Why bother with biblical law? Many Christians find the subject obscure and boring, with eyerolls among the politer responses. The idea that a prohibition on, say, mixing fibres is important to the modern Christian seems implausible. But we need to know that, historically, Christians have not ignored biblical law. A glance at the British Isles, for example, where the present author is located, shows the golden thread of biblical law spun throughout its history. The ninth-century law-code of King Alfred the Great, to give just one instance, was the first and only codification of Old English law and was based, explicitly, on the laws of Moses (specifically, a lengthy extract from the Covenant Code of Exodus). This was also one of the earliest attempts at translating the Bible into Old English; out of everything Alfred could have translated from the Bible for his people, he chose biblical law. To cap it all, Alfred did not simply translate the biblical laws but creatively interpreted and applied them to his kingdom. Tales, too, have been told of the great Celtic saints – Brigit, Columba and Patrick – who, even before Alfred’s time, took biblical law seriously. It’s a fire that has never gone out. Christians in the past have always considered biblical law important and found creative ways of engaging with it. We are the outliers if we think that biblical law is irrelevant. All of this means that we need to ask the question: why bother with biblical law?
The first thing that usually comes to mind when we think of biblical law is the Ten Commandments, especially “Thou shalt not….” We see biblical law, paradigmatically, as divine commands that constrain us. Some of these prohibitions might make sense to us (like the prohibition on stealing) whilst others do not. But although Torah[1] includes such injunctions, it is never presented purely as a matter of divine command. Even the Ten Commandments are deeply embedded in the narrative of the Exodus story (“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery”; Exodus 20:2).[2] Law and narrative are intertwined. Unsurprisingly, the laws in Exodus that immediately follow the Ten Commandments, concerning slavery and asylum-seeking, also flow from the Exodus story. Israel is to be generous towards slaves and asylum-seekers because God has made her a nation of escaped slaves and successful asylum-seekers.[3] Already we can see an idea of law at work that is richer and broader than ‘divine commands.” It’s an idea of law that is intimately bound up with story and identity.
This integration of law and narrative tells us that biblical law is something that is tightly woven into the rich tapestry of the Bible. Accordingly, we find biblical law everywhere we look and, always, it is given a place of honour. The Psalter starts with Psalm 1 which commends the person whose “delight is in the law of the LORD” upon which “he meditates day and night” (Psalm 1:2). This signifies the importance of Torah to the overall theme and organisation of the Psalter; indeed, its longest psalm (Psalm 119) exalts Torah for its life-giving qualities. So, too, does Psalm 19. Given the centrality of Torah to the Psalms, it comes as no surprise to learn of the thousand tiny threads that bind Law and Wisdom together in the Bible, not only in terms of their content (e.g. the similarity between Exodus 23:8 and Deuteronomy 16:19 and Proverbs 24:23), but also in terms of everyday practice.[4] For Israel’s leaders, justice was primarily a matter of exercising divinely directed wisdom and not applying legal rules in a modern sense.[5] Biblical law is also deeply embedded in the prophetic literature (e.g. Amos 8:4-8; Micah 2:1-2 and Hosea 4:6). This, too, is not surprising since the prophetic message is itself based on Torah.
The whole of the Hebrew Bible, then, is steeped in Torah. So if we ignore biblical law, our understanding and appreciation of the Scriptures is diminished as a result. We miss out on a whole discussion and understanding of our place in God’s world. This, in turn, impacts our sense of identity as children of God and our ability to discern our mission and calling. Why, then, should we bother with biblical law? We should bother because God gave it and did so because it is precious and valuable.
What follows, then, is a simple, ‘bare-bones’ presentation that makes a series of propositions about biblical law, all of which could, and should, be embraced by contemporary Christians. I adopt a deliberately straightforward approach because I believe there is a crying need for biblical law to be re-embraced by the ordinary person. I argue that: (1) Jesus took Torah seriously, and expects His followers to do so as well; (2) biblical law helps us to understand better who Jesus is; (3) the New Testament shows that there is a right use and a wrong use of Torah; (4) the right use of Torah negates Christian concerns about “legalism”; (5) biblical law enables us to be specific about what it means to ‘love God’ and ‘love our neighbour’ so that (6) we can be a force for good (and for God!) in public life. Any one of these reasons would be sufficient to provoke a fresh encounter with biblical law and, accordingly, the God who inspires its contemporary application.
1. Jesus took Torah seriously and He expects us to as well
The place to start, in this complex debate, is the fact that Jesus treats all of the Scriptures, including the Pentateuch, as the Word of God. For example, when the Sadducees debate Jesus on the subject of the resurrection, He responds by saying: “… have you not read what was said to you by God…” before quoting from Exodus 3:6, where God declares “I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob”” (Matthew 22:31). Although we may live in a neophiliac society, which automatically privileges what is “new,” Jesus does not see the Hebrew Bible as being either ‘old’ or ‘out of date.’ It is, instead, the Word of God “to you.” Elsewhere, Jesus teaches that everyone is to live by “every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). It is all the Word of God for Jesus.[6] Jesus treats the Scriptures with complete seriousness as the timeless, authoritative Word of God, which is always speaking and, hence, always capable of creative application.
In the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), Jesus quotes various misrepresentations of the biblical laws (“You have heard that it was said…”) before presenting His own, authoritative, interpretation (“But I say to you…”). Here, and elsewhere, Jesus challenges wrong uses of Torah and asserts there is a right way of understanding it, under His direction. But Jesus doesn’t negate it. He is absolutely explicit on that point (Matthew 5:17-19). Jesus’ hearers are to listen to Him because He will provide them with the right way of interpreting Torah and of building upon it. But Rabbi Jesus’ teaching, and understanding of Torah, is normative not only for His disciples, but for everyone. Jesus concludes the Sermon by claiming that the advantage of following His words, and His understanding of Torah, is that you will have a life that is built on solid rock and won’t be in a state of disintegration and collapse (Matthew 7:24-27). Jesus’ Torah teaching is applied to the whole world, for everyone is called to repent and to become His disciple. Jesus’ summary of the Law and the Prophets – loving God and loving neighbour (Matthew 22:37-40) – covers both Jew and Gentile. It is precisely because Christians rightly focus on Jesus that they must take seriously the things that Jesus takes seriously. This includes Jesus’ own understanding, and appreciation of, the importance of Torah.
2. Biblical law helps us to understand better who Jesus is
If Christians believe that Jesus is the fulfilment of Torah, they must engage with the subject seriously. It is precisely because Torah prophesises about Jesus– the Person whom we say matters most in our lives – that we need to understand it properly. We are talking about one Person and one life that is so cosmically and eternally significant we need the entire history of God’s dealings with humanity and with His people, just to understand who He is. If we do not know much about what Torah is, its substantive content, and how it relates to Jesus, then we have diminished our understanding of who He is. It’s like looking at a statue of someone with a lump lopped off. It’s not such a good likeness. We might not even recognise them at all. If we do not give due attention to those parts of Scripture that Jesus says talk about Him, we are at risk of entertaining our own personal vision of who we think Jesus is. This could be ‘Strict Jesus,’ or ‘Indulgent Jesus’ or the ‘Jesus’ of our own sinful imaginations. When we understand biblical law better, as part of the whole witness of Scripture, we get a better understanding of who Jesus is. If we try to understand Jesus without it, then we are not going to understand Him as well as we might. It’s a bit like reading a musical score: if we just focus on the top line, it isn’t going to sound as good as if it would if we brought in all the other notes as well. God expects us to play the whole thing.
