Are We to obey any of the Old Testament Law?

 

Old Testament legislation was better known as the Law of Moses or the Mosaic Law. God started instituting the Law on the day the Hebrews exited Egypt during the inaugural Passover.

Now the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, “This month shall be your beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you. Speak to all the congregation of Israel saying, ‘On the tenth of this month every man shall take for himself a lamb, according to the house of his father, a lamb for the household. And if the household is too small for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next to his house take it according to the number of the persons; according to each man’s need you shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. You make take it from the sheep or from the goats. Now you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month. Then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at twilight. And they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses where they eat it. Then they shall eat the flesh on that night; roasted in fire – its head with its legs and its entrails. You shall let none of it remain until morning, and what remains of it until morning you shall burn with fire.

And thus, you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover.

‘For I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night and will strike the firstborn in the land of Egypt on that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment. I am the Lord. Now the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you; and the plague shall not be on you when I strike the land of Egypt.

‘So, this day shall be to you a memorial; and you shall keep it as a feast by an everlasting ordinance. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses. For whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. On the first day there shall be a holy convocation for you. No manner of work shall be done on them; but that which everyone must eat – that only may be prepared by you. So, you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this same day I will have brought your armies out of the land of Egypt.

Therefore, you shall observe this day throughout your generations as an everlasting ordinance. In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month in the evening, you shall eat unleavened bread, until the twenty-first day of the month at evening. For seven days no leaven shall be found in your houses, since whoever eats what is leavened, that same person shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is a stranger or a native of the land’” (Ex 12;1-20).

The Passover along with the Feast of Unleavened Bread were the first feasts instituted in Israel. To read about the other Mosaic feasts go to Leviticus chapter twenty-three.

The first five books of the Bible are called the Torah which means instruction. In Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy is where Moses reveals all of God’s laws and customs to His people. This consisted of ceremonial laws, dietary laws, religious festivals, and civil and moral laws.

The ten commandments or decalogue where some of earliest laws given to Israel. There are some perhaps many people who wonder if the ten commandments are applicable to us today. Yes, they are apart from the fourth commandment which says, “Remember the Sabbath Day, keep it holy” (Ex 20:8). There may be some Christians who disagree with me regarding the Sabbath; they may believe that we should observe it like the Seventh Day Adventists. The Bible gives us latitude regarding days. Romans 14:5 tells us this, “One person esteems one day above another; another esteems everyday alike. Let each be fully convinced in his own mind.” The Sabbath was the day of rest for the nation Israel. They were to do no work on that day because the Lord rested after He was done creating the world and everything in it. He blessed and sanctified the seventh day which on our calendar is Saturday (Gen 2:2-3; Ex 20:8).

The only part of the Mosaic Law we are to observe and obey today is the moral part of the law. We are not subject to their dietary restrictions or their religious ceremonies. We are not bound by their religious festivals; e.g. The Feast of Trumpets (Rosha Hashanah), The Feast of Tabernacles (Succoth), Passover, Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), et al. Neither are we subject to their sacrificial system. Their sacrificial system was made obsolete once Jesus sacrificed himself as the Lamb of God who took away the sins of the world (John 1:29; Heb 9:12,26).