THE RELATIONSHIP OF THE LAW, MOSES, AND CHRIST has everything to do with the relationship between the Old and New Testaments. Erroneous views about the one relationship will produce problems in one's understanding of the other. Therefore, it is important that we first look at the relationship between the Testaments.

The law and the gospel encompass the whole Bible, but not as separate parts of the Bible. It is not as though some books of Scripture are exclusively law and others are gospel, or that the Old Testament is law only and the New is gospel. The law and the gospel are declared in each of them. In the Old Testament we find much of the gospel, and in the New Testament we find much of the law. Where the blessings of salvation are declared, offered, and promised freely-not conditioned on works performed by sinners-all such passages, whether in the Old Testament or in the New, contain the doctrine of the gospel.

Does Galatians Nullify the Old Testament?

Marcion's Division
The erroneous division of the Testaments is not new. In the early church, a religious teacher by the name of Marcion drove a wedge between the Old and New Testaments. A native of Pontus (Sinope) who made his way to Rome about the year A.D. 139, Marcion is said to have been a man of deep earnestness and marked ability. Having labored unsuccessfully to bring the church to his way of thinking, he felt constrained to organize his followers into a separate church and to seek universal acceptance of his views by active propaganda.

Marcion thought that the book of Gala tians held the key to the relationship between the Old Testament and the New. Noting that Galatians speaks of Judaistic opposition to Paul, Marcion proceeded on the assumption that the other apostles shared in this opposition. He became convinced that the gospel was corrupted by any mixture with the law. So he set himself to the task of separating the law and the gospel, and worked out his own theory of opposites or antitheses. Believing that Paul was the only apostle who really understood the gospel of Jesus Christ, Marcion limited the canon of the New Testament to the gospel of Luke and ten Epistles of Paul.

Marcion's basic error was twofold. First, he did not properly interpret the book of Galatians. Second, he based his view of the law on Galatians alone. Most antinomians are guilty of the same basic error. Interpretation of any single passage of Scripture requires our use of "the analogy of Scripture" (comparing Scripture with Scripture) as a rule of interpretation.

Comparing Galatians with Romans
The book of Calatians is dealing with a specific problem. The misguided Judaizers wanted to combine the gospel of Christ with the observance of Jewish ceremonies-a practice that had been rejected at the so-called apostolic council at Jerusalem (Acts 15:1 ff.). Note that the problem addressed at the council was mixing Jewish ceremonies and the gospel, not mixing the moral law with the gospel. The Jerusalem council was about circumcision, not the Ten Commandments.

And certain men came down from Judea and taught the brethren, "Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved." Therefore, when Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and dispute with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain others of them should go up to Jerusalem, to the apostles and elders, about this question.
(Acts 15:1-2)

"The question" here was circumcision.
We saw in the previous chapter that in his letter to the Romans, Paul upheld the role of the law in the believer's life, particularly in Romans 7. Paul did not change his mind or contradict himself concerning the role of the moral law between his writing to the Romans and his writing to the Galatians. First, in writing to the Galatians, he makes it very plain that the law is of divine origin (Gal. 3:19). that it is also an evidence of God's grace (v. 21), and that, despite all its severity, it was intended to make room for Christ (v. 23ff.). Such considerations serve to magnify the importance and the holy character of the law.

Second, it must be remembered that in Galatians (unlike Romans) the whole argument is governed by Paul's dispute with the Judaizers, who after the advent of Christ, wanted to bind believers to the ceremonies of Moses (the ceremonial law). It is altogether natural, therefore, that in such a discussion, the provisional and negative significance of the law should receive emphasis. In Romans, meanwhile, the argument is more balanced. It slants less toward the dangers of keeping the law and is oriented more toward its positive and permanent significance.

