Under the Law

Who is under the law and what law are they under?

The study of the “law” in the Bible can be quite a complex topic with many good Christians disagreeing. Academics and lay people alike disagree. And how one understands the law and the Christian’s relationship to it affects a whole interconnected web of related issues. Are Christians supposed to “keep the Sabbath” today? Is the supposed “moral law” represented in the ten commandments? What is the law of Christ that Paul speaks of? And so, it is hard to say everything in one post about “the law” which could easily take a 500-page book.

After my last post on the law, I received some push back that my post did not mention the “principle of works” contained in the law. I thought this was fair push back and want to address it. Even though the emphasis of my post was on the graciousness of the Old Covenant, arguing that it was not legalistic, I do believe, if we define it using Scripture, there is a “principle of works” within the Old Covenant. I did say that obedience to the law would result in long, blessed life in the promised land, and though I described this as not legalistic, this arrangement could be described as a “principle of works.”

But, before addressing the principle of works in the law, I want to discuss what it means to be “under the law.” Are we all “under the law” or is it only those who try to earn righteousness by works of the law who put themselves “under the law”? And what law are we under, the Mosaic law? Understanding what is meant by the phrase “under the law” is extremely important because Christ “redeemed us from the curse of the law” and the “us” there includes Paul and the Galatians who are Gentiles (Gal 3:13).

Are Gentiles Under the Law?

The passage in Romans 2:14–15 has historically been understood to describe Gentiles as having the law written on their heart.

For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them

A few recent commentators have made a strong case that the language of a “law” being “written on the heart” is alluding to Jeremiah 31:33 where God said he would write the law on Israel’s heart.¹ If that is so, then these Gentiles with the law on their heart would be believing Gentiles.

That being said, it is clear from Romans 1:32 that, through natural revelation, Gentiles know that those who sin deserve death.

Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

They know “God’s righteous decree” because, through natural revelation they know God (Rom 1:21). We also know that Gentiles have consciences which are defiled (Titus 1:15), which they can sear (1 Tim 4:2), which accuse and excuse them (Rom 2:15), and which can be purified in Christ (Heb 9:14).

Those who understand Romans 2:14–15 to be teaching that unbelieving Gentiles have the “works of the law” written on their heart, typically mean as much as expressed above; namely that Gentiles know right and wrong, they know this comes from a moral God, and they know sin deserves death. So, whatever the position one takes on Romans 2:14–15, there is broad agreement that Gentiles know, are accountable to, and are under God’s moral judicial standard.

Are Gentiles Under the Mosaic/Sinai Law?

            To answer this question, we must again understand how the law functioned within the Sinai Covenant.

            The law code, as represented in Exodus 20–23 (and Deuteronomy 13–26), is part of the covenant God made between himself and Israel. And so, understood historically, Gentiles were not a covenant partner of that covenant, and so were not bound/under/accountable to the laws as they functioned within that covenant arrangement.  Think for example of native Americans living in the Americas around 1400 BC. Were they under the Mosaic law? Were they accountable to not sow their fields with two types of grain (Lev 19:19), to build parapets around their home (Deut 22:8), to not remarry those they divorce (Deut 24:1–4), to burn the skin of their sin offerings outside their camp (Lev 4:21), and to not eat mice and mole rats (Lev 11:29)? And, if native Americans did obey such laws, did it result in long, blessed life in the promised land of Canaan?

            I’m not aware of anybody who believes that Gentiles were under the Mosaic law in this way. However, I believe there are some who would appeal to the “moral law” of the Mosaic law that all Gentiles are still under.

Are Gentiles Under the Moral Law of the Mosaic Law?

The tripartite division of the law into moral, civil, and ceremonial is nowhere found in Scripture and artificial.² For example, Deuteronomy 21:1–9 describes the law for how to handle an unsolved murder. The fact that it involves murder makes the law moral, right?…but then again, a sacrifice is offered, so maybe it is ceremonial…and then the elders of the city are brought in to adjudicate, that seems to make it civil. So which is it? Other examples could be stated of laws which are unable to be neatly divided into moral, ceremonial, and civil.

