Journal: Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
Volume: JETS 34:3 (Sep 1991)
Article: The Law Of Moses And The Christian: A Compromise
Author: David A. Dorsey

JETS 34:3 (September 1991) p. 321

The Law Of Moses And The Christian:
A Compromise

David A. Dorsey*

One of the most controversial theological issues among Christian scholars, and one that has troubled the Church throughout its history, is the question of the applicability of the OT law to the NT Christian. To state the problem simply: Which of the 613 laws1 given by God at Sinai are binding upon Christians in our time? The confusion in the Church today regarding this question could be aptly described by the words of John Wesley on the problem: “Perhaps there are few subjects within the whole compass of religion so little understood as this.”2

Examples of what Cranfield has termed “muddled thinking and unexamined assumptions”3 abound in treatments of the subject. This can be seen in the subjectivity that generally characterizes the process of picking and choosing which laws are normative for Christians. Many writers, for example, assert that the Ten Commandments represent God’s eternal, unchanging will for all people but then hedge on the fourth commandment, proposing that it be modified.4 The condemnation of homosexuality in Lev 20:13 is usually taken to be normative for our culture, but the other laws in that same chap-ter-including the prohibition against eating “unclean” animals and the prescription of the death penalty for anyone who curses his father or mother—are generally considered time-bound, applicable only in ancient

* David Dorsey is associate professor of Old Testament at Evangelical School of Theology in Myerstown, Pennsylvania.

JETS 34:3 (September 1991) p. 322

Israel. The command in Lev 19:18 (“Love your neighbor as yourself”) is seen as binding upon the Christian, while the stipulation in the very next verse, which forbids the wearing of cloth woven from two kinds of material, is deemed inapplicable today. Fee and Stuart note the inconsistency in the exegetical methodology of Christians who, on the basis of Deut 22:5 (“A woman shall not wear men’s clothing”), argue that Christian women should not wear slacks or shorts but do not consider as binding the other imperatives in that same list, which includes building a parapet around the roof of one’s new house (v. 8), not planting two kinds of seeds in a vineyard (v. 9), and—another regulation regarding dress—the c...