Glenn Ferris clarifies that Paul's statement in 1 Corinthians 9:20 regarding being "under the law" refers to voluntarily adopting obsolete ceremonial customs for Jewish evangelism, not submitting to the eternal moral Ten Commandments. He distinguishes between the abrogated ceremonial laws and the binding moral law, explaining that Paul conformed to cultural norms like diet among Gentiles while upholding the law of Christ. Ultimately, this analysis demonstrates that true biblical liberty involves strategic cultural adaptation without compromising the unchanging requirement to love God and neighbor. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, WAV2VEC2_ASR_BASE_960H, sat-12l-sm, script v26.04.01, and large-v3-turbo
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The Law Reveals Our Need for a Savior00:04:12
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Glenn Ferris, can you explain 1 Corinthians 9 20 and 21, where Paul states we are not under the law?
What is Paul stating in these verses?
To the Jews, I became a Jew in order to win Jews.
To those under the law, I became as one under the law, though not being myself under the law, that I might win those under the law.
To those outside of the law, I became as one outside of the law, not being outside of the law of God, but under the law of Christ, that I might win those outside the law.
All right, leave this up for just a second because I need the scripture and I want the audience to be able to see the scripture as I seek to execute it.
All right, the first thing that you need to understand, great question, by the way, Glenn Ferris.
Fair question, good question.
Nothing wrong in asking questions.
I was about to say there's no such thing as a stupid question, but there are stupid questions.
This is not one.
Okay, so 1 Corinthians 9, verse 20 through 21.
First thing we need to understand is the divisions of the law.
The divisions of the law.
All right, so the Reformers argued there were three uses of the law, right?
The law, it reveals our need for a Savior.
None of the use of the law, there are three within the Reformed perspective of understanding the law of God.
None of these three uses is the law being used to save.
The law is not saving.
No man will be saved by works as done unto the law, is what the Apostle Paul says elsewhere.
But the law does reveal our need for a Savior.
The law of God helps us to recognize and realize that God is holy, because the law is holy and therefore reflects the holiness of the lawgiver.
And by way of consequence, as we see God's holiness through his holy law, it reveals to us, it functions as a mirror and reveals to us our lack of holiness and therefore our need for a savior.
So the law is not a savior, but it does reveal our need for a savior.
The law also functions as a mirror, it shows us our need for a savior, it functions as a shield.
A common grace expression where it holds evil at bay.
The law, again, it's powerless to change the heart.
So it doesn't hold evil at bay or mitigate evil at the level of the heart inwardly, but it does suppress outward manifestations of evil, right?
So even for the pagan who's unregenerate, who hates God and is bent on doing evil, not just harboring evil in his heart, but doing evil actions, he will be less inclined to murder if there are laws in his society against.
Murder and penalties for murderers, right?
So the law has a common grace function, not just for the people of God, but for all people to restrain outward manifestations of evil.
So the law is a mirror, reveals our need for a savior.
It's a shield, restrains outward manifestations of evil.
And lastly, the law is a lamp unto our feet.
It's, I'll say, it's a compass, it's a guide.
It doesn't show us the way to salvation, it shows us the way from salvation.
David says, I delight in your law.
It's a lamp unto my feet, a light unto my path.
Path to where?
It's not a path to salvation.
But it is a path from salvation.
So the law doesn't lead us to salvation.
It does reveal our need for salvation, which leads us to the gospel.
But the law does, it shows us which way to go, not to salvation, but from salvation, right?
Because I've been freely saved as a gift by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, I now want to love God as a response of gratitude.
And if I love God, what does Jesus say?
If you love me, you'll obey me.
And so, okay, obey what?
The law.
The law.
So those are the three uses of the law.
But it's also important that we understand the three divisions of the law.
The three divisions of the law is we take Old Testament law and chop it up, being careful in our chopping.
But what we see is this we see the moral law of God, which is eternal.
We see the ceremonial law that was unique to Israel as the nation state, God's chosen priesthood, his people, under the old covenant before the work of Christ.
And then we see moral, ceremonial, and civil law.
And so I'll explain this as quickly as I can.
Three Divisions of God's Law Explained00:14:21
The moral law of God is the Ten Commandments, it's the Decalogue.
So, moral law, I believe, is synonymous with natural law and divine law.
I talked about this last week a little bit.
The moral law of God is the Ten Commandments.
Love the Lord your God and love your neighbor as yourself.
The first table of the law of God, the first four of the Ten Commandments show us how to love the Lord our God.
Have no other gods before me.
Do not make any graven images.
