Christian views on the Old Covenant

The Mosaic covenant or Law of Moses – which Christians generally call the "Old Covenant" (in contrast to the New Covenant) – has played an important role in the origins of Christianity and has occasioned serious dispute and controversy since the beginnings of Christianity: note for example Jesus' teaching of the Law during his Sermon on the Mount and the circumcision controversy in early Christianity.

Rabbinic Judaism asserts that Moses presented the Jewish religious laws to the Jewish people and that those laws do not apply to gentiles (including Christians), with the exception of the Seven Laws of Noah, which (it teaches) apply to all people.

Most Christians believe that only parts dealing with the moral law (as opposed to ceremonial law) are still applicable, others believe that none apply, dual-covenant theologians believe that the Old Covenant remains valid only for Jews, and a minority have the view that all parts still apply to believers in Jesus and in the New Covenant.

Theologian Thomas Aquinas explained that there are three types of biblical precepts: moral, ceremonial, and judicial. He holds that moral precepts are permanent, having held even before the Law was given, since they are part of the law of nature. Ceremonial precepts (the "ceremonial law", dealing with forms of worshipping God and with ritual cleanness) and judicial precepts (such as those in Exodus 21) came into existence only with the Law of Moses and were only temporary. The ceremonial commands were "ordained to the Divine worship for that particular time and to the foreshadowing of Christ". Accordingly, upon the coming of Christ they ceased to bind, and to observe them now would, Aquinas thought, be equivalent to declaring falsely that Christ has not yet come, for Christians a mortal sin.

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