Furthermore, Hebrews 7:12 makes the argument that when the priesthood changes—which all Christians agree Christ has replaced and ended the Levitical priesthood being after the order of Melchizedek—the law changes. It does not say, when the priesthood changes, ceremonial law changes but the moral remains. For the Mosaic law, as part of the covenant arrangement, is an indivisible package, you have it all or none at all.

Now let me be clear. I am not saying that when the priesthood changed God changed his moral standard. God’s moral standard is eternal and unchanging, rooted in his character. I think in this conclusion, I would be agreement with those who would argue for a tripartite division of the law, but we differ in how we get there. And I think the road you take matters.

For example, I would argue that God’s eternal, unchanging moral standard is certainly represented in the Mosaic laws—lots of them, if not all of them, and yet many of those “moral” laws that also indivisibly contain civil and ceremonial elements. I would argue that this “moral standard” is what Gentiles know and what Gentiles are accountable to (Rom 1:32, as mentioned above). Thus, I believe we can study the Mosaic law and learn a lot more about God’s moral standard.

I would disagree that we can exhaustively find God’s eternal, unchanging moral standard codified within the Mosaic law. What is codified is a historic representation of God’s moral, eternal standard that is culturally situated for a particular people (thus including civil elements) entering into a specific covenant with God. I would disagree that we can neatly slice up the Mosaic law into moral, civil, and ceremonial laws and turn around and say “these” laws are God’s eternal moral laws.³ Thus, I would disagree that there is any discoverable “moral law” within the Mosaic covenant that has any ongoing force (because the law was tied to the Old Covenant that has now become obsolete with the coming of the New Covenant, see Heb 7:12; 8:13) and certainly has no ongoing force for all Gentiles because they were not, historically, a covenant partner of the Old Covenant.

Again, I did not say, Gentiles are not under God’s moral standard. They are. This moral standard, whether we call it the “works of the law” written on Gentile hearts (Rom 2:14–15) or “God’s righteous decree” that Gentiles know (Rom 1:32), is eternal and unchanging. Being eternal, it existed before it was represented in the Mosaic law code tied to the Old Covenant (think of all those who lived before Sinai, such as Abraham, Noah, and Abel, etc.). One great example of an eternal moral code known to all people (both Gentiles and Jews) is Abimelech’s (a Gentile living centuries before the Mosaic law was given to Israel) outrage with Isaac for lying about who his wife was. He says to Isaac “What is this you have done to us? One of the people might easily have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us.” (Gen 26:10). Abimelech recognizes that to sleep with another man’s wife brings guilt. And he did not learn this from the “moral law” of the Mosaic law because the Mosaic law was not given yet.

What about Natural Law?

I am not a natural law theologian; but at the very least, in the New Testament Paul seems to argue that there are moral things “nature teaches” us, specifically about gender (e.g. 1 Cor 11:14). God’s eternal, unchanging, moral standard can be discerned by nature, this is the teaching of Romans 1:19–32. Thus, nature teaches that disobeying parents, murder, lying, and homosexuality, etc. are morally wrong, and known to all people.

Bringing up “natural law” also brings up the distinction between natural and special revelation.

Natural revelation is what God has revealed to all people about himself (Rom 1:19–21) and his moral standard (Rom 1:29–32) through his created world, including the conscience he has given to all people. Special revelation, by contrast, is that which God has revealed in a supernatural way when he speaks to certain people, whether in dreams, visions, prophecy, and Scripture. Natural revelation contains enough revelation to condemn (they are “without excuse” Rom 1:20), but special revelation is necessary for salvation, for humanity to know who God is, his plan for the world, salvation in Christ alone, etc. Natural revelation is not able to make one wise for salvation.

All theologians would agree that Gentiles have natural revelation but, at the time of the Old Covenant, Gentiles did not have any special revelation outside of that given to Israel. The Egyptians experienced special revelation as God performed his mighty acts in their land, and it resulted in the salvation of some (Ex 9:19–20; 12:38). But returning to our example of native Americans living around 1400 BC, they only had natural revelation. From natural revelation they knew, in their conscience, God’s righteous decree of death for sin and they were without excuse (Rom 1:20, 32) but they had no access to a saving knowledge of God.