Do not take the Lord's name in vain.
Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.
That's how we love the Lord our God.
And then the next six of the Ten Commandments honor your father and mother.
That's commandment number five.
Do not murder.
Do not commit adultery.
Do not steal.
Do not bear false witness and do not covet.
That shows us how to love our neighbor.
This is the moral law of God and it is eternal, meaning it is without end, but it's also without beginning.
There'll never be a time in heaven where it'll be okay to murder.
This is always the law of God, and it always was the law of God.
It did not just, the Ten Commandments, the moral law of God, did not just come into play on tablets of stone at Mount Sinai through Moses.
But the law of God was written on tablets of human hearts even before Moses.
So the law of God was written on Adam's heart all the way back in the garden before sin ever entered the world.
The law of God is something that is instinctively known.
And we know this from Romans chapter 1 and Romans chapter 2.
Romans chapter 1 talks about natural revelation, that by God's creation, he's revealing something about who he is and what he's done.
That's Romans chapter 1.
Romans chapter 2 talks about not just natural revelation, but natural law.
That even the Gentiles who have never received special revelation, meaning an evangelist, a preacher, or the Torah or scripture, they've never received special revelation, but that the Gentiles who have received natural revelation, right, they can see the truth about who God is by virtue of what he has made, back to Romans chapter 1.
Paul says in Romans chapter 2 that the Gentiles are a law unto themselves, that they, their conscience, bear witness against their lawless deeds.
So you can go into a lost tribe in South America, if any more exists that we've never found, and let's say we discover them tomorrow, you will find that there are certain things that are not permissible in their culture, in their tribe, because they're deemed as being wrong and sinful.
And some of these things may be perverse because they're sinners, but many of them will match, line up with the law of God because.
The law of God is written on people's hearts.
That's the moral law of the Ten Commandments.
The ceremonial law is the priestly sacrificial system, certain rituals and customs about hand washing and things like this.
This has been fulfilled by Christ.
All the law, including the moral law, has been fulfilled by Christ.
That's the only reason we're saved, is because Christ, He didn't just die in our place, substitutionary atonement.
He didn't just die in our place for our sin, but He also lived in our place.
Jesus dying in our place, it removes the penalty of our sin.
But Jesus living in our place imputes to us His righteousness.
If Jesus only died in our place, it could make us innocent, but it wouldn't make us righteous.
So, Jesus, he didn't just die as our substitute, the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world.
Our sin imputed to him and the wrath of God poured out on him, right?
The wages of sin is death.
So, he received the death penalty of God because he took our sin.
And so, he atoned for our sin as a substitute, dying for us, but also as a substitute, he lived for us.
And in his life, he didn't just avoid sin, but the Bible says he fulfilled all righteousness.
He was perfectly obedient to his heavenly father.
And he lived also as a substitute.
He lived in our place.
So, through faith in Jesus, our sin is imputed to him and he takes our penalty, but also his righteousness is imputed to us.
So, we receive his reward, not just the reward of an innocent person, but the reward of a fully righteous person, which is amazing.
This is double imputation.
This is the great exchange.
This is the heart of the gospel.
Jesus died in our place, he also lived in our place.
So, because that is a gospel truth, we must say that Jesus fulfilled all the law of God, including the moral law.
He fulfilled the ceremonial, the civil, and the moral law of God.
Jesus fulfilled it all, but he did not abrogate it all.
Jesus abrogated the ceremonial law.
So, he fulfilled the ceremonial law, but he also abrogated this priestly animal sacrificial system.
Certain customs about hand washings and cleansing rituals.
A woman on her period has to go outside of the camp for seven days.
That has to do with cleansing.
That's a part of the ceremonial law that was unique under the old covenant given to Israel.
Jesus not only fulfilled this, but Jesus also abrogated it.
He ended it because he is our forever high priest in the order of Melchizedek.
He is also not only the priest, but he is the sacrifice, the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world.
And he also is the one who purifies and sanctifies his church by his blood.
He makes us clean.
So the ceremonial law is not only fulfilled by Christ as the moral law is, but also abrogated by Christ.
It's done away with.
That leaves us the civil law.
The civil law, according to the Westminster Confession of Faith, according to the 1689 Confession of Faith, the civil law is unique to Israel, but the general equity still remains.
What I mean by that is you take all these civil codes, right?
You only have 10 commandments with the moral law, but then you have hundreds of civil codes in Israel, right?
If an ox gores somebody, it needs to be put to death, you know, or if it's accustomed to gore, then it must be hemmed in, it must be.