To give just one example, the seven main Festivals of the Lord enshrined in biblical law are clearly significant for Christians in terms of who Jesus is, what He has done and what He is going to do. The first main Festival of the year is Passover (Pesach; Leviticus 23:5) which Jesus fulfils as “our Passover lamb” (1 Corinthians 5:7). He lay in the grave during the Festival of Unleavened Bread (Chag Hamatzot; Leviticus 23:6-8; which immediately follows Passover), burying our sin (1 Corinthians 5:6-8). Jesus rose from the dead on the first day of the Feast of Firstfruits (Leviticus 23:9-14; 1 Corinthians 15:20-23), which is the third main Festival. The 50-day counting of the omer (Leviticus 23:16) brings us to the fourth main Festival, the Feast of Weeks (Shavu’ot; Leviticus 23:15-22), and, in Acts 2:1-4, to the giving of the Holy Spirit.[7] The fifth Festival, the Feast of Trumpets (Yom Teruah;Leviticus 23:23-25; Numbers 29:1-6) awakens us to repentance and alerts us to the return of the Messiah. One day, the Last Trumpet will blow (1 Corinthians 15:51-52). The modern Christian is located, prophetically, between the fourth and fifth festivals, that is, between the giving of the Holy Spirit and Jesus’ return.
The next event in the annual calendar is the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur; Leviticus 23:26-32), which also launches the Year of Jubilee (Leviticus 25:8-17). The future, and final, Day of Atonement, where humankind is separated before God’s throne, will be joyfully celebratory for some, and a dies irae for others. Jesus’ entry, as our Great High Priest, into the Holy of Holies with His sacrifice of Himself, makes possible the future restoration of all things, including new resurrection bodies (1 Corinthians 15:49-55). This future Day of Atonement will not only announce the end of the present age but will also launch the Messianic era of Jubilee and eternal Sabbath. The final Festival, in the annual cycle, is the Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot; Leviticus 23:33-43), when the harvest is brought in, and the nations are prophetically said to be ingathered (Zechariah 14:16-19). The great, and future, Feast of Tabernacles will proclaim that “the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people…” (Revelation 21:3). By means of these great Festivals, some of which Jesus has already fulfilled, and some that He will fulfil, biblical law provides the framework for human history.
3. The New Testament shows that there is a right use and a wrong use of Torah
If Jesus took Torah seriously, and expects His followers to do so as well, and if biblical law helps us to understand better who Jesus is, it is not at all surprising to find that the New Testament authors also take Torah seriously although, per the Sermon on the Mount, it is Torah understood under Jesus’ direction. All law, or instruction, requires interpretation and so there has always been debate about what counts, and doesn’t count, as a valid application of biblical law. It’s a conflict that goes all the way back to the garden of Eden (“Did God actually say…?”; Genesis 3:1).[8] It’s precisely because there are right and wrong interpretations of Torah that there is complexity around the subject. The New Testament itself talks about ‘law’ in different ways, and so we have to pay careful attention to context in building up a picture of what a Christian, and Messiah-shaped, response to Torah, looks like.
All of this means there are times when Jesus’ followers must oppose the wrong use of Torah. For example, in the early church, Torah was used by some people as a cultic ‘badge of honour’ to erect barriers between Jews and Gentiles. This was a wrong use of the law for the simple reason that Jesus came to abolish ethnic distinctions between Jews and Gentiles (e.g. Ephesians 2:14-16). Those who said that obeying circumcision and food laws were essential for salvation denied Jesus’ achievement on the Cross, which was to make one family, one table fellowship (Galatians 2:11-14), one olive tree (Romans 11:17-24) and one sheepfold (John 10:16). Their teaching was a flat-out denial of the Gospel. Accordingly, in Galatians, for example, Paul exposes the motives of false teachers, by declaring that, in their case, they only required the Galatian church to be circumcised because they wanted to curry favour with the Jewish authorities by converting Gentiles to a form of Judaism. He accused them of wanting to create a pseudo-Jewish sect, of which they were the leaders, and of wanting to do so in order to escape any potential persecution for the cross of Christ (Galatians 1:6-10; 4:17; 6:12-13). It was a toxic use of the law that brought death, not life.
But to speak of a wrong way of using biblical law is to acknowledge there is also a right use. This, too, is upheld in the New Testament. Thus Paul concludes – writing to Gentile Christians in Rome – that “… the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good” (Romans 7:12). Later, in the same book, Paul reminds them that “whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction” (Romans 15:4). Torah is still Torah. Elsewhere, Paul instructs Timothy that: “all Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16). It follows that if we are not giving biblical law the authority and attention it deserves, then the Church will be proportionately disabled from performing certain tasks that God intends her to perform.
Just as Jesus challenged bad interpretations of the Torah and put forward His own, authoritative, interpretations on key issues of the day so, too, we find the apostle Paul challenging bad interpretations of the law, and putting forward right interpretations. It follows from this that modern Christians are called to oppose wrong uses of biblical law (as Jesus and Paul did) and to uphold right uses of biblical law (as Jesus and Paul did).
4. The right use of Torah negates Christian concerns about “legalism”
Christians tend to equate serious engagement with biblical law with a slide into “legalism.” However, this fear is misplaced because the right use of Torah in fact negates Christian concerns about “legalism.”[9] When Christians are concerned about “legalism” they are usually concerned about the belief that a person’s standing before God is a function of legal obedience, in other words, that what makes us right before God is “works righteousness,” based on our actions. “Legalism” here contrasts with “grace” which is the recognition that our status of being put right with God is something that is given to us and which we do not earn. Of course, it is a central claim of the gospel that persons are saved by grace alone, through faith in Jesus Christ (e.g. Ephesians 2:8-10). God looks on us as He looks on Christ. But the fact that Christians are saved by grace doesn’t mean there is no question to ask about what behaviour is required of Christians. It still leaves open the question of how, then, should we live? How should sons and daughters of God respond to His grace?
This question is addressed repeatedly in Paul’s teachings where he says: if you call yourself a Christian there are certain things that you must do and there are certain things you must not do. For example, in Ephesians,Paul teaches that Christians are raised with Christ and are seated with Him in heavenly places (Ephesians 2:6). But if it is the case that the Christian is joined to Christ – the Messianic King – so that what is true of Jesus is true of the Christian as well, then this has enormous moral implications. If Jesus embodies Torah in His kingly rule, in His good governance, and in His pursuit of justice and righteousness, then these matters must be true of Christian lives as well. The Christian is in Christ, and that is what Christ is like. Christians have ethical continuity with the Torah, because Jesus fulfils the Torah, and they are in Christ. That is their identity. Of course, there is a ‘not yet’ dimension: Christians are being transformed from one degree of glory to another. But at the same time, no Christian can sensibly say: ‘I know I’m going to live like Jesus in the future, but I don’t need to live that way now.’ The Christian calling is still to live as the people they in fact are.If this is who I am, then I should live like it now. So although, in the passage just quoted from Ephesians, Paul insists that Christians are saved “not as a result of works” (2:9), he goes straight on to assert that, as God’s “workmanship,” we are created “for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (2:10) (and note the Torah-like reference to ‘walking’ in obedience).[10] This tension is emphasised consistently by the New Testament: we don’t have life in Christ by doing good works, and we don’t have life in Christ without doing good works.