So Gentiles without special revelation are “under,” in terms of accountable and condemnable, God’s moral standard as revealed to them through “natural revelation” but not “under/accountable to” special revelation which includes the Mosaic law.

What about Romans 3:20?

Romans 3:19–20 concludes Paul’s argument he began at Romans 1:17:

Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

Romans 3:19 states that “the whole world” is held accountable to God—which all theologians agree with—because they are “under the law.” Paul has been arguing from Romans 1–3 that both Jew and Gentile are accountable and condemned by the law before God. If “law” here in Romans 3:19 is the entire Mosaic law, or even a part of that law which some label “moral law” given at Sinai around 1400 BC, it becomes difficult to understand from the rest of Scripture how the whole world is under that law, since the whole world was not present to enter into the covenant at Sinai and also many people lived and died long before the law was given at Sinai.

In Romans 2:26 Paul speaks about the Gentiles (the “uncircumcised”) who keep the “precepts of the law” (ESV). This phrase in Greek is “τὰ δικαιώματα τοῦ νόμου” and is better translated “the righteous requirement of the law.”⁴ If we understand Romans 3:19–20 as teaching that the whole world is accountable to God because of their failure to live up to the “righteous requirement of the law,” that seems to make better sense of the entire witness of Scripture, and Paul’s argument in Romans 1–3.⁵ Gentiles are not condemned because of their failure to give their firstfruits to the Levites in their midst (Deut 18:1–4), their failure to keep the feast of unleavened bread (Ex 23:15), or because they wore garments made of mixed material (Lev 19:19). Gentiles are not “under” these specific laws because these were specific laws for the covenant partner of the Sinai covenant.

Again, those who argue for the moral law would agree that Gentiles are not condemned because they, for example, wore garments of mixed materials since that is a ceremonial or civil law. Rather Gentiles are condemned for their failure to keep the moral law of the Mosaic law. It may seem like we’re splitting hairs, but I think it more biblical to say Gentiles are condemned for their failure to live up to God’s eternal, moral, unchanging, standard as represented in many of the Mosaic laws, and as also revealed since the beginning of time through natural revelation and written on the consciences of all people. This moral standard⁶ is the “righteous requirement of the law” (Rom 2:26; 8:4) and is summed up as loving God and loving neighbor (Matt 22:37–40, Rom 13:10). It seems best then to understand that Paul in Romans 3:19 uses an abbreviated form for convenience, namely the term “the law” to describe the “righteous requirement of the law” which all people, Jew and Gentile, are under.

Summary

            So in sum, all people are accountable to God as Paul concludes in Romans 3:19–20. They are accountable to the righteous requirement of the law (found in much of the Mosaic law and revealed to all people by nature, especially their through their conscience) and are without excuse. And, with Paul, we can summarize this truth by saying all people are “under the law” of God.

***Image: Moses Breaking the Tablets of the Law, 1659 by Rembrandt

1. For example, Simon J. Gathercole, “A Law unto Themselves: The Gentiles in Romans 2.14-15 Revisited” JSNT 24 (2002): 27–49.

2. Thomas Schreiner, 40 Questions about Christians and Biblical Law, 89–95.

3. Obviously, if a law is stated a-temporally and without cultural situatedness, the closer we get to saying a law is an eternal, unchanging moral law of God, such as “do not murder.”

4. In fact, this is the way the ESV translates this phrase in its only other occurrence in Romans 8:4. Gentiles, who have never read the Mosaic law may keep its “righteous requirement.” And, as Romans 8:4 makes clear, this righteous requirement is only able to be fulfilled by those who walk by the Spirit. Thus these are believing Gentiles, as Paul makes clear in Romans 2:26–29 describing this Gentile who keeps the righteous requirement of the law as having his heart circumcised by the Spirit of God (cf. Deut 10:16, 30:6).

5. Meaning of “law” does not always have as referent the Sinai covenant or Mosaic law. Thomas Schreiner, 40 Questions about Christians and Biblical Law, 22.

6. I’ve intentionally avoided saying “moral law” but have used the term “moral standard” to avoid implying that I support the tripartite division of the law of Moses of which a “moral” part is still in force and to point to an eternal standard that historically predates the Mosaic law.