Richard E. Averbeck - The Old Testament Law for the Life of the Church: Reading the Torah in the Light of Christ

IN MY SEMINARY STUDENT DAYS I remember very clearly a moment one day when I was walking down a particular hallway in the seminary building and it occurred to me: Maybe God wants me to help the church with the Old Testament. Some years later I looked back on that day and came to the realization that this in fact had become the Lords call on my life. It had somehow become my mission without my realizing it or making any intentional decision about it, at least none that I was aware of at the time. This book is an attempt to contribute in some small but meaningful way to fulfilling that mission. I offer it first to the Lord, and then to the church, and to you, the reader, in the hope that it will be helpful to you in your walk with Jesus day by day.

This book, therefore, is for the church and the believer. As I write, I am thinking primarily of pastors, the students I teach in training for the pastorate at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and the adult Bible fellowship I have taught weekly for twenty-five years in my home church. All of these are serious students of the Bible; some more trained than others, but all serious about it. The goal is to walk through the topic carefully, without assuming too much for these readers. Biblical scholars, therefore, are not at the forefront of my mind as I write, but the discussion depends on the scholarly work I have done on the subject over the past forty years and on the good work done by other scholars who have contributed to this area. We all stand on the shoulders of previous scholars, whether we agree with them or not.

The footnotes do not attempt to cover the immense volume of academic material written on the topic. My intention, however, is to provide enough coverage for curious readers to go further on their own, especially in the most recent literature. This, in turn, can lead them to earlier scholarly and/or popular literature. The treatment of technical matters (Hebrew, Greek, ancient Near Eastern context, complex theological debates, etc.) and opposing views will find its way into the discussion, of course, but in a way that should make them understandable to nonspecialists.

The approach to the topic taken here falls into three main parts. The first part of the book focuses on the biblical covenants as the overall foundation and context for the discussion of the Mosaic law in the Old Testament and the New Testament. Part two focuses on understanding the Old Testament law on its own terms, showing how it worked in its Old Testament context. This will include regular looks forward to the New Testament from the perspective of the Old Testament law. I am convinced that a good bit of the problem we have with the law for the church and the life of the believer derives from a poor understanding of the Mosaic law in the first place. The third part of the book will focus on understanding what the New Testament says about the law and looking back at the Old Testament from the New Testament point of view. I will take care to avoid imposing the Old Testament on the New Testament, or the New Testament on the Old Testament, to the best of my ability. I cannot and will not attempt to treat every detail of the law in this volume. There is simply too much of it. But I will seriously engage with the literary and historical-cultural context and the actual content of the law. Clarity is important here.

If this book helps believers and churches take a whole-Bible approach to their understanding and practice of the Christian life and ministry, it will have served my purpose in writing it. This is my hope and prayer. May the Lord Jesus Christ be praised!

THE RESEARCH AND WRITING of this book has been in progress for over twenty-five years. Through that time I have benefited immeasurably from the students in my courses at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (Deerfield, Illinois). I am in their debt and thank them for their sincere interest in the topic and willingness to consider lines of thinking that have sometimes been new to them. Their probing questions about the law itself and its significance for the church and believers today forced reconsiderations along the way.

One of the first of these students to take the study of the Mosaic law seriously was Bruce Wells. He is now one of the leading scholars today in the study of biblical law in its ancient Near Eastern context. Many of my other students have also written masters theses and PhD dissertations related to this topic over the years. Some are currently working on such projects.

Two previous research assistants, Neal Huddleston and Igor Swiderski, were especially helpful in gathering bibliography and doing their own writing on aspects of the topic. My current research and teaching assistant, Sai Madhava Venkata Gomatam (Joshua), has helped me in the final stages of the writing, editing, and indexing of this volume. I thank him for his faithful diligence.

A special note of thanks is due to Mitch Glaser, president and CEO of Chosen People Ministries, who interacted with various editions of the appendix on Jewish messianic believers and the Torah. His suggestions and recommendations have helped to keep me on track for this important segment of the church today. I also thank the members of the faculty interdisciplinary discussion group known as the Deerfield Dialogue Group, created and supported by the Henry Center for Theological Understanding. They have discussed my papers and tested my ideas about this topic many times over the past twenty years or so. I am solely responsible for the weaknesses that remain. I also thank editors Anna Gissing and Rebecca Carhart of InterVarsity Press, who have seen the manuscript through the various stages of production.