To live as a child of God, then, has certain features: there are some things you shouldn’t do (and so there is a law against it) and some things that you should do. Many parts of the New Testament describe the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer in law-like terms (e.g. 1 Thessalonians 5:12-22). The person who engages in, say, kidnapping and slave-trading provides objective evidence that their lives have not been transformed by the Spirit (1 Timothy 1:10). The New Testament contains hundreds of direct and indirect commands and prohibitions. There is also continuity between the ethical imperatives of Torah and those of the Gospel (e.g. Revelation 22:15, where behaviours which attracted the death penalty in the Hebrew Bible are grounds for exclusion from the kingdom of heaven in the New Testament). As a result, Paul is able to remind Timothy that “the law” is against everything that is against “the gospel” (1 Timothy 1:8-11). The Law and the Gospel have the same practical outcome. The Gospel is not the Law but the Law and the Gospel have the same intent and they generate the same matrix of moral behaviour.
Consequently, when Christians target biblical “legalism” they are targeting the wrong use of the law. Where Christians use the law to justify themselves to God (or other people) to say: “What a good person I am! I merit something before God because of what I have done!” that is the wrong use of Torah. “Legalism” is the wrong use of Torah because it is using biblical law for a purpose for which it is not intended; that is, a misguided attempt to use the law to secure a person’s status before God. But this does not mean that Torah cannot be used properly. The issue is not biblical law per se but how it is used. Where we use Torah, instead,to say: “this is what it looks like to live by the Spirit” we are using it well in its proper, educative wisdom-like sense.
In this way, the right use of Torah negates Christian concerns about “legalism.” What Christians should be concerned about is not biblical law misunderstood as “legalism”; instead, they should be opposed to any belief that sanctification – the response to God’s grace – cannot be expressed or assisted in law-like forms.
For some, this will take a bit of unlearning and relearning. One way of trying to short-circuit this process is to say, in response: “Well, if we just ‘love God’ and ‘love our neighbour,’ then we’re already doing everything Torah requires. So – again – why should we bother with it?” Although this retort seems to affirm what biblical law is about, it actually shuts the door on it because it says that we don’t have to pay attention to the detail. But the detail is important. This brings us to the next reason why Christians need to take biblical law seriously.
5. It enables us to be specific about what it means to ‘love God’ and ‘love our neighbour’ …
The language of love is warm and fuzzy. Conveniently, we think we get to define what love for God and love for neighbour means. But if we want to know what God means when He commands us, for example, to love our neighbour, we must look at Leviticus 19. Here, it includes being generous towards immigrants, paying people immediately for their work and not exploiting other people’s weaknesses for a laugh, to name but a few. Yet it’s still enough to have enormous challenges for our economy and our culture. We can’t ignore the contextual detail we find in Leviticus 19 because this is how we are meant to respond to the creative, redemptive, sustaining and sanctifying acts of God. Because God is a God of order, we cannot simply respond to Him ‘in the abstract.’ It must be specific and detailed if it’s to mean anything. But, of course, the moment we start being specific and talking about sexual behaviour, the use of money and limiting our take from the environment – all matters Leviticus 19 addresses, and that’s just one chapter! – we start threatening people’s interests. It shows us where the rubber hits the road – and what loving our neighbour really means. This applies even to some of the details we might be inclined think of as ‘trivial,’ due to their agricultural antiquity. For example, Paul presents Deuteronomy 25:4 as covering the obligations owed to an apostle (1 Corinthians 9:7-11). I daresay this law on animal husbandry is exactly the sort we would nowadays be inclined to write off, if it wasn’t for the New Testament’s habit of always taking us back to biblical law, in one form or another.
The same may be said concerning what it means to “love God.” Again, biblical law helps us to be specific about what this means, too. That’s important because obedience to God’s commands is Jesus’ own language of love (John 14:15). Not that biblical tells us everything; its purpose, as the Psalms remind us, is to make wise (Psalm 19:7/MT 19:8). The “virtuous spiral”[11] of biblical law, especially when read under Jesus’ direction, draws us inexorably into the territory of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus says, as it were: “Of course you shouldn’t murder, but if you really want to be like your Heavenly Father then you won’t even nurse anger against your brother” (cf. Matthew 5:22). Wherever there’s a tendency to go hazy on what loving God and neighbour requires, biblical law is there to point the way. This is true not only for private but also for public life, which brings us to our final reason.
6. … so we can be a force for good (and for God!) in public life
If we are serious about loving our neighbour then, sooner or later, we have to be concerned with public life and the organisation of our society. It’s not enough simply to be concerned with the victims of, say, people trafficking. We also have to be concerned with the causes of people trafficking and the way our society is organised which allows it to happen. That, too, is a vital part of what love for neighbour means. It’s easy to criticise people in power. But it’s not enough simply for Christians to criticise those who have responsibility. We are called to put forward a different, positive agenda (e.g. 1 Peter 2:15, where “doing good” includes working for public benefactions).[12] It’s another way in which the Resurrection, and the fact that Christians are raised in Christ, carries ethical authority, because the Resurrection shows God’s commitment to our world and its restoration. But where are we going to get a positive social vision from? Obviously, if we’re Christians, we have to get it from God’s Word. So we need to be studying all of His Word, and we can’t afford to neglect any part of it. God doesn’t waste His breath.
Some might respond at this point by saying: “Why can’t we just draw on Jesus’ teachings when it comes to public policy? Why does it help to look at biblical law?” Part of the reason for paying attention to biblical law, at this point, is because it integrates those aspects of Scripture that are most obviously concerned with the organisation of civic society. So clearly it is of particular and direct relevance when it comes to developing a distinctively biblical social agenda. Of course, Jesus’ teachings to me as a private individual on turning the other cheek enables me, personally, to be salt and light. But it doesn’t necessarily tell me what to do when I’m a judge adjudicating in a criminal law case. What do I do then? Or what about Jesus’ teaching on the importance of serving God, not Mammon? Clearly, that teaches me where my priorities should lie when it comes to spending my (or, rather, God’s) money. But what about other people’s money? What do I do when I’m making day-to-day decisions in my job at the bank? Do I just give all the money away? If not, why not? We must have an answer. After all, God is interested in how banks, and other major financial and social institutions, behave (e.g. Proverbs 15:3). Nothing is beyond divine scrutiny, especially when the institutions concerned determine our ethics. Michael Schluter, for example, has argued for reform of the stock market around the slogan “no reward without responsibility, no profit without participation,” derived from his reading of biblical law.[13] The application of biblical law is not, and can never be, purely personal.
It’s because Torah has a public dimension that we can find out what structures and priorities God values in society as a whole. In fact, I’d go so far as to suggest that biblical law gives us a better sense of what Jesus would do ifHe occupied our job at the courtroom, or in the bank or whatever. And so we might find, for example, in Torah that justice is not only concerned with punishing the oppressor, but also with lifting up the oppressed, which may, in some circumstances, include the perpetrator as well. And because images of justice in biblical law are life-giving (Amos 5:24) part of our application might include the need for constructive penalties that provide an opportunity for putting things right between the parties and giving everyone a fresh start, where that is possible. That gives us some ideas how Jesus would act if He had our job as a judge, which we might not work out simply from Jesus’ teaching on ‘turning the other cheek.’ It’s not the case that we have to choose between either Jesus’ teachings or biblical law. It’s ‘both/and’ and we need to get into the habit of reading the one in the light of the other. This is all part of what it means to think of Jesus as the ‘fulfilment’ of Torah.
