This is the law that was given through Moses at Mount Sinai. Exodus 20
Then God spoke all these words:
2 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the place of slavery.
3 Do not have other gods besides me.
4 Do not make an idol for yourself, whether in the shape of anything in the heavens above or on the earth below or in the waters under the earth. 5 Do not bow in worship to them, and do not serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the fathers’ iniquity, to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, 6 but showing faithful love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commands.
7 Do not misuse the name of the Lord your God, because the Lord will not leave anyone unpunished who misuses his name.
8 Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy: 9 You are to labor six days and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. You must not do any work — you, your son or daughter, your male or female servant, your livestock, or the resident alien who is within your city gates. 11 For the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and everything in them in six days; then he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and declared it holy.
12 Honor your father and your mother so that you may have a long life in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
13 Do not murder.
14 Do not commit adultery.
15 Do not steal.
16 Do not give false testimony against your neighbor.
17 Do not covet your neighbor’s house. Do not covet your neighbor’s wife, his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.
God wanted Israel, the Jewish people, to live under these laws. These laws would rule over them, and there would be good in the land. Breaking these laws is called sin, and sin deserves God’s wrath. The whole human history is about how we break these laws, and we are bound to law and sin.
Paul explains our dysfunctional relationship to the good and holy law in Romans 7:7 What should we say then? Is the law sin? Absolutely not! On the contrary, I would not have known sin if it were not for the law. For example, I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, Do not covet. 8 And sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind. For apart from the law sin is dead. 9 Once I was alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life again 10 and I died. The commandment that was meant for life resulted in death for me. 11 For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me, and through it killed me. 12 So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good. 13 Therefore, did what is good become death to me? Absolutely not! On the contrary, sin, in order to be recognized as sin, was producing death in me through what is good, so that through the commandment, sin might become sinful beyond measure.
Even though the good and holy law is not sin and is not death, the power of sin is the law, 1 Corinthians 15:56. Sin in us seizes on the commands and becomes more sinful. Sinful beyond measure. The good and holy law results in sin and death. See Romans 7
What happened at the cross?
God sends us His son Jesus to deal with all of this, on our behalf because we cannot. Jesus obeys, keeps, fulfills the law perfectly on our behalf, because we cannot. Jesus died on the cross for our sin, was buried and was raised to life again, to have victory over sin and death. He takes the law of Moses away at the cross and gives us new laws to live under.
Colossians 2:12 when you were buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. 13 And when you were dead in trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive with him and forgave us all our trespasses. 14 He erased the certificate of debt, with its obligations, that was against us and opposed to us, and has taken it away by nailing it to the cross. 15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and disgraced them publicly; he triumphed over them in him.
At the cross, Jesus sets us free from God’s wrath, sin, He nails the law of Moses to the cross. He sets us free from a mind set on the law of Moses, see Romans 8. We are forgiven and free.
He gives us new covenant laws.
The law of faith, The law of the Spirit of life in Christ sets us free from the law of sin and death, Romans 8:2. The law of Christ, The law of love, The law of freedom.
This is freedom from Moses and judgement laws. Your sins are forgiven and you are holy for the sake of Christ, crucified and resurrected. By faith we have a holiness with which we can see the Lord. Jesus is Lord.
The other thing we are given is God’s Spirit, and a spiritual gift. We already have abilities, we already have a vocation. To help our neighbor out as we are willing and able to, without Moses accusing us of all that we have left undone. Jesus says, “Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father, your accuser is Moses on whom you set your hope.” John 5:45
What is happening in John 5 is that the Jews, who had a secure attachment to the law of Moses, were making sure the law was obeyed. The religious leaders had created extra laws around the Sabbath day to keep it holy, you can’t do this, you can’t do that, extra rules. These are not God’s rules, they are man made rules. On the Sabbath day, Jesus breaks the rules by healing a man who had been crippled for 38 years, and giving the man permission to pick up his mat and walk. The man is healed and he picks up his mat and walks. John 5:10, Jews said to the man who had been healed, “This is the Sabbath. The law prohibits you from picking up your mat.” One of the most joyous moments of this guy’s life cut short by “The law prohibits you from picking up your mat.” What happens when the whole law of Moses gets taken away at the cross, and Christ’s obedience to the law becomes our life? The Joy of the Lord is your strength, Nehemiah 8:10.
