Do Christians have to obey the OT laws? If you have been following the arguments in the other articles in this entry, your would already have the answer. Just in case you dropped in on this article before reading the rest, the answer is, in the end, simple: No. And Yes.
One approach to answering this question that used to be quite popular is to distinguish between the moral-ethical laws from the ritual-ceremonial laws. There is, however, a problem with this approach. Scriptures itself does not make such a distinction, and any distinction we make is the result of our rational perception that such a distinction exists. Scriptures sees them all as of one piece. Embedded within the ritual-ceremonial laws are moral and ethical implications. Take the regulation about Sabbath, e.g.. Is it a ceremonial law or a moral law?
"Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy." (Exo 20:8-11)
If you are still thinking about it, you have began to see the quandary of such an approach.
Thankfully there is another approach that rest on surer grounds. The answer is No - Christians don't have to obey any of the OT instructions. The basis for this answer is simple: Christians, unless they are Jews, do not belong to the "people of Israel". The laws in the OT are the outcome of the covenant that God made with Israel as a people at Mount Sinai. They were formulated for them in a way that takes into account the history as well as the physical and cultural environment in which they lived. Take Deut 22:8, e.g.:
When you build a new house, make a parapet around your roof so that you may not bring the guilt of bloodshed on your house if someone falls from the roof.
This law assumes that the Israelites lived in houses with flat roofs. Flat roofs were important for them because, before the days of piped water, the roof served as a catchment for rain that falls only during two short seasons in the year, which are then channelled into underground cisterns for use during the dry months. But flat roofs also attract people to climb up there to store things or to sleep during the hot summers. Inevitably people fall off the roof and get killed as a result. This law requires the Israelites, when they build a new house to ensure that a parapet, a low wall, is built around the roof to prevent this kind of terrible accidents from happening.
This explains the 'No' part of our answer. But there is also a 'Yes.'
While we are not required to obey the OT laws because we come to God on the basis of a different covenant from the Jews, those laws, nonetheless, are revelation and they reflect the will of God, of what is pleasing to Him and aligns with His character.
Low Chai Hok
©Alberith, 2021