Although not all Christians will agree on every point, it’s certainly possible to envisage a highly engaged approach to modern politics on the basis of biblical law, including those areas that seem initially the most unpromising. When I began working in the early 1990s for the Jubilee Policy Group, in Cambridge, England – a think-tank dedicated to the application of biblical values and biblical law to public life – the focus of my work was the biblical laws concerning crime and punishment. These inspired the Relational Justice project, which sought the transformation of the criminal justice process and, in particular, prison regimes, by emphasising relationships at every stage of the process. In doing so, it won the support of the then Chief Inspector of Prisons (His Honour Judge Stephen Tumim) and the (later) Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, Lord Woolf. Subsequent work, which I was privileged to carry out for the Home Office and the Prison Service, concerning faith-based programmes in prisons (2000-2001), and later expanded to include international comparisons,[14] was inspired by the same values of biblical law, which emphasise the need for punishment to preserve the dignity of the offender (Deuteronomy 25:3) and to contain the seeds for personal transformation.[15]
On the floor beneath us, in the Jubilee Centre, founded by Michael Schluter in 1984, was the Keep Sunday Special campaign which far-sightedly battled for a weekly day of rest in order to support hard-pressed families, provide employee protection, and place limits on what could be demanded from the environment. In 1985, this campaign led to the only successful defeat of a Government bill under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Applying biblical law can and should take centre stage in political life. On the floor above, the Credit Action team were dedicated to providing, in the spirit of Leviticus 25, practical solutions to modern problems of debt arising from the then-recent explosion of personal credit. The point of these examples is to show that no-one should be in any doubt of the potential for the practical application of biblical law to all areas of public life, or that its wisdom can be appreciated by those outside the biblical tradition (per Deuteronomy 4:6-8).
At the same time, developing and applying a positive, alternative social vision is not easy. It is something we can only work out in the fear of the Lord. It certainly means digging for wisdom, like Job’s miner, in Job 28, who crawls down deep tunnels to bring forth jewels from out of the darkness. For those who wish to pursue the matter further, Jubilee Manifesto draws together the thinking of those who were active in the life of the Jubilee Centre at that time (and since) and who have collectively sought to develop a vision for Christian social reform.[16] Its varied chapters lay out a biblical social vision on such related subjects as nationhood, government, family policy, social welfare, finance, economy and international relations and defence, rooted in biblical law. These examples show that there is nothing trivial about the application of biblical law. Nor can it be said to be naive. It may be difficult, but it is not politically unrealistic. The world is not a playground but a battleground and Christians are called, among other things, to give serious thought and effort to the contemporary application of biblical law. As we engage increasingly with the forms of neopaganism that are already replacing our post-Christian culture, the application of biblical law will seem increasingly radical. For the same reason, its application will bring proportionate blessing.
One of the many attractive things about biblical law is that it calls us to think systematically across the whole of political and social life. This is important both to those who are working in depth in a particular area of public life as well as to those who are operating more broadly. Those who are called, like their forebears, to a lifetime’s work, say, in penal reform, education reform, or one of the thousand other tasks that call for a distinctly Christian witness in the public square, can concentrate on becoming expert, knowing that others are also working faithfully in their own area. They can see how their detailed work fits into the broader picture. Similarly, those who are not called to make an-depth contribution can also benefit from the bigger social picture that is encouraged by biblical law. To the Christian who says: “but biblical law is difficult and I don’t have time to read it or think about it,” we need to remind ourselves that we are also citizens and voters who have a duty to be engaged in public debate and to have an informed view. This being so, every Christian is better off, in their political responsibilities, with some exposure to biblical law than none. So we must make space, in our churches, for the breadth as well as the depth.
Finally, some Christians might respond by claiming that any discussion of the practical application of biblical laws must always detract from the urgent task of speaking of Christ. But, again, we need to remember who Christ is. He is the Cosmic Christ and God plans that all authority should be summed up in Him “who is the head of all rule and authority” (Colossians 2:9-10). So if we do not act on that and seek to apply this into every area of life, including public life, we are conceding there is a part of the world over which Christ does not exercise dominion. It’s precisely this sort of thinking that lies behind Paul’s image of Christians being “citizens of heaven” (Philippians 3:20). Philippi was, of course, a Roman colony. What it meant for those in Philippi to be “citizens of Rome” was to bring Roman culture and rule to bear their immediate environment and the surrounding area and so expand Roman influence. Their job wasn’t to go to Rome but to do things in Philippi the way there were done in Rome. This is the picture Paul has in mind when he speaks of ‘heavenly citizenship.’ We are heavenly colonists and our job is to bring the life and rule of heaven to bear on earth. We are to do our best to order our civic life so that it matches the way things are done in heaven – “on earth as it is in heaven,” as Jesus Himself taught.[17]
It’s a deep challenge for all of us to think through and work out what it means for us to give our primary allegiance, not to Rome but to heaven, and not to Caesar but to Jesus. In rising to this challenge – of what it means for us to love God and to love our neighbour, and to be a force for good in public life – we need to be fully equipped with all the resources God has for us. This includes the wisdom to be found in all the Scriptures, and this includes biblical law.
Jonathan Patrick Burnside is Professor of Biblical Law at the Law School, University of Bristol, UK.
[1] The Hebrew word which has become synonymous with biblical law, and which actually means ‘instruction.’
[2] Biblical quotations are derived from the English Standard Version translation of the Holy Bible.
[3] E.g. J.P. Burnside. “Exodus and Asylum: Uncovering the relationship between biblical law and narrative.” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 34(3):243-266.
[4]Jonathan P. Burnside, “Law and wisdom literature,” in Will Kynes (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Wisdom and the Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021), 423-440.
[5] See, e.g., Jonathan Burnside, “Write That They May Judge? Applying written law in biblical Israel” in Daniel I. Block et. al. (eds.) Write That They May Read: Studies in Literacy and Textualization in the Ancient Near East and in the Hebrew Scriptures (Pickwick 2020), 127-147.
[6] This doesn’t mean that historical circumstances are unimportant: Jesus Himself takes these into account (Matthew 19:8).
[7] “Pentecost” is derived, of course, from the Greek word for “fiftieth,” per the counting of the omer.
[8] Biblical quotations are derived from the English Standard Version.
[9] Although “legalism” is classically understood as an excessive attachment to rules, or law, the term is routinely used, by Christians, in a pejorative sense to mean something that is opposed to “grace.” This is not a helpful opposition since conformity to law (even strict conformity to law) was a central part of both Jesus’ and Paul’s teaching, as we have seen. In this section, I put legalism in scare quotes to show I am talking about the pejorative way in which Christians use this term.
[10] The entire body of Jewish law and tradition (including biblical, Talmudic and Rabbinic laws) is called halakhah,derived from the Hebrew verb halakh, meaning “to walk” or “to go.”
[11] Jonathan Burnside, God, Justice and Society: Aspects of Law and Legality in the Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 137-139.
[12] Bruce W. Winter, Seek the Welfare of the City (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 26, 37
[13] “Is Capitalism morally bankrupt?” Cambridge Papers 18(3) (2009). See also his “Risk, reward and responsibility: limited liability and company reform,” Cambridge Papers 9(2) (2000) for a critique of the limited liability company, again on the basis of biblical law.
[14] J.P. Burnside (with Nancy Loucks, Joanna Adler and Gerry Rose), My Brother’s Keeper: Faith-based units in prisons (London: Routledge 2005).
[15] Jonathan Patrick Burnside, The Signs of Sin: Seriousness of Offence in Biblical Law (London: Bloomsbury, 2003).
[16] Jubilee Manifesto: A framework, agenda and strategy for Christian social reform, Michael Schluter and John Ashcroft (eds.) (Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 2005). God, Justice and Society makes a number of connections between biblical law and the modern law of England and Wales whilst “The Spirit of Biblical Law,” Oxford Journal of Law and Religion (2012:1, 127-150) summarises some of the main policy objectives.
[17] This of course raises the larger question – in the light of the long history of Christendom – as to whether there should be a separation between Church and State.
