The Two Senses of "Law" and the Resolution of Matthew 5:17

One of the most important keys to resolving the New Testament's apparent tensions over the Law is recognizing that the word Law carries at least two distinct meanings in Scripture (it has more, but these two are the most important for our purposes here).

Law as Scripture

First, Law can mean Scripture. In this sense, "Law" refers to the written Word of God — though even here the scope can vary. Sometimes it points specifically to the Torah, the five books of Moses. Other times it extends to the entire Old Testament as Scripture.

This broader sense is evident in Matthew 5 itself: in verse 17, Jesus speaks of "the Law and the Prophets" — the standard Jewish way of referring to the whole of Scripture — and in verse 18 he shortens this simply to "the Law," using the term as a stand-in for the same full expression.

But Matthew 5 is far from the only place this usage appears. The pattern is consistent across the New Testament, and the most decisive evidence comes from cases where a writer calls a non-Pentateuchal text "the Law":

• In John 10:34, Jesus says, "Is it not written in your Law, 'I said, you are gods'?" — but the citation is from Psalm 82:6, which belongs to the Writings, not the Torah. The term Law here clearly extends to the broader canon.
• In John 15:25, Jesus appeals to "the word that is written in their Law: 'They hated me without a cause'" — quoting Psalm 35:19 (or 69:4). Again, a Psalm is called "Law."
• In 1 Corinthians 14:21, Paul writes, "In the Law it is written, 'By people of strange tongues...'" — and proceeds to quote Isaiah 28:11–12. A prophetic text is designated "Law."
• In Romans 3:19, Paul says, "Whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law" — but the immediately preceding context (vv. 10–18) is a chain of citations from Psalms and Isaiah. Paul gathers all of it under the single heading: the Law.
• In John 12:34, the crowd says, "We have heard from the Law that the Christ remains forever" — a claim drawn from texts like Isaiah 9:7 or Psalm 110, again outside the Pentateuch.

The cumulative force of these passages is hard to overstate. The New Testament authors — and Jesus himself — habitually use "the Law" as shorthand for the entire Old Testament Scripture. In this sense, the Law remains true, inspired, profitable, and revelatory of God's character.

Law as Covenant

Second, Law can mean covenant. In this sense, "Law" refers to the Mosaic Covenant given to Israel at Sinai, with its commandments, priesthood, sacrifices, circumcision, calendar, dietary regulations, and national ordinances. Here the Law functions as the covenantal regime that governed Israel's life prior to the coming of Christ.

That this is a distinct sense — and not simply a synonym for Scripture — is established by several lines of biblical evidence:

• The Old Testament itself identifies the Sinai legislation as a covenant. In Exodus 24:7–8, Moses takes "the Book of the Covenant" and reads it to the people, then sprinkles the blood saying, "Behold the blood of the covenant." The body of laws given at Sinai is not merely instruction; it is the textual form of a covenantal bond.
• Deuteronomy 4:13 makes this even more explicit: "And he declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, that is, the Ten Commandments." The very heart of the Mosaic legislation is named "covenant."
• Galatians 3:17 treats this covenantal sense with surgical precision. Paul argues that "the Law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God." Here the Law is something with a historical inception — it came at a specific point in salvation history, four centuries after Abraham. It is not the eternal Word of God; it is a covenantal arrangement with a beginning, and, as Paul will go on to argue, an end.
• Galatians 3:23–25 confirms this: "Before faith came, we were held captive under the Law... So then, the Law was our guardian until Christ came... But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian." The Law in this sense has a delimited duration — pedagogical, temporary, tied to a redemptive epoch now closed.
• Hebrews 7:11–12 ties the Law inseparably to the Levitical priesthood: "When there is a change in the priesthood, there is necessarily a change in the Law as well." The "Law" here is the entire sacerdotal-covenantal system — not Scripture broadly, but the operative regime that organized Israel's worship.

This is the Law that Paul says we have been released from (Romans 7:6), the Law of "commandments expressed in ordinances" that Christ abolished (Ephesians 2:15), the "ministry engraved on stones" that has been surpassed (2 Corinthians 3:7–11), and the first covenant that Hebrews 8:13 declares obsolete.