Kept in with a gate.
If its owner isn't diligent to keep the ox in and it gets out and it gores someone else, then the owner is actually now liable.
He too would be put to death, not just the ox, right?
That's a civil code.
That's a civil law, right?
Borders on the perimeter of your houses so people don't fall off.
That's a civil code.
And so there's a civil law of Israel, which is a case law system.
That is not a one to one ratio for us in America as Christians today.
However, the general equity still applies.
The general equity would mean that you get to the heart of each of these civil laws.
What is the heart of Level, which would be one of the Ten Commandments, always one of the Ten Commandments.
The general equity of hundreds of civil laws is always one of the ten moral laws.
So the ox thing, well, what of the Ten Commandments does that come from?
Well, the sixth commandment, thou shalt not murder, stated in the positive sense, would be thou must esteem and cherish and protect the sanctity of human life.
And so certain things that would be a threat and a danger, destroy human life made in the image of God, must be dealt with, right?
So the civil law of the ox or the civil law of the border along the roof, that The general equity is coming from the sixth commandment.
And so we don't hang out on our roofs in our culture today.
So we shouldn't say, oh, well, that was a civil law for Israel.
They should all be civil laws for us in America.
Well, no, let's get to the general equity of each of these civil laws, which takes us right back to the Ten Commandments.
And then let's apply that in our time and our place, given our culture, our technology, all these kinds of things.
If people aren't hanging out on the roofs, then we don't need to have a border around it.
If people don't have oxen, well, then, okay, we don't need to deal with that.
So back to your question.
Here's the point.
The point is, when Paul says, to the Jews, I became a Jew in order to win Jews, to those under the law, I became as one under the law.
Paul is not talking about the Ten Commandments.
That's the short answer.
He's not talking about the moral law of God.
The moral law of God, according to Paul in Romans chapter 2, applies to all people in all places.
So there is no one, there is no one who is not under the law.
It's not just for Jews, it's not just for Christians.
All people in all places in all times are under the Ten Commandments because they're written on people's hearts.
And that's precisely what Paul gets at in Romans chapter 2.
So when he says, To the Jews, I became a Jew in order to win Jews.
To those under the law, I became, this is, and to those under the law being again Jews.
So he's just saying the same thing a second time, but in a different way.
So I became like a Jew to win Jews.
In other words, I became under the law so that I might win those who are under the law.
I behaved as though I'm under the law, even though I'm not.
I'm under grace, though I myself am not under the law, that I might win those under the law.
Again, speaking of Jews.
So what Paul's saying is this He's not saying, So, I pretended that the Ten Commandments are binding for me, even though they're not, because Jesus fulfilled the law.
No, no.
Jesus fulfilled the moral law of God, the Ten Commandments, but he did not abrogate the Ten Commandments.
They came into existence before Mount Sinai with Moses, and they have continued in existence today.
The Ten Commandments are repeated in the New Testament.
In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul, specifically, apostolic authors, after the life and death and resurrection and ascension of Christ and the pouring out of the Spirit at Pentecost under the New Covenant, under the New Testament church, It's still wrong to commit adultery.
It's still wrong to covet.
It's still wrong to murder.
It's still wrong to steal.
The only thing in question would be the fourth commandment about the Sabbath.
And I don't have time to go into that, but I think the Sabbath continues as well.
I think that that was not removed by Christ, but Jesus, as the Lord of the Sabbath, renewed, did not remove the Sabbath, but renewed the Sabbath from the last day of the week to the first day of the week by virtue of his resurrection, being raised from the dead on the first day of the week.
And even that sets for us a gospel pattern.
So instead of working for six days and being rewarded for our work by a day of rest, Rather, we rest on the first day of the week and then we work the next six days following that day of rest, meaning that our work is coming out.
It stems from our rest in Christ, who is our Sabbath rest.
So, anyways, people can push back on that.
That's fine.
But I'm confessional, confessionally reformed, so I'm going to hold to the Sabbath.
But the point is, all the Ten Commandments with a debate about the Sabbath, but they're reiterated in the New Testament.
In the New Testament.
So we know the moral law of God didn't end, Jesus didn't fulfill it and abrogate it.
He fulfilled it, He lived in our place.
That's why we're saved.
That's why we're clothed in the righteous robes of Christ, because he didn't just die in our place.
He lived in our place, fulfilling all righteousness.
So he fulfilled the moral law, the Ten Commandments, but he did not abrogate the Ten Commandments.
He did not do away with them.
They are still eternal.