Why bother with biblical law? Many Christians find the subject obscure and boring, with eyerolls among the politer responses. The idea that a prohibition on, say, mixing fibres is important to the modern Christian seems implausible. But we need to know that, historically, Christians have not ignored biblical law. A glance at the British Isles, for example, where the present author is located, shows the golden thread of biblical law spun throughout its history. The ninth-century law-code of King Alfred the Great, to give just one instance, was the first and only codification of Old English law and was based, explicitly, on the laws of Moses (specifically, a lengthy extract from the Covenant Code of Exodus). This was also one of the earliest attempts at translating the Bible into Old English; out of everything Alfred could have translated from the Bible for his people, he chose biblical law. To cap it all, Alfred did not simply translate the biblical laws but creatively interpreted and applied them to his kingdom. Tales, too, have been told of the great Celtic saints – Brigit, Columba and Patrick – who, even before Alfred’s time, took biblical law seriously. It’s a fire that has never gone out. Christians in the past have always considered biblical law important and found creative ways of engaging with it. We are the outliers if we think that biblical law is irrelevant. All of this means that we need to ask the question: why bother with biblical law?
The first thing that usually comes to mind when we think of biblical law is the Ten Commandments, especially “Thou shalt not….” We see biblical law, paradigmatically, as divine commands that constrain us. Some of these prohibitions might make sense to us (like the prohibition on stealing) whilst others do not. But although Torah[1] includes such injunctions, it is never presented purely as a matter of divine command. Even the Ten Commandments are deeply embedded in the narrative of the Exodus story (“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery”; Exodus 20:2).[2] Law and narrative are intertwined. Unsurprisingly, the laws in Exodus that immediately follow the Ten Commandments, concerning slavery and asylum-seeking, also flow from the Exodus story. Israel is to be generous towards slaves and asylum-seekers because God has made her a nation of escaped slaves and successful asylum-seekers.[3] Already we can see an idea of law at work that is richer and broader than ‘divine commands.” It’s an idea of law that is intimately bound up with story and identity.
This integration of law and narrative tells us that biblical law is something that is tightly woven into the rich tapestry of the Bible. Accordingly, we find biblical law everywhere we look and, always, it is given a place of honour. The Psalter starts with Psalm 1 which commends the person whose “delight is in the law of the LORD” upon which “he meditates day and night” (Psalm 1:2). This signifies the importance of Torah to the overall theme and organisation of the Psalter; indeed, its longest psalm (Psalm 119) exalts Torah for its life-giving qualities. So, too, does Psalm 19. Given the centrality of Torah to the Psalms, it comes as no surprise to learn of the thousand tiny threads that bind Law and Wisdom together in the Bible, not only in terms of their content (e.g. the similarity between Exodus 23:8 and Deuteronomy 16:19 and Proverbs 24:23), but also in terms of everyday practice.[4] For Israel’s leaders, justice was primarily a matter of exercising divinely directed wisdom and not applying legal rules in a modern sense.[5] Biblical law is also deeply embedded in the prophetic literature (e.g. Amos 8:4-8; Micah 2:1-2 and Hosea 4:6). This, too, is not surprising since the prophetic message is itself based on Torah.
The whole of the Hebrew Bible, then, is steeped in Torah. So if we ignore biblical law, our understanding and appreciation of the Scriptures is diminished as a result. We miss out on a whole discussion and understanding of our place in God’s world. This, in turn, impacts our sense of identity as children of God and our ability to discern our mission and calling. Why, then, should we bother with biblical law? We should bother because God gave it and did so because it is precious and valuable.
What follows, then, is a simple, ‘bare-bones’ presentation that makes a series of propositions about biblical law, all of which could, and should, be embraced by contemporary Christians. I adopt a deliberately straightforward approach because I believe there is a crying need for biblical law to be re-embraced by the ordinary person. I argue that: (1) Jesus took Torah seriously, and expects His followers to do so as well; (2) biblical law helps us to understand better who Jesus is; (3) the New Testament shows that there is a right use and a wrong use of Torah; (4) the right use of Torah negates Christian concerns about “legalism”; (5) biblical law enables us to be specific about what it means to ‘love God’ and ‘love our neighbour’ so that (6) we can be a force for good (and for God!) in public life. Any one of these reasons would be sufficient to provoke a fresh encounter with biblical law and, accordingly, the God who inspires its contemporary application.
1. Jesus took Torah seriously and He expects us to as well
The place to start, in this complex debate, is the fact that Jesus treats all of the Scriptures, including the Pentateuch, as the Word of God. For example, when the Sadducees debate Jesus on the subject of the resurrection, He responds by saying: “… have you not read what was said to you by God…” before quoting from Exodus 3:6, where God declares “I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob”” (Matthew 22:31). Although we may live in a neophiliac society, which automatically privileges what is “new,” Jesus does not see the Hebrew Bible as being either ‘old’ or ‘out of date.’ It is, instead, the Word of God “to you.” Elsewhere, Jesus teaches that everyone is to live by “every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). It is all the Word of God for Jesus.[6] Jesus treats the Scriptures with complete seriousness as the timeless, authoritative Word of God, which is always speaking and, hence, always capable of creative application.
In the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), Jesus quotes various misrepresentations of the biblical laws (“You have heard that it was said…”) before presenting His own, authoritative, interpretation (“But I say to you…”). Here, and elsewhere, Jesus challenges wrong uses of Torah and asserts there is a right way of understanding it, under His direction. But Jesus doesn’t negate it. He is absolutely explicit on that point (Matthew 5:17-19). Jesus’ hearers are to listen to Him because He will provide them with the right way of interpreting Torah and of building upon it. But Rabbi Jesus’ teaching, and understanding of Torah, is normative not only for His disciples, but for everyone. Jesus concludes the Sermon by claiming that the advantage of following His words, and His understanding of Torah, is that you will have a life that is built on solid rock and won’t be in a state of disintegration and collapse (Matthew 7:24-27). Jesus’ Torah teaching is applied to the whole world, for everyone is called to repent and to become His disciple. Jesus’ summary of the Law and the Prophets – loving God and loving neighbour (Matthew 22:37-40) – covers both Jew and Gentile. It is precisely because Christians rightly focus on Jesus that they must take seriously the things that Jesus takes seriously. This includes Jesus’ own understanding, and appreciation of, the importance of Torah.
2. Biblical law helps us to understand better who Jesus is
If Christians believe that Jesus is the fulfilment of Torah, they must engage with the subject seriously. It is precisely because Torah prophesises about Jesus– the Person whom we say matters most in our lives – that we need to understand it properly. We are talking about one Person and one life that is so cosmically and eternally significant we need the entire history of God’s dealings with humanity and with His people, just to understand who He is. If we do not know much about what Torah is, its substantive content, and how it relates to Jesus, then we have diminished our understanding of who He is. It’s like looking at a statue of someone with a lump lopped off. It’s not such a good likeness. We might not even recognise them at all. If we do not give due attention to those parts of Scripture that Jesus says talk about Him, we are at risk of entertaining our own personal vision of who we think Jesus is. This could be ‘Strict Jesus,’ or ‘Indulgent Jesus’ or the ‘Jesus’ of our own sinful imaginations. When we understand biblical law better, as part of the whole witness of Scripture, we get a better understanding of who Jesus is. If we try to understand Jesus without it, then we are not going to understand Him as well as we might. It’s a bit like reading a musical score: if we just focus on the top line, it isn’t going to sound as good as if it would if we brought in all the other notes as well. God expects us to play the whole thing.
