Limitations of the Old Law (Part 2)
In Galatians 4:21-31, Paul compares the Old Law in an allegory to Hagar and Sarah. He says that the Old Law is like Hagar and the new law is like Sarah. Sarah’s son was the son of promise. Hagar’s son was not. Just as Sarah cast out the handmaiden from her tent, so also the New Law has cast out the Old Law.
The book of Hebrews makes the limited authority of the Old Law extremely clear. Christ could not have been a high priest unless the Old Law was first taken out of the way (Hebrews 7:14). The Old Law contained a “pattern” of the spiritual things, not the actual spiritual things themselves (Hebrews 9:23). Christ’s sacrifice dedicated the actual spiritual things that the Old Law only figuratively represented, and He paved a new way for man to come before God. This is now the only way to the father (John 14:6).
The Old Covenant, while its authority as a law has ended, is still profitable for us to study. Romans 15:3 says that those things were written for our learning. 1 Corinthians 10:11 says that all those things happened by example that we may learn from them. Paul in writing to Timothy said that all scripture was inspired of God and profitable (2 Timothy 3:16, 17). We can and MUST learn from the Old Covenant, but its specific commands are no longer binding today. It has accomplished its purpose by leading man to Christ (Galatians 3:24). Christ fulfilled the Old Law when he died on the cross and the curtain to the Holy Place was rent open for all men to enter through his blood (Matthew 27:51). However, unlike the priests who went in and stood and went out, He sat down on the right hand of the throne of God forever (Hebrews 10:11, 12).
God bless you, and I love you.
Kevin Cauley