Paul sounds almost impossible to summarize. He writes, “You are not under law but under grace,” yet also says, “The law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.” He can say Christ is the telos of the law, then say faith does not overthrow the law but establishes it. He rejects circumcision as a covenantal requirement for Gentiles, then writes, “Neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision, but keeping the commandments of God.”
Did Paul abolish Moses? No simple yes or no captures his argument.
The Historical Question: Must Gentiles Become Jews?
The great controversy behind Galatians is not whether Christians may murder or worship idols. It is whether Gentiles who believe in Israel’s Messiah must enter the Mosaic covenant in the normal male Jewish way—especially through circumcision.
Paul says no. If Gentiles must be circumcised to belong to God’s people, Paul argues, then Christ’s work has been misunderstood. The Spirit has already been given to uncircumcised Gentiles. They belong to Abraham’s family through Christ.
Circumcision
Galatians contains Paul’s strongest language. If Gentile Christians receive circumcision as a requirement for covenant justification, Paul says they become obligated to the whole law and sever themselves from the grace they are seeking in Christ.
That is not an abstract condemnation of surgery. Paul himself circumcised Timothy according to Acts. The issue is what circumcision means.
Titus, a Greek, was not compelled to be circumcised. Gentiles do not need to become Jews to become full members of the messianic people.
The Law Is Not Evil
Romans 7 explicitly rejects the idea that the law itself is sin. Paul calls it holy, righteous, good, and spiritual.
The problem is sin. Sin exploits commandments and produces death. The law can identify sin but cannot by itself liberate humanity from the dominion of sin and death. Christ and the Spirit accomplish what Torah, weakened through human flesh, could not accomplish.
“Christ Is the End of the Law”
Romans 10:4 says Christ is the telos of the law. Telos can mean end, goal, culmination, or purpose.
Paul certainly believes something decisive has happened to the Mosaic covenant in Christ. But “Christ terminated Scripture so Moses no longer matters” is too crude. Paul continues quoting Torah constantly as authoritative Scripture. The law reaches its intended goal in Christ.
“Not Under Law”
For Paul, being “under law” is a covenantal and salvation-historical condition. Christians live under the new age of the Spirit.
That does not mean, “There are no commandments.” Paul gives commandments constantly. He condemns idolatry, sexual immorality, greed, drunkenness, hatred, and injustice. Grace is not moral lawlessness.
The Law of Christ
Galatians 6 speaks of fulfilling the law of Christ. First Corinthians 9 says Paul is not outside God’s law but under Christ’s law. Romans 13 says love fulfills the law.
Paul can quote commandments against adultery, murder, theft, and coveting and summarize them in love of neighbor. So Torah is not simply discarded. It is reread through Christ and the Spirit.
Food, Days, and Circumcision
Some Mosaic practices no longer function as mandatory boundary markers for Gentile Christians. Romans 14 allows disagreement over foods and days. Galatians rejects compelling Gentile circumcision. Colossians—if Pauline or Pauline-school—similarly warns against judgment concerning food, festival, new moon, and sabbath.
The new covenant creates one body across Jew and Gentile.
Did Paul Tell Jews to Abandon Torah?
This is debated. A growing Paul within Judaism school argues that Paul’s law-free gospel is primarily directed to Gentiles. On this view Paul did not command Jewish Christ-followers to stop circumcision or Jewish practice.
Other scholars see Paul’s theology as implying a broader transformation of Torah for both Jews and Gentiles. Acts 21 explicitly denies that Paul teaches Jews to abandon Moses, though Paul’s own letters are less direct.
No consensus allows the question to be settled by one slogan.
First Corinthians 7:19
This verse is especially striking: “Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing, but keeping the commandments of God.”
If “commandments” simply meant the entire Mosaic covenant unchanged, the sentence would contradict itself because circumcision is a Mosaic command.
Paul therefore distinguishes the abiding moral will of God from covenantal markers whose function has been transformed in Christ. That distinction is not identical to later categories of moral, ceremonial, and civil law, but it points in a similar direction.
Jeremiah and the New Covenant
Paul’s new-covenant theology stands in Israel’s own prophetic tradition. Jeremiah promises a covenant in which God’s law is written on hearts. Ezekiel promises a new heart and Spirit enabling obedience.
Paul’s contrast is therefore not “law = bad, grace = good.” It is that the age of condemnation and death gives way to the Spirit who fulfills God’s righteous purpose in transformed people.
The Jerusalem Council
Acts 15 depicts the apostolic Church refusing to require circumcision of Gentiles. This is fundamentally compatible with Paul. Gentiles are welcomed as Gentiles.
Acts also preserves a limited set of moral and ritual requirements intended to shape communion between Jewish and Gentile believers. Whether Paul knew the exact decree in the form Acts presents is debated. But the broad outcome is shared.
Orthodoxy
Orthodox Christianity does not live under Mosaic Torah as the covenantal constitution of Israel. Christians do not require circumcision, Levitical priesthood, Temple sacrifice, kosher separation, or Mosaic civil penalties.
Yet Orthodoxy does not call the Old Testament obsolete trash. The Law is inspired Scripture. The Ten Commandments remain morally formative. The Psalms saturate worship. Passover becomes Pascha. Temple, sacrifice, priesthood, food, and holiness are fulfilled typologically in Christ and the Church.
This is much closer to Paul than modern antinomianism.
Did Paul Invent a Law-Free Christianity?
No. The Gentile question was debated by the apostolic Church itself. Acts 15, Galatians 2, and Peter’s experience with Cornelius all witness to the crisis.
Paul became the most forceful theological defender of Gentile freedom from circumcision. But he did not create the idea that Christ established a new covenant extending to the nations. That claim lies at the heart of the earliest Christian movement.
Final Verdict
Paul did not abolish morality, and he did not treat the Mosaic Law as evil. He taught something more specific and radical:
- the Mosaic covenant does not define Gentile membership in God’s people;
- circumcision cannot be imposed as a condition of justification;
- the Law is holy but cannot conquer sin;
- Christ fulfills the Law’s goal;
- believers live in the new age of the Spirit;
- God’s moral will remains binding;
- love fulfills the Law;
- Christians obey within the “law of Christ.”
Paul does not move from Torah to lawlessness. He moves from the Mosaic covenant as Israel’s boundary-defining regime to the messianic new covenant in which the Spirit forms Jew and Gentile into one holy people in Christ.
Key Sources
Primary sources
- Jeremiah 31:31–34.
- Ezekiel 36:25–27.
- Acts 15; 21.
- Romans 3:21–31; 6–8; 10; 13–14.
- 1 Corinthians 7:17–24; 9:19–23.
- Galatians 2–6.
Modern scholarship
- E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism.
- James D. G. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle.
- N. T. Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God.
- Paula Fredriksen, Paul: The Pagans’ Apostle.
- Matthew Thiessen, Paul and the Gentile Problem.