To give just one example, the seven main Festivals of the Lord enshrined in biblical law are clearly significant for Christians in terms of who Jesus is, what He has done and what He is going to do. The first main Festival of the year is Passover (Pesach; Leviticus 23:5) which Jesus fulfils as “our Passover lamb” (1 Corinthians 5:7). He lay in the grave during the Festival of Unleavened Bread (Chag Hamatzot; Leviticus 23:6-8; which immediately follows Passover), burying our sin (1 Corinthians 5:6-8). Jesus rose from the dead on the first day of the Feast of Firstfruits (Leviticus 23:9-14; 1 Corinthians 15:20-23), which is the third main Festival. The 50-day counting of the omer (Leviticus 23:16) brings us to the fourth main Festival, the Feast of Weeks (Shavu’ot; Leviticus 23:15-22), and, in Acts 2:1-4, to the giving of the Holy Spirit.[7] The fifth Festival, the Feast of Trumpets (Yom Teruah;Leviticus 23:23-25; Numbers 29:1-6) awakens us to repentance and alerts us to the return of the Messiah. One day, the Last Trumpet will blow (1 Corinthians 15:51-52). The modern Christian is located, prophetically, between the fourth and fifth festivals, that is, between the giving of the Holy Spirit and Jesus’ return.
The next event in the annual calendar is the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur; Leviticus 23:26-32), which also launches the Year of Jubilee (Leviticus 25:8-17). The future, and final, Day of Atonement, where humankind is separated before God’s throne, will be joyfully celebratory for some, and a dies irae for others. Jesus’ entry, as our Great High Priest, into the Holy of Holies with His sacrifice of Himself, makes possible the future restoration of all things, including new resurrection bodies (1 Corinthians 15:49-55). This future Day of Atonement will not only announce the end of the present age but will also launch the Messianic era of Jubilee and eternal Sabbath. The final Festival, in the annual cycle, is the Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot; Leviticus 23:33-43), when the harvest is brought in, and the nations are prophetically said to be ingathered (Zechariah 14:16-19). The great, and future, Feast of Tabernacles will proclaim that “the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people…” (Revelation 21:3). By means of these great Festivals, some of which Jesus has already fulfilled, and some that He will fulfil, biblical law provides the framework for human history.
3. The New Testament shows that there is a right use and a wrong use of Torah
If Jesus took Torah seriously, and expects His followers to do so as well, and if biblical law helps us to understand better who Jesus is, it is not at all surprising to find that the New Testament authors also take Torah seriously although, per the Sermon on the Mount, it is Torah understood under Jesus’ direction. All law, or instruction, requires interpretation and so there has always been debate about what counts, and doesn’t count, as a valid application of biblical law. It’s a conflict that goes all the way back to the garden of Eden (“Did God actually say…?”; Genesis 3:1).[8] It’s precisely because there are right and wrong interpretations of Torah that there is complexity around the subject. The New Testament itself talks about ‘law’ in different ways, and so we have to pay careful attention to context in building up a picture of what a Christian, and Messiah-shaped, response to Torah, looks like.
All of this means there are times when Jesus’ followers must oppose the wrong use of Torah. For example, in the early church, Torah was used by some people as a cultic ‘badge of honour’ to erect barriers between Jews and Gentiles. This was a wrong use of the law for the simple reason that Jesus came to abolish ethnic distinctions between Jews and Gentiles (e.g. Ephesians 2:14-16). Those who said that obeying circumcision and food laws were essential for salvation denied Jesus’ achievement on the Cross, which was to make one family, one table fellowship (Galatians 2:11-14), one olive tree (Romans 11:17-24) and one sheepfold (John 10:16). Their teaching was a flat-out denial of the Gospel. Accordingly, in Galatians, for example, Paul exposes the motives of false teachers, by declaring that, in their case, they only required the Galatian church to be circumcised because they wanted to curry favour with the Jewish authorities by converting Gentiles to a form of Judaism. He accused them of wanting to create a pseudo-Jewish sect, of which they were the leaders, and of wanting to do so in order to escape any potential persecution for the cross of Christ (Galatians 1:6-10; 4:17; 6:12-13). It was a toxic use of the law that brought death, not life.
But to speak of a wrong way of using biblical law is to acknowledge there is also a right use. This, too, is upheld in the New Testament. Thus Paul concludes – writing to Gentile Christians in Rome – that “… the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good” (Romans 7:12). Later, in the same book, Paul reminds them that “whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction” (Romans 15:4). Torah is still Torah. Elsewhere, Paul instructs Timothy that: “all Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16). It follows that if we are not giving biblical law the authority and attention it deserves, then the Church will be proportionately disabled from performing certain tasks that God intends her to perform.
Just as Jesus challenged bad interpretations of the Torah and put forward His own, authoritative, interpretations on key issues of the day so, too, we find the apostle Paul challenging bad interpretations of the law, and putting forward right interpretations. It follows from this that modern Christians are called to oppose wrong uses of biblical law (as Jesus and Paul did) and to uphold right uses of biblical law (as Jesus and Paul did).
4. The right use of Torah negates Christian concerns about “legalism”
Christians tend to equate serious engagement with biblical law with a slide into “legalism.” However, this fear is misplaced because the right use of Torah in fact negates Christian concerns about “legalism.”[9] When Christians are concerned about “legalism” they are usually concerned about the belief that a person’s standing before God is a function of legal obedience, in other words, that what makes us right before God is “works righteousness,” based on our actions. “Legalism” here contrasts with “grace” which is the recognition that our status of being put right with God is something that is given to us and which we do not earn. Of course, it is a central claim of the gospel that persons are saved by grace alone, through faith in Jesus Christ (e.g. Ephesians 2:8-10). God looks on us as He looks on Christ. But the fact that Christians are saved by grace doesn’t mean there is no question to ask about what behaviour is required of Christians. It still leaves open the question of how, then, should we live? How should sons and daughters of God respond to His grace?
This question is addressed repeatedly in Paul’s teachings where he says: if you call yourself a Christian there are certain things that you must do and there are certain things you must not do. For example, in Ephesians,Paul teaches that Christians are raised with Christ and are seated with Him in heavenly places (Ephesians 2:6). But if it is the case that the Christian is joined to Christ – the Messianic King – so that what is true of Jesus is true of the Christian as well, then this has enormous moral implications. If Jesus embodies Torah in His kingly rule, in His good governance, and in His pursuit of justice and righteousness, then these matters must be true of Christian lives as well. The Christian is in Christ, and that is what Christ is like. Christians have ethical continuity with the Torah, because Jesus fulfils the Torah, and they are in Christ. That is their identity. Of course, there is a ‘not yet’ dimension: Christians are being transformed from one degree of glory to another. But at the same time, no Christian can sensibly say: ‘I know I’m going to live like Jesus in the future, but I don’t need to live that way now.’ The Christian calling is still to live as the people they in fact are.If this is who I am, then I should live like it now. So although, in the passage just quoted from Ephesians, Paul insists that Christians are saved “not as a result of works” (2:9), he goes straight on to assert that, as God’s “workmanship,” we are created “for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (2:10) (and note the Torah-like reference to ‘walking’ in obedience).[10] This tension is emphasised consistently by the New Testament: we don’t have life in Christ by doing good works, and we don’t have life in Christ without doing good works.
