Are the laws of the Old Testament still binding?
Claims that the law endures and must be practiced contrast with declarations that believers are no longer under it; the love summary does not itself abolish the commands.
- Textual conflict
- Interpretive tension
- The passages pull in different directions, but the conflict depends on how their wording, scope, or narrative context is read.
- Importance
- Major
- A major event or claim with wider implications.
Assurances that the law's details endure conflict substantially with explicit release from its authority, despite uncertainty about the exact obligations retained.
An editorial assessment of the quoted passages. Importance describes the stakes; it does not increase certainty. Reading order weighs both.
God's commandments endure and people must keep the law
Know therefore that the Lord thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations;
Therefore thou shalt love the Lord thy God, and keep his charge, and his statutes, and his judgments, and his commandments, alway.
These are the statutes and judgments, which ye shall observe to do in the land, which the Lord God of thy fathers giveth thee to possess it, all the days that ye live upon the earth.
Be ye mindful always of his covenant; the word which he commanded to a thousand generations;
Thou art near, O Lord; and all thy commandments are truth. Concerning thy testimonies, I have known of old that thou hast founded them for ever.
Thy word is true from the beginning: and every one of thy righteous judgments endureth for ever.
Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse; A blessing, if ye obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you this day: And a curse, if ye will not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside out of the way which I command you this day, to go after other gods, which ye have not known.
Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.
Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.
Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments.
For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail.
Then came the first, saying, Lord, thy pound hath gained ten pounds. And he said unto him, Well, thou good servant: because thou hast been faithful in a very little, have thou authority over ten cities.
(For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.
Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.
Love of God and neighbor summarizes the law
Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
Believers are released from the law and live under grace
The law and the prophets were until John: since that time the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth into it.
Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.
For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.
Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.
But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.
For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.
Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:
Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.
But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.
Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace;
Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;
Understanding the contradiction
Deuteronomy 11:1 tells its audience to keep God's statutes always, and Psalms 119:151-152 says the testimonies are founded forever. Matthew 5:18-19 strongly protects even the law's smallest details and judges teaching others to break commandments. Luke 16:17 similarly treats failure of the law as harder than heaven and earth passing.
Romans 6:14 says believers are under grace rather than law, and Romans 7:6 says they have been released from it. Galatians 3:24-25 describes the law as a temporary instructor whose supervisory role ends with faith. These statements change the believer's obligation or relationship to the law. Justification by faith in Romans 3:28 is not by itself a ban on obeying commands, but the express release statements go beyond a discussion of how obedience is rewarded.
Matthew 22:37-40 summarizes the law through love of God and neighbor without saying every specific rule disappears. It therefore should not be treated as a separate explicit abolition. The collection preserves competing accounts of continuity and release, leaving the scope of the enduring commandments unsettled. Luke 19:16-17 concerns a rewarded servant and adds no direct claim about Mosaic law.