We can therefore say that Galatians emphasized the inadequacy of the law for salvation, and Rornans emphasized that despite the transgression of God's holy law, there is salvation in Christ. Almost every honest Bible teacher would agree that most of Paul's references to "law" in Galatians pertain to ceremonies, particularly circumcision (2:3, 7-9, 12; 5:2-12; 6:11-15; cf. Acts 15:lff.). All would agree that the main theme of Galatians is the gospel of justification by faith apart from works of the law. No one was ever justified before God by the law No law was ever given that could impart life. The law served only in a preparatory way-as a custodian bringing sinners to Christ to be justified freely. But there is more to salvation than justification. There are sanctification and glorification, and they are inseparably joined together in God's salvation. The epistle to the Romans also deals with justification, but not apart from sanctification.

A key phrase in Galatians 4:9-10 illustrates what 1 am saying: "But now after you have known God, or rather are known by God, how is it that you turn again to the weak and beggarly elements, to which you desire again to be in bondage? You observe days and months and seasons and years." Paul is here referring to that which kept his readers in bondage, who were seeking to be justified by ceremonies: "weak and beggarly elements." The New International Version says, "weak and miserable principles," namely, legalistic stipulations, ceremonies such as circumcision. In light of the positive things Paul says in Romans about the moral law, he must be referring in Galatians to ceremony, not morality. Otherwise, those two letters would be in blatant contradiction, and the Bible does not contradict itself.

The law to which Paul refers in Romans hardly sounds like "and miserable principles." Listen to the inspired words of the apostle: "By the law is the knowledge of sin" (Rom. 3:20). "Do we then make void the law through faith? On the contrary, we establish the law" (v. 31). Does that suggest that the moral law was weak? Far from it. Paul attributes his conversion to the law-the tenth commandment (Rom. 7:7-9). Though the law is weak and poor to save (just as the sinner is weak and poor), the law has the power to convict. Not only is it powerful, but it is also holy, just, and good (vv. 12,16). Paul must be talking about the Ten Commandments, not the ceremonial law. Surely he would not call something that is weak, beggarly, and miserable "good"! Nor would he say "I delight in the law of God" (v. 22) if he were referring to weak and miserable principles (the ceremonies) that have passed away.

Thus, while Paul emphasizes the passing of the ceremonial law in Galatians, that is not all that he has to say about law. In Romans he emphasizes the abiding goodness, relevance, and authority of the moral law. The two letters must be understood together, for they mutually serve each other. We must not take our view of the law from the book of Galatians alone.

Paul's focus on circumcision in Galatians is plain in 5:2-12. Likewise, his personal benediction near the end of the letter (6:11-15) reinforces the principal concern of his letter, that justification is through the cross, not through circumcision or other legalistic stipulations.

See with what large letters I have written to you with my own hand! As many as desire to make a good showing in the flesh, these try to compel you to be circumcised, only that they may not suffer persecution for the cross of Christ. For not even those who are circumcised keep the law, but they desire to have you circumcised that they may glory in your flesh. But God forbid that I should glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but a new creation.

It should not go unnoticed that between these two passages in Galatians, Paul upholds the moral law by calling his readers to "walk in the Spirit" (5:16) and "not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh." And what does the Spirit teach us to do?

To fulfill the righteous principles of the law in our walk: "that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit" (Rom. 8:4).

Therefore, the book of Galatians should not be used to drive a wedge between the moral law and the gospel, or between the Old Testament and the New. The book of Galatians must be interpreted in the light of the whole Bible. Having said that, we can now look at the real similarities and differences between the Testaments and between Moses and Christ.

Similarities and Differences
There are many such similarities and differences between the Old and New Testaments. For a good exposition of them, I suggest reading John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2.10-11.

Basic Similarities
The similarities may be summarized this way: All the people of God from the beginning of time have been adopted into His family and covenanted to Him by the same law, the same doctrines, and the same grace. They participate in the same inheritance and enjoy the same salvation by grace through the same Mediator. The people of God have never been saved any other way than by grace.

They had the same faith in the same Mediator (yet to come) as did the saints of the New Testament. We read about their faith in Hebrews 11. Paul confirms this in Romans 1:2-3 when he writes of the gospel "which He promised before through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures, concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh."

Paul is saying that the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed through the law and the prophets. Jesus like-wise speaks of the revelation of His gospel to Old Testament saints: "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad" (John 8:56).