So when Paul says, to the Jews, I became as a Jew in order to win Jews, and what I mean by that is, the Jews are under the law.
So I pretended to be under the law, under the Ten Commandments, the moral law, even though I'm not actually under the Ten Commandments, it would be totally appropriate and totally permissible for me to murder.
Pretended that I was under that law, the sixth commandment, thou shalt not murder, just in order to have common ground with the Jews in order that I might win them to Christ.
And then verse 21, right?
That's a bad way to read it.
Verse 21, continuing that facetious hermeneutic, to those outside of the law, right?
The Gentiles, those who don't have the law of God, you know, I pretended to be someone who is outside of the law.
So I actually murdered a bunch of people and I was committing adultery left and right and I was coveting everybody's stuff and I was stealing their stuff, you know.
And because, you know, those who are outside of the law, the Gentiles, you know, I wanted to, you know, win in Rome, right?
Do as the Romans do.
And so I wanted to be like the Gentiles.
And so I lived lawless, even though I technically am not outside of the law of God, but under the law of Christ, right?
There's a distinction right there.
That's key between the law of God and the law of Christ, that I might win those outside of the law.
So that doesn't make sense.
It makes sense when you read it like this the three divisions of the law moral Ten Commandments, that's eternal.
That's not what he's talking about.
But there is the ceremonial and civil law.
Ceremonial and civil law.
So, what Paul is saying is this when I'm ministering as an evangelist among the Jews who still hold to the ceremonial and civil law, I do my best to keep to those customs, even though I know that these things have not only been fulfilled by Christ but abrogated.
But to those who are outside the law, to Gentiles who are not Jews and don't have certain rituals about cleansing and hand washing and not being able to eat pork or shellfish, if they serve me lobster, I eat the lobster.
Because I know that in reality, I'm not under that law, speaking of ceremonial law, because that's been not only fulfilled by Christ, but also abrogated.
However, I am still under the moral law, the Ten Commandments.
And that's precisely what he says in that parenthetical statement, halfway in between verse 21, not being outside the law of God, but under the law of Christ.
Well, right here, he's drawing a distinction.
He's speaking of the Old Testament ceremonial portions of the law unique to Israel.
That have been done away with because of Christ versus the law of Christ.
And if you ask, well, what is the law of Christ?
Well, the law of Christ is the greatest and the second greatest commandment.
Matthew 22, 37.
Let's see if I can do it from memory.
Matthew 22, verse 37, 38, 39, and 40.
And he said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind.
And this is the greatest commandment.
And the second is like it that you should love your neighbor as yourself.
All the law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.
So, what is the law of Christ?
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.
And again, what does that look like?
What does it mean?
The Ten Commandments.
The first four dealing with how to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.
And the next six of the Ten Commandments, the second table of the Decalogue, moral law, how to love your neighbor as yourself.
So, Paul is saying, I'm no longer under this Jewish law, but I am still under the law of Christ.
And what is a law of Christ?
It's the moral law of God, the Ten Commandments.
The Ten Commandments are eternal.
They're always binding for everyone, every place, throughout every time.
But the Ten Commandments are not the only portion of Old Testament law.
You have the moral law, Ten Commandments, but it's helpful to have these dividers, different types of law, three divisions, not just three uses of the law, but remember this the three divisions of the law.
The moral law, that's the Ten Commandments, but then also the ceremonial and civil.
I think Paul is maybe talking about the civil a little bit, but primarily I think he's talking about the ceremonial law.
So, when I'm with Jews who still think the ceremonial law is in effect, I'm not quibbling about that.
We'll get to that eventually because it is important that they recognize that Christ fulfilled and abrogated the ceremonial law.
Christ Fulfilled and Abrogated the Ceremonial Law00:01:05
But I'm not going to bicker about that right off the bat.
First, I just want to preach the gospel to them.
And so I'll abide by some of these ceremonial laws as much as I can in order to win the Jews.
But when I'm with the Gentiles, I know that I'm not actually under the ceremonial law because Christ is our high priest.
He's our sacrifice.
He makes us clean by his blood.
And so I'm eating shellfish and lobster, having a good time with the Gentiles, preaching the gospel because I'm never.
I'm not really under that law to begin with because Christ has fulfilled and abrogated that law.
However, that doesn't mean I'm murdering because that law actually has been given to the Gentiles.
Romans chapter 2, their consciences, that law was written on their heart.
Their consciences bear witness of the moral law of God.
All right, so that's how we understand under law, not under law.
That's what I think Paul's talking about.
Hope that that's helpful.
Thanks so much for listening.
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