Do Christians need to keep the Old Covenant?

There are multiple groups of people who believe that Christians should keep the Old Testament law, and that we are under, still, the Old Covenant. The first of these groups of people are those who claim to be Christians, and yet say we need to keep the law to be holy before God. The second group of people, broadly speaking, are non-Christians who don't understand how covenants in the Bible work. You may have had a conversation with someone where you say that the Bible says that homosexuality is wrong, and they say, "Yeah, well where's that?" You might say, "Well, Leviticus 18:22." They're like, "Oh, that's part of the old law, so if you're going to follow that commandment and say that homosexuality is wrong, well then you can't wear clothes that have multiple fabrics in them. You can't plant crops of two different types in the same field," etc., etc. Don't eat shellfish, etc.

There is a confusion that is pervasive, about the Old Testament law. and the Old Covenant more specifically. An easy way to address this question of if Christians should keep the Old Covenant is to say, "Well, do you keep the laws of Europe?" Now if you're a citizen of Europe, hopefully you say yes, and you should. But if you're a citizen of any other continent or country, or nation group, the answer should be no. You don't keep the laws of that nation because you're under the laws of another nation.

It's the same way with covenants, broadly speaking. Growing up, I didn't know what the word “covenant” meant. A covenant is an agreement; it's an agreement between two parties. It's interesting that our Bibles are divided into an Old “Testament” and a New Testament. “Testament” is another word for covenant. Broadly speaking, the Old Testament is about one covenant. Now there are actually several in there, but mainly speaking, it's about the Old Covenant, also called the Mosaic Covenant. That is an agreement-a covenant-that God made with Moses for the Nation of Israel. That's the Old Testament-the Old Covenant.

Then there's the New Testament and the New Covenant, which is an agreement that God makes, or will make, with all peoples. Let's go back to that Old Covenant. Let's learn some more about it to determine if we even should keep it. Here is what Deuteronomy 30:15-18 says.

“See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. 16 If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you today, by loving the Lord your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. 17 But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, 18 I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish. You shall not live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to enter and possess.

This is an agreement. This says, "If you do this, I will do this. However, if you don't do this, I'm going to do this other thing." God is making an agreement with the people of Israel, with Moses and his descendants. This is the Old Covenant broadly. From this, the Old Testament law becomes a part of that. Surely the Ten Commandments, but also the 613 laws in the Old Testament legal code in Deuteronomy and Leviticus. Among those are: Don't have sex with animals. Don't lie with a man as one lies with a woman. Don't walk more than 1,900-something paces on the Sabbath. Among those would also be tithing. Along with that would also be regulations on how to sacrifice animals, when to do that, when not to do that. What to do if someone came in contact with blood. All of that comes al…