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Does the New Covenant Abolish the Commandments?

Jesus Christ and the apostles viewed the Ten Commandments as a necessary part of Christian living.

The Bible tells us that Christ came as the Mediator of a new covenant (Hebrews 8:6). The popular belief that the New Covenant abolishes God's law reflects a misunderstanding of both covenants. God tells us that He altered the original covenant and made "a better covenant, which was established on better promises" (verse 6). But it was not established on different laws. The law stayed the same.

There was, however, a weakness, or fault, in the original covenant. That fault was with the people, not with the law. "Because finding fault with them, He says: 'Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah'" (verse 8). It was because the people "did not continue in My covenant, and I disregarded them, says the LORD" (verse 9).

In the Old Covenant God wrote the law on tablets of stone. It was external, not part of the thinking and motives of the people. It was in their literature but not in their hearts. In the New Covenant God writes the law in the minds and hearts of His people (Hebrews 8:10; Jeremiah 31:33-34).

To enable people to internalize His law—to love it and obey it eagerly and willingly—God makes this promise: "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them" (Ezekiel 36:26-27). God's Spirit enables His people to obey His laws.

People lacking the Holy Spirit are incapable of wholehearted obedience. Why? "Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God" (Romans 8:7-8).

This is why the Old Covenant and the New Covenant differ. Paul explains that "what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh" God has accomplished by sending Jesus, who overcame the flesh and "condemned sin [lawlessness] in the flesh, 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" (Romans 8:3-4; see also 1 John 3:4).

The International Critical Commentary, in reference to Romans 8:4, says: "God's purpose in 'condemning' sin was that His law's requirement might be fulfilled in us, that is, that his law might be established in the sense of at last being truly and sincerely obeyed—the fulfillment of the promises of Jer 31:33 and Ezek 36:26.1."

In a footnote to Jeremiah 31:33-34 the commentary explains that this passage "is often misunderstood as a promise of a new law to take the place of the old or else as a promise of a religion without law at all. But the new thing promised in v. 33 is, in fact, neither a new law nor freedom from law, but a sincere inward desire and determination on the part of God's people to obey the law already given to them ..."

The following passages in the New Testament confirm, either explicitly or by example, that Jesus Christ and the apostles viewed the Ten Commandments as a necessary part of Christian living.

Appearances of the Ten Commandments in the New Testament

First Commandment

Second Commandment

Third Commandment

Fouth Commandment

Fifth Commandment

Sixth Commandment

Seventh Commandment

Eigth Commandment

Ninth Commandment

Tenth Commandment

First Commandment

Matthew 4:10; 22:37-38

¹⁰ Then said Jesus to him, Get you hence, Satan: for it is written, You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.

³⁷ Jesus said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. ³⁸ This is the first and great commandment.

Second Commandment

1 John 5:21

²¹ Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.

1 Corinthians 6:9; 10:7, 14;

⁹ Know you not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,

⁷ Neither be you idolaters, as were some of them; as it is written, The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.

¹⁴ Why, my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry.

Ephesians 5:5

⁵ For this you know, that no fornicator, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.

Third Commandment

Matthew 5:33-34; 7:21-23

³³ Again, you have heard that it has been said by them of old time, You shall not forswear yourself, but shall perform to the Lord your oaths: ³⁴ But I say to you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God's throne:

²¹ Not every one that said to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that does the will of my Father which is in heaven. ²² Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name? and in your name have cast out devils? and in your name done many wonderful works? ²³ And then will I profess to them, I never knew you: depart from me, you that work iniquity.

Luke 11:2

² And he said to them, When you pray, say, Our Father which are in heaven, Hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, as in heaven, so in earth.

1 Timothy 6:1

¹ Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honor, that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed.

Fouth Commandment

Luke 4:16

¹⁶ And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read.

Acts 13:14, 42, 44; 16:13; 17:2; 18:4

¹⁴ But when they departed from Perga, they came to Antioch in Pisidia, and went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and sat down.

...⁴² And when the Jews were gone out of the synagogue, the Gentiles sought that these words might be preached to them the next sabbath.

...⁴⁴ And the next sabbath day came almost the whole city together to hear the word of God.

¹³ And on the sabbath we went out of the city by a river side, where prayer was wont to be made; and we sat down, and spoke to the women which resorted thither.

² And Paul, as his manner was, went in to them, and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures,

⁴ And he reasoned in the synagogue every sabbath, and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks.

Hebrews 4:4, 9

⁴ For he spoke in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all his works.

...⁹ There remains therefore a rest to the people of God.

Fifth Commandment

Matthew 15:3-6; 19:17-19

³ But he answered and said unto them, Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition? ⁴ For God commanded, saying, Honour thy father and mother: and, He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death. ⁵ But ye say, Whosoever shall say to his father or his mother, It is a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; ⁶ And honour not his father or his mother, he shall be free. Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition.

¹⁷ And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. 18 He saith unto him, Which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, 19 Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

Ephesians 6:2-3

²Honour thy father and mother; which is the first commandment with promise; ³ That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.

Sixth Commandment

Matthew 5:21-22; 19:17-18

¹⁷ And he said to him, Why call you me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if you will enter into life, keep the commandments. ¹⁸ He said to him, Which? Jesus said, You shall do no murder, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, (AKJV)

Romans 13:9

⁹ For this, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not kill, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, You shall not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Galatians 5:19-21

¹⁹ Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, ²⁰ Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, jealousies, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, ²¹ Contentions, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

James 2:10-12

¹⁰ For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. 11 For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if you commit no adultery, yet if you kill, you are become a transgressor of the law. 12 So speak you, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty.

Seventh Commandment

Matthew 5:27-28; 19:17-18

²⁷ You have heard that it was said by them of old time, You shall not commit adultery: 28 But I say to you, That whoever looks on a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart.

Romans 13:9

1 Corinthians 6:9; 10:8

⁹ Know you not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind

¹⁰ Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand.

Ephesians 5:5

⁵ For this you know, that no fornicator, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.

Galatians 5:19-21

James 3:10-12

¹⁰ Out of the same mouth proceeds blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not so to be. ¹¹ Does a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter? ¹² Can the fig tree, my brothers, bear olive berries? either a vine, figs? so can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh.

Eighth Commandment

Matthew 19:17-18

Romans 13:9

Ephesians 4:28

²⁸ Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labor, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needs.

Ninth Commandment

Matthew 19:17-18

¹⁷And he said to him, Why call you me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if you will enter into life, keep the commandments. ¹⁸ He said to him, Which? Jesus said, You shall do no murder, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, (AKJV)

Romans 13:9

Colossians 3:9

⁹ Lie not one to another, seeing that you have put off the old man with his deeds;

Ephesians 4:25

²⁵Why putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor: for we are members one of another.

Tenth Commandment

Luke 12:15

¹⁵ And he said to them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man's life consists not in the abundance of the things which he possesses. (AKJV)

Romans 7:7; 13:9

⁷ What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. No, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, You shall not covet.

Ephesians 5:3, 5

³ But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becomes saints

...⁵ For this you know, that no fornicator, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.(AKJV)

Grace, Faith and Law >< The Ten Commandments in the New Testament