Mary and Zacharias, in their songs about the coming of Jesus, confirmed the hope of the Old Testament people of God in the gospel: "He has helped His servant Israel, in remembrance of His mercy, as He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed forever" (Luke 1:54-55). "Blessed is the Lord God of Israel, for He has visited and redeemed His people.., to perform the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember His holy covenant, the oath which He swore to our father Abraham" (vv. 68, 72-73).

Moses Versus Jesus in John 1:17?
We saw in chapter 12 how Romans 6:14 is mistaken to mean that Christians are not under the law in any sense. Another verse that is badly misinterpreted and misapplied is John 1:17. "For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ."

We must remember that Moses was not the lawgiver. He was the messenger, the deliverer. There is only one Lawgiver, God almighty, our Creator. It was He who wrote the Ten Commandments on tables of stone. And so, to be exact, they are not the law of Moses; they are the law of God. Christ, the Mediator of the new covenant, is not a new Lawgiver. It was His eternal law that was revealed to Moses in the first place. He need not improve upon it or replace it.

Often Bible teachers see a radical opposition between Moses and Jesus in John 1:17. That is a great error and does much harm. Moses and Christ are friends. It is impossible to tarnish the glory of the one without dulling the luster of the other.

Jesus therefore said to Jews who wished to kill Him, "If you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?" (John 5:46-47). Later He said to the disciples on the road to Emmaus, "These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me" (Luke 24:44).

To be sure, there are important differences between Moses and Christ-day-and-night differences. But there is also a connection and a relationship. One of the fundamental principles in any consideration of the law and grace is that we must not miss that connection. And so these three facts should be fixed in our minds:

Moses and the law show men their disease and thus make way for the Great Physician. (The healthy do not need a physician.) The law shows the need, thus it is the foundation.

Why do people get physical examinations? To discover any hidden problems. And if a problem is discovered, they call for the surgeon or the internist. The discovery of the disease and the physician to heal-they are different but related. Both are needed. The law threatens but cannot help, wounds but does not heal, shows our feebleness but does not give strength. But it does make us ready for the Great Physician, who brings healing and strength.

BELOW, I WISH TO DO THREE THINGS: First, I want to show what John 1:17 is not teaching. Second, I want to make some key comparisons between Moses and Christ. Third, I hope to draw some reasonable conclusions concerning the contrast and connection between law and grace, between Moses and Christ.

What John 1:17 Does Not Teach
"The law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ." What this verse does not teach is that Moses was not a messenger of truth, or that the law he delivered was not true. Moses taught truth. The law was truth and nothing but truth-no less true than Christ. He personified it.

The law was perfect and Christ was perfect.
The verse does not teach that Moses was false and Christ was true. Though Moses was not perfect, he was a true servant of God.

By faith Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt; for he looked to the reward. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured as seeing Him who is invisible. By faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, lest he who destroyed the first-born should touch them. (Heb. 11:24-28)

Nor does the verse teach that Moses did not know anything about grace and a gracious God.

And the LORD passed before him and proclaimed, "The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children's children to the third and the fourth generation." So Moses made haste and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshiped. Then he said, "If now I have found grace in Your sight, 0 LORD, let my LORD, I pray, go among us, even though we are a stiff-necked people; and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us as Your inheritance." (Ex. 34:6-9)

Though grace and truth came through Jesus, they did not have to wait until His coming to earth. The grace of our Lord came as early as the fall of Adam and Eve. It was grace that sought them in the garden when they hid from God (Gen. 3:8). It was by grace that God called to them (v. 9). Truth sent the righteous judgment that expelled them from the garden (vv. 22-24), but mercy and grace provided for them (see, e.g., 3:15; 4:1, 25). Later we read that "Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD" (Gen. 6:8).

God also dealt according to grace and truth with His people on the night of the Passover in Egypt. Grace provided their safety under the blood. And truth demanded an innocent substitute to atone for sin. These great events pictured the grace and truth that would come in Christ. Thus, John 1:17 must not be thought to teach that Moses knew nothing of grace. Nor does the passage teach that there is no relationship between law and
grace.