16 Therefore, the Jews began persecuting Jesus because he was doing these things on the Sabbath.
17 Jesus responded to them, “My Father is still working, and I am working also.” 18 This is why the Jews began trying all the more to kill him: Not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal to God.
19 Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, the Son is not able to do anything on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, the Son likewise does these things. 20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him everything he is doing, and he will show him greater works than these so that you will be amazed. 21 And just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so the Son also gives life to whom he wants. 22 The Father, in fact, judges no one but has given all judgment to the Son, 23 so that all people may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Anyone who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.
24 “Truly I tell you, anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not come under judgment but has passed from death to life.
25 “Truly I tell you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. 26 For just as the Father has life in himself, so also he has granted to the Son to have life in himself. 27 And he has granted him the right to pass judgment, because he is the Son of Man. 28 Do not be amazed at this, because a time is coming when all who are in the graves will hear his voice 29 and come out — those who have done good things, (believed in Jesus) to the resurrection of life, but those who have done wicked things, (believed in Moses) to the resurrection of condemnation.
Jesus says to these religious leaders in John 5: 41 “I do not accept glory from people, 42 but I know you — that you have no love for God within you. 43 I have come in my Father’s name, and yet you don’t accept me. If someone else comes in his own name, you will accept him. 44 How can you believe, since you accept glory from one another but don’t seek the glory that comes from the only God? 45 Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom you have set your hope. 46 For if you believed Moses, you would believe me, because he wrote about me.47 But if you don’t believe what he wrote, how will you believe my words? ”
Christ is the fulfilment of the law that came through Moses.
Hebrews 10:1 Since the law has only a shadow of the good things to come, and not the reality itself of those things, it can never perfect the worshipers by the same sacrifices they continually offer year after year.
Hebrews 10:9 He then says, See, I have come to do your will. He takes away the first to establish the second. 10 By this will, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all time.
What happened at the cross?
Romans 7:4 Therefore, my brothers and sisters, you also were put to death in relation to the law through the body of Christ so that you may belong to another. You belong to him who was raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God. 5 For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions aroused through the law were working in us to bear fruit for death. 6 But now we have been released from the law, since we have died to what held us, so that we may serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the old letter of the law.
This world, this Jerusalem, is bound to law, sin, and death, but the Jerusalem above is free and she is our mother, Galatians 4:26.
Galatians 4:21 Tell me, you who want to be under the law, don’t you hear the law? 22 For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave and the other by a free woman. 23 But the one by the slave was born as a result of the flesh, while the one by the free woman was born through promise. 24 These things are being taken figuratively, for the women represent two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai and bears children into slavery — this is Hagar. 25 Now Hagar represents Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. 26 But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother. The people went from one form of slavery, in Egypt, to another form of slavery under the law, a slavery to sin.
To bring this full circle the Sabbath day is a reference to God’s rest. On account of Christ, crucified and resurrected we receive Sabbath rest from God’s wrath, judgement, sin, law, and a mind set on the law, death. The Law of faith sets us free from the law of Moses and sin. On account of Christ, crucified and resurrected, we are declared to be without sin. This is the law of faith that we live under in the new covenant.
The law of Moses is darkness, Christ is light. The darkness of the law is written on our hearts. The Spirit of Christ turns us away from the law, the darkness, and turns us to Christ. This is repentance. Jesus wanted the Pharisees, and us, to bear fruit in keeping with this repentance. Whoever follows after Jesus will never walk in darkness. John 8:12 Jesus spoke to them again: “I am the light of the world. Anyone who follows me will never walk in the darkness but will have the light of life.”
Do we follow Moses or Jesus? It can’t be both. As the darkness of the law seeks to hide God’s face, we rest on His unchanging grace. No power of hell, no scheme of man, can ever pluck us from His hand. Until Jesus returns or calls us home here in the power of Christ we stand.
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Sarah Batdorf 
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