One of the most important questions at the parousia will be whether we kept the obedience of faith to the New Covenant law of Messiah, as opposed to the old covenant law of Moses.
Hebrews 10 contrasts those who rejected “Moses’ Law” with the “much greater punishment” awaiting those who “tread under foot the Son of God” and profane “the blood of the covenant” (vv. 28–29). The warning directly connects the Christian’s obedience of faith “as you see the Day approaching,” because “he who is coming will come, and will not delay” (vv. 25, 37).
This echoes Jesus’ own warning that “the word which I spoke will judge him on the last day” (John 12:48; cp. Matt. 7:21–27). It will be the New Covenant words of Jesus that form the standard, not a return to the Mosaic covenant. This begins dramatically when, paralleling Moses at Sinai, Jesus goes up a mountain and repeatedly contrasts what “you have heard” with his own authoritative words, “but I say to you.” What follows concerns murder and anger, adultery and lust, divorce, oaths, retaliation and enemy-love. These six so-called antitheses form a major backbone of the Law of Messiah. They show once and for all that Jesus was not sent merely to repeat the laws given at Sinai. The sharp distinction appears again in John 9:28 when the Pharisees tell the healed man, “You are that man’s disciple; but we are disciples of Moses.” Then, toward the end of his ministry, Jesus declares, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” This strikingly recalls Matthew 5:18, where Jesus says, “until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke will pass from the Law,” but now applies that language of permanence to his own words.
Hence the repeated warnings against seeking to be made right by keeping the Law of Moses or returning to its “shadow” (Heb. 10:1; Col. 2:16–17), because the Son now mediates “a better covenant, which has been given as Law based on better promises” (Heb. 8:6)—what Paul terms the “Law of Messiah,” as opposed to the Law of Moses (1 Cor. 9:21; Gal. 6:2).
The blood of God’s Son ratified the New Covenant, while the preaching, practice and words of Jesus now define the obedience of faith. The New Covenant is therefore the new governing legislation for the Church, centered on the Gospel of the Kingdom, the name of Jesus Messiah, and obedience to everything he commanded (Matt. 28:20; Acts 8:12).
At the parousia, Christians should not want to be found living under the wrong covenant law, clinging to Moses while rejecting the Messiah and the New Covenant Law he now mediates. And when he comes, he will judge his people by their obedience to his Kingdom Gospel and New Covenant Law—not the Old Covenant Law of Moses.
