitting to call this a “grace period.” Before this ends in 70 AD, the Old Covenant
people are not yet cut off from God. Some
(the faithful “remnant”) responded and these Jews became the early core
membership of the church of Christ.
Others rejected the Gospel and when judgment fell in 70 AD, it fell upon
them.
Thus, it is not accurate
to call the first Covenant “Jewish” and the second Covenant “non-Jewish” or “Gentile.” Both Covenants are Jewish at the core. The New Covenant means of entering relationship
with God is the fulfillment of promises that belong to the Old. Those promises were made to and belong to the
Jews, the Old-Covenant people of God.
And God never broke His faithfulness bound up in these promises to the
Jewish people. God never stopped loving
them.
During the overlap of
Covenants, how would God handle the mixed response from Israel to Christ
Jesus? The complex answer is spelled out
by Paul over sixteen chapters in the book of Romans, and to that I will neither
add nor take away. But those who died
with Jesus in baptism came to a personal end with the Law.
And the thief on the
Cross? We might presume him to be an
Old-Covenant Jew, who was under the condemnation of that Law for violation of
the eighth of the Ten Commandments. That
Law would have condemned him rather than providing a reason for Jesus to offer
Paradise to him. That is why he is fixed
to a cross. The New Covenant would not be
offered until Jesus breathed His last.
Why then did Jesus show him grace and pardon? This grace for God’s covenant people in
Israel was generated by the same love and covenant-loyalty that also generates
the New Covenant, with grace and pardon extended beyond Israel to all of
humanity. It is the same grace that
would attach to baptism both remission of sins and the gift of the Holy
Spirit. The thief, however, would be a
new arrival in Paradise before that baptism would first be offered.
[1]
Those who deny baptism
often reveal their awareness of this limitation of their favorite proof. Notice in popular Christian movies (like Fireproof or God’s Not Dead) that, almost always, the converts who are saved—without baptism—by praying some
“Sinners’ Prayer” or by “accepting Jesus as Lord” are “death-bed conversions”
(i.e. people so close to death that baptism would be impossible). They seem reluctant to show a baptism-dodging
conversion for any person who clearly could be baptized, and saved thereby. They know the thief is useless to them here.
[2]
Of course, John’s baptism
of repentance for remission of sins was already practiced not only by John, but
by Jesus and His disciples. This baptism
was not optional (Luke 7:29-30). We have
no indication whether or not the thief heard their preaching and had been
offered this baptism.
[3]
Notice that this means
that there was a period of several weeks following the inauguration of the New
Covenant before Christian baptism, a new-birth of water and Spirit, became
available.
[4]
Non-Jewish Christians
were never under the Law because they never entered an Old Covenant
relationship with God. Paul, however,
writes to churches with membership mixed with Jewish and non-Jewish Christians
(see especially Galatians) and yet describes the reality of life under Law in
an inclusive plural—that was “our” experience.
Some think that Paul is counting Gentiles into Israel’s history now that
they have been grafted into the spiritual heritage that originally was
exclusively Jewish. That heritage now is
shared jointly by Jew and Gentile in Christian fellowship.
[5]
Note that the writer of
Hebrews (9:16-17) ties the Cross to the beginning of the New Covenant, but does
not tie it to the end of the Old. Again,
an overlap of the Covenants is made possible.
[6] See The Reign of God by Jim McGuiggan, published in 1979.