To live as a child of God, then, has certain features: there are some things you shouldn’t do (and so there is a law against it) and some things that you should do. Many parts of the New Testament describe the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer in law-like terms (e.g. 1 Thessalonians 5:12-22). The person who engages in, say, kidnapping and slave-trading provides objective evidence that their lives have not been transformed by the Spirit (1 Timothy 1:10). The New Testament contains hundreds of direct and indirect commands and prohibitions. There is also continuity between the ethical imperatives of Torah and those of the Gospel (e.g. Revelation 22:15, where behaviours which attracted the death penalty in the Hebrew Bible are grounds for exclusion from the kingdom of heaven in the New Testament). As a result, Paul is able to remind Timothy that “the law” is against everything that is against “the gospel” (1 Timothy 1:8-11). The Law and the Gospel have the same practical outcome. The Gospel is not the Law but the Law and the Gospel have the same intent and they generate the same matrix of moral behaviour.
Consequently, when Christians target biblical “legalism” they are targeting the wrong use of the law. Where Christians use the law to justify themselves to God (or other people) to say: “What a good person I am! I merit something before God because of what I have done!” that is the wrong use of Torah. “Legalism” is the wrong use of Torah because it is using biblical law for a purpose for which it is not intended; that is, a misguided attempt to use the law to secure a person’s status before God. But this does not mean that Torah cannot be used properly. The issue is not biblical law per se but how it is used. Where we use Torah, instead,to say: “this is what it looks like to live by the Spirit” we are using it well in its proper, educative wisdom-like sense.
In this way, the right use of Torah negates Christian concerns about “legalism.” What Christians should be concerned about is not biblical law misunderstood as “legalism”; instead, they should be opposed to any belief that sanctification – the response to God’s grace – cannot be expressed or assisted in law-like forms.
For some, this will take a bit of unlearning and relearning. One way of trying to short-circuit this process is to say, in response: “Well, if we just ‘love God’ and ‘love our neighbour,’ then we’re already doing everything Torah requires. So – again – why should we bother with it?” Although this retort seems to affirm what biblical law is about, it actually shuts the door on it because it says that we don’t have to pay attention to the detail. But the detail is important. This brings us to the next reason why Christians need to take biblical law seriously.
5. It enables us to be specific about what it means to ‘love God’ and ‘love our neighbour’ …
The language of love is warm and fuzzy. Conveniently, we think we get to define what love for God and love for neighbour means. But if we want to know what God means when He commands us, for example, to love our neighbour, we must look at Leviticus 19. Here, it includes being generous towards immigrants, paying people immediately for their work and not exploiting other people’s weaknesses for a laugh, to name but a few. Yet it’s still enough to have enormous challenges for our economy and our culture. We can’t ignore the contextual detail we find in Leviticus 19 because this is how we are meant to respond to the creative, redemptive, sustaining and sanctifying acts of God. Because God is a God of order, we cannot simply respond to Him ‘in the abstract.’ It must be specific and detailed if it’s to mean anything. But, of course, the moment we start being specific and talking about sexual behaviour, the use of money and limiting our take from the environment – all matters Leviticus 19 addresses, and that’s just one chapter! – we start threatening people’s interests. It shows us where the rubber hits the road – and what loving our neighbour really means. This applies even to some of the details we might be inclined think of as ‘trivial,’ due to their agricultural antiquity. For example, Paul presents Deuteronomy 25:4 as covering the obligations owed to an apostle (1 Corinthians 9:7-11). I daresay this law on animal husbandry is exactly the sort we would nowadays be inclined to write off, if it wasn’t for the New Testament’s habit of always taking us back to biblical law, in one form or another.
The same may be said concerning what it means to “love God.” Again, biblical law helps us to be specific about what this means, too. That’s important because obedience to God’s commands is Jesus’ own language of love (John 14:15). Not that biblical tells us everything; its purpose, as the Psalms remind us, is to make wise (Psalm 19:7/MT 19:8). The “virtuous spiral”[11] of biblical law, especially when read under Jesus’ direction, draws us inexorably into the territory of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus says, as it were: “Of course you shouldn’t murder, but if you really want to be like your Heavenly Father then you won’t even nurse anger against your brother” (cf. Matthew 5:22). Wherever there’s a tendency to go hazy on what loving God and neighbour requires, biblical law is there to point the way. This is true not only for private but also for public life, which brings us to our final reason.
6. … so we can be a force for good (and for God!) in public life
If we are serious about loving our neighbour then, sooner or later, we have to be concerned with public life and the organisation of our society. It’s not enough simply to be concerned with the victims of, say, people trafficking. We also have to be concerned with the causes of people trafficking and the way our society is organised which allows it to happen. That, too, is a vital part of what love for neighbour means. It’s easy to criticise people in power. But it’s not enough simply for Christians to criticise those who have responsibility. We are called to put forward a different, positive agenda (e.g. 1 Peter 2:15, where “doing good” includes working for public benefactions).[12] It’s another way in which the Resurrection, and the fact that Christians are raised in Christ, carries ethical authority, because the Resurrection shows God’s commitment to our world and its restoration. But where are we going to get a positive social vision from? Obviously, if we’re Christians, we have to get it from God’s Word. So we need to be studying all of His Word, and we can’t afford to neglect any part of it. God doesn’t waste His breath.
Some might respond at this point by saying: “Why can’t we just draw on Jesus’ teachings when it comes to public policy? Why does it help to look at biblical law?” Part of the reason for paying attention to biblical law, at this point, is because it integrates those aspects of Scripture that are most obviously concerned with the organisation of civic society. So clearly it is of particular and direct relevance when it comes to developing a distinctively biblical social agenda. Of course, Jesus’ teachings to me as a private individual on turning the other cheek enables me, personally, to be salt and light. But it doesn’t necessarily tell me what to do when I’m a judge adjudicating in a criminal law case. What do I do then? Or what about Jesus’ teaching on the importance of serving God, not Mammon? Clearly, that teaches me where my priorities should lie when it comes to spending my (or, rather, God’s) money. But what about other people’s money? What do I do when I’m making day-to-day decisions in my job at the bank? Do I just give all the money away? If not, why not? We must have an answer. After all, God is interested in how banks, and other major financial and social institutions, behave (e.g. Proverbs 15:3). Nothing is beyond divine scrutiny, especially when the institutions concerned determine our ethics. Michael Schluter, for example, has argued for reform of the stock market around the slogan “no reward without responsibility, no profit without participation,” derived from his reading of biblical law.[13] The application of biblical law is not, and can never be, purely personal.
It’s because Torah has a public dimension that we can find out what structures and priorities God values in society as a whole. In fact, I’d go so far as to suggest that biblical law gives us a better sense of what Jesus would do ifHe occupied our job at the courtroom, or in the bank or whatever. And so we might find, for example, in Torah that justice is not only concerned with punishing the oppressor, but also with lifting up the oppressed, which may, in some circumstances, include the perpetrator as well. And because images of justice in biblical law are life-giving (Amos 5:24) part of our application might include the need for constructive penalties that provide an opportunity for putting things right between the parties and giving everyone a fresh start, where that is possible. That gives us some ideas how Jesus would act if He had our job as a judge, which we might not work out simply from Jesus’ teaching on ‘turning the other cheek.’ It’s not the case that we have to choose between either Jesus’ teachings or biblical law. It’s ‘both/and’ and we need to get into the habit of reading the one in the light of the other. This is all part of what it means to think of Jesus as the ‘fulfilment’ of Torah.