In summary, John 1:17 cannot mean the following:

• It cannot mean that Moses did not teach truth; the law was truth.
• It cannot mean that Moses was false and Christ was true.
• It cannot mean that Moses did not know anything about grace.
• It cannot mean that there is any conflict between Moses and Christ, or between law and grace.
• It cannot mean that there is no relationship between law and grace or between Moses and Christ.

In the light of these five things that the passage cannot mean, there are some important conclusions that should be drawn.

• It is important to understand the relationship.
• It is important to see how Moses serves Christ to establish Him and His work on the cross (see
  "Fulfill" in chap. 11).
• It is important to see how the law serves to establish the gospel.
• It is important in teaching or preaching never to suggest any idea of opposition or contradiction
  between law and gospel or between Christ and Moses-not by interpretation, implication,
  illustration, or application.

There is absolutely no opposition. It is a serious, harmful error to say that there is. To oppose the law is also to oppose the life and death of the Savior. By the law, He fulfilled all righteousness and by His life and death He endured sin's penalty. By doing both He declared the law to be holy, just, and good. Every reflection, therefore, upon the moral law is a reflection upon Christ.

Comparisons Between Moses and Christ
Although John 1:17 does not envision a conflict between Moses and Christ, it invites a number of key comparisons.

• Moses was a servant. Christ was the Master.
• Moses was a subject. Christ was King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
• Moses was a man. Christ was the God-man.
• Moses was the agent smiting the rock. Christ was the smitten Rock.
• Moses was a student. Christ was the only divine teacher in whom dwelled the fullness of wisdom.
• Moses had a message of death to the sinner. Christ had the message of pardon, hope, and life.
• Moses was given the law. Christ was the essence of grace and truth. He was full of grace and
  truth (v. 14).
• Moses came from Mount Sinai with the law that condemned sinners. Christ went to Mount Calvary
  for condemned sinners.
• Moses did not see God. Christ was with God and was God (v. 1).

Conclusions Concerning Law and Grace
We may, therefore, draw some reasonable conclusions regarding the contrast and connection between law and grace.

• The law addressed men as members of the old creation. Grace makes men members of the new
   creation (2 Cor. 5:17).
• The law manifests the sin that is in man. Grace manifests the mercy that is in God.
• The law demands righteousness from man. Grace brings righteousness to man.
• The law sentences the living man to death. Grace brings dead men to life.
• The law speaks of what man must do for God. Grace tells what God has done for man.
• The law brings the knowledge of sin. Grace brings the remedy for sin.
• The law brings the will of God to man but gives no power to obey. Grace gives man a desire to do
   the will of God and gives him power to obey.
• The law testified to God's righteousness. Grace supplies and imparts His righteousness.

John 1:17 contrasts what was given by Moses and what came by Jesus Christ. Grace and truth were not merely given but came in all their fullness and glorious perfection in Christ. The law was given to Moses because it was not his own. But grace and truth were not given to Christ-they were His own essential perfections. The greatest comparison and contrast is how

God was made known by His only begotten Son.
This wonderful verse is not describing a conflict between the Mosaic law and Christ. What we have in John 1:17 is a comparison. The saints under Moses were infants in knowledge, not having the full revelation of Christ in the New Testament.

Those living in the New Testament age can see further now into the mystery of the gospel, understand it, and take great comfort in it.

Could those who separate Moses and Christ join in singing the song of Moses and the Lamb described in Revelation 15?

And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying: "Great and marvelous are Your works, Lord God Almighty! Just and true are Your ways, 0 King of the saints! Who shall not fear You, 0 Lord, and glorify Your name? For You alone are holy.

For all nations shall come and worship before You, For Your judgments have been manifested." (Rev. 15:3-4) God's promises always accompany His precepts. His grace turns precepts into promises, and the spirit of grace turns precepts and promises into prayers. In this way, the law establishes grace and serves the gospel, rather than opposing it.