The Resolution

This distinction yields a clear resolution:

• As Scripture, the Law is fulfilled by Christ.
• As Mosaic Covenant, the Law is abolished — superseded and rendered obsolete — by Christ.

But the deeper point is this: the very abolition of the Law (as covenant) is itself part of the fulfillment of the Law (as Scripture).

This is because Scripture itself announced that a New Covenant was coming — one fundamentally unlike the first. Jeremiah 31:31–32 promised a new covenant "not like the covenant" God made when he brought Israel out of Egypt. Therefore, when Christ inaugurates the New Covenant and renders the old one obsolete, he is not betraying the Old Testament. He is accomplishing precisely what the Old Testament had promised. He is fulfilling the Law as Scripture.

We can put it this way: the Law as Scripture declared that the Law as covenant would be surpassed. The very abolition of the Law (as covenant) is a fulfillment of the Law (as Scripture).

The Tension Between Abolition and Fulfillment

On one side, Jesus declares:

“

"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them." (Matthew 5:17)

This shows that Christ did not come to destroy the Old Testament as Scripture.

Yet on the other side, the New Testament repeatedly speaks of the Law as covenant being cancelled, annulled, or rendered obsolete. Ephesians 2:15 speaks of the abolition of "the law of commandments expressed in ordinances." Colossians 2:14 speaks of "the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands" being nailed to the cross. 2 Corinthians 3:7–11 speaks of the "ministry of death, carved in letters on stone," being surpassed by a more glorious ministry. Hebrews 8:13 declares that the first covenant has become obsolete. Romans 7:6 says that we have been released from the Law.

The solution lies precisely in the two senses of Law:

• Christ did not abolish the Law as Scripture. He fulfilled it.
• Christ did abolish the Law as the operative Mosaic covenant.

The arrival of the New Covenant is simultaneously the fulfillment of the Law (as Scripture) and the abolition of the Law (as Mosaic covenant).

There is therefore no contradiction between "I have not come to abolish" (Matthew 5:17) and "he abolished the law of commandments" (Ephesians 2:15). Jesus did not abolish Scripture; he abolished the Mosaic covenantal regime precisely by fulfilling what Scripture had all along announced.

The Tension Between Continuity and Discontinuity

The New Covenant is neither a clean break from the Law nor a simple continuation of it.

• As covenant, it represents rupture — genuine discontinuity.
• As Scripture, it represents fulfillment — genuine continuity.

The Mosaic covenant as a whole, as an operative legal regime, is abolished — not in part, but entirely. This is not the Reformed position that only the ceremonial and civil laws were set aside while the moral law remains in force as Mosaic law. The covenant is gone as a covenant. Yet certain moral realities do (re)appear in the New Covenant — not because they survived the transition, but because they re-emerge within it, now grounded in Christ and pressed to an even greater depth and intensity.

Matthew 5:21–48 illustrates this precisely. When Jesus says "You have heard that it was said... but I say to you," he is not correcting misinterpretations of Moses. He is speaking with the authority of a new lawgiver, announcing the law of the New Covenant. There is clear overlap with the old covenant's moral terrain — murder, adultery, oaths, retaliation — but these concerns re-emerge under a far greater intensity. The demand goes further than Moses ever required. It reaches the heart, the intention, the interior life. This is neither simple continuity nor discontinuity. It is discontinuous in form and authority, yet the same moral ground reappears — pressed deeper, not relaxed.

This pattern reflects the New Covenant itself: what the old covenant addressed externally, the new covenant takes up and presses deeper.

• The old covenant was written on tablets of stone. The new covenant is written on the heart.
• The old covenant addressed God's people externally, telling them what to do. The new covenant transforms God's people internally, creating in them the desire and capacity to do it.
• The old covenant revealed sin. The new covenant forgives sin and transforms the sinner.
• The old covenant demanded obedience. The new covenant grants the Spirit, who produces obedience from within.
• The old covenant displayed the standard. The new covenant imparts the life to walk according to that standard.

The change, then, is not that God has relaxed his concern for justice, holiness, and righteousness. The change is that under the New Covenant, God produces internally what the old covenant commanded externally.