Although not all Christians will agree on every point, it’s certainly possible to envisage a highly engaged approach to modern politics on the basis of biblical law, including those areas that seem initially the most unpromising. When I began working in the early 1990s for the Jubilee Policy Group, in Cambridge, England – a think-tank dedicated to the application of biblical values and biblical law to public life – the focus of my work was the biblical laws concerning crime and punishment. These inspired the Relational Justice project, which sought the transformation of the criminal justice process and, in particular, prison regimes, by emphasising relationships at every stage of the process. In doing so, it won the support of the then Chief Inspector of Prisons (His Honour Judge Stephen Tumim) and the (later) Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, Lord Woolf. Subsequent work, which I was privileged to carry out for the Home Office and the Prison Service, concerning faith-based programmes in prisons (2000-2001), and later expanded to include international comparisons,[14] was inspired by the same values of biblical law, which emphasise the need for punishment to preserve the dignity of the offender (Deuteronomy 25:3) and to contain the seeds for personal transformation.[15]
On the floor beneath us, in the Jubilee Centre, founded by Michael Schluter in 1984, was the Keep Sunday Special campaign which far-sightedly battled for a weekly day of rest in order to support hard-pressed families, provide employee protection, and place limits on what could be demanded from the environment. In 1985, this campaign led to the only successful defeat of a Government bill under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Applying biblical law can and should take centre stage in political life. On the floor above, the Credit Action team were dedicated to providing, in the spirit of Leviticus 25, practical solutions to modern problems of debt arising from the then-recent explosion of personal credit. The point of these examples is to show that no-one should be in any doubt of the potential for the practical application of biblical law to all areas of public life, or that its wisdom can be appreciated by those outside the biblical tradition (per Deuteronomy 4:6-8).
At the same time, developing and applying a positive, alternative social vision is not easy. It is something we can only work out in the fear of the Lord. It certainly means digging for wisdom, like Job’s miner, in Job 28, who crawls down deep tunnels to bring forth jewels from out of the darkness. For those who wish to pursue the matter further, Jubilee Manifesto draws together the thinking of those who were active in the life of the Jubilee Centre at that time (and since) and who have collectively sought to develop a vision for Christian social reform.[16] Its varied chapters lay out a biblical social vision on such related subjects as nationhood, government, family policy, social welfare, finance, economy and international relations and defence, rooted in biblical law. These examples show that there is nothing trivial about the application of biblical law. Nor can it be said to be naive. It may be difficult, but it is not politically unrealistic. The world is not a playground but a battleground and Christians are called, among other things, to give serious thought and effort to the contemporary application of biblical law. As we engage increasingly with the forms of neopaganism that are already replacing our post-Christian culture, the application of biblical law will seem increasingly radical. For the same reason, its application will bring proportionate blessing.
One of the many attractive things about biblical law is that it calls us to think systematically across the whole of political and social life. This is important both to those who are working in depth in a particular area of public life as well as to those who are operating more broadly. Those who are called, like their forebears, to a lifetime’s work, say, in penal reform, education reform, or one of the thousand other tasks that call for a distinctly Christian witness in the public square, can concentrate on becoming expert, knowing that others are also working faithfully in their own area. They can see how their detailed work fits into the broader picture. Similarly, those who are not called to make an-depth contribution can also benefit from the bigger social picture that is encouraged by biblical law. To the Christian who says: “but biblical law is difficult and I don’t have time to read it or think about it,” we need to remind ourselves that we are also citizens and voters who have a duty to be engaged in public debate and to have an informed view. This being so, every Christian is better off, in their political responsibilities, with some exposure to biblical law than none. So we must make space, in our churches, for the breadth as well as the depth.
Finally, some Christians might respond by claiming that any discussion of the practical application of biblical laws must always detract from the urgent task of speaking of Christ. But, again, we need to remember who Christ is. He is the Cosmic Christ and God plans that all authority should be summed up in Him “who is the head of all rule and authority” (Colossians 2:9-10). So if we do not act on that and seek to apply this into every area of life, including public life, we are conceding there is a part of the world over which Christ does not exercise dominion. It’s precisely this sort of thinking that lies behind Paul’s image of Christians being “citizens of heaven” (Philippians 3:20). Philippi was, of course, a Roman colony. What it meant for those in Philippi to be “citizens of Rome” was to bring Roman culture and rule to bear their immediate environment and the surrounding area and so expand Roman influence. Their job wasn’t to go to Rome but to do things in Philippi the way there were done in Rome. This is the picture Paul has in mind when he speaks of ‘heavenly citizenship.’ We are heavenly colonists and our job is to bring the life and rule of heaven to bear on earth. We are to do our best to order our civic life so that it matches the way things are done in heaven – “on earth as it is in heaven,” as Jesus Himself taught.[17]
It’s a deep challenge for all of us to think through and work out what it means for us to give our primary allegiance, not to Rome but to heaven, and not to Caesar but to Jesus. In rising to this challenge – of what it means for us to love God and to love our neighbour, and to be a force for good in public life – we need to be fully equipped with all the resources God has for us. This includes the wisdom to be found in all the Scriptures, and this includes biblical law.
Jonathan Patrick Burnside is Professor of Biblical Law at the Law School, University of Bristol, UK.
[1] The Hebrew word which has become synonymous with biblical law, and which actually means ‘instruction.’
[2] Biblical quotations are derived from the English Standard Version translation of the Holy Bible.
[3] E.g. J.P. Burnside. “Exodus and Asylum: Uncovering the relationship between biblical law and narrative.” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 34(3):243-266.
[4]Jonathan P. Burnside, “Law and wisdom literature,” in Will Kynes (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Wisdom and the Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021), 423-440.
[5] See, e.g., Jonathan Burnside, “Write That They May Judge? Applying written law in biblical Israel” in Daniel I. Block et. al. (eds.) Write That They May Read: Studies in Literacy and Textualization in the Ancient Near East and in the Hebrew Scriptures (Pickwick 2020), 127-147.
[6] This doesn’t mean that historical circumstances are unimportant: Jesus Himself takes these into account (Matthew 19:8).
[7] “Pentecost” is derived, of course, from the Greek word for “fiftieth,” per the counting of the omer.
[8] Biblical quotations are derived from the English Standard Version.
[9] Although “legalism” is classically understood as an excessive attachment to rules, or law, the term is routinely used, by Christians, in a pejorative sense to mean something that is opposed to “grace.” This is not a helpful opposition since conformity to law (even strict conformity to law) was a central part of both Jesus’ and Paul’s teaching, as we have seen. In this section, I put legalism in scare quotes to show I am talking about the pejorative way in which Christians use this term.
[10] The entire body of Jewish law and tradition (including biblical, Talmudic and Rabbinic laws) is called halakhah,derived from the Hebrew verb halakh, meaning “to walk” or “to go.”
[11] Jonathan Burnside, God, Justice and Society: Aspects of Law and Legality in the Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 137-139.
[12] Bruce W. Winter, Seek the Welfare of the City (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 26, 37
[13] “Is Capitalism morally bankrupt?” Cambridge Papers 18(3) (2009). See also his “Risk, reward and responsibility: limited liability and company reform,” Cambridge Papers 9(2) (2000) for a critique of the limited liability company, again on the basis of biblical law.
[14] J.P. Burnside (with Nancy Loucks, Joanna Adler and Gerry Rose), My Brother’s Keeper: Faith-based units in prisons (London: Routledge 2005).
[15] Jonathan Patrick Burnside, The Signs of Sin: Seriousness of Offence in Biblical Law (London: Bloomsbury, 2003).
[16] Jubilee Manifesto: A framework, agenda and strategy for Christian social reform, Michael Schluter and John Ashcroft (eds.) (Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 2005). God, Justice and Society makes a number of connections between biblical law and the modern law of England and Wales whilst “The Spirit of Biblical Law,” Oxford Journal of Law and Religion (2012:1, 127-150) summarises some of the main policy objectives.
[17] This of course raises the larger question – in the light of the long history of Christendom – as to whether there should be a separation between Church and State.
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