08-What Is The Law?

There is an enormous amount of confusion, not to say
misinformation, in much that is said and written about ‘the law’. 1
Let me explain.
Most evangelicals think of ‘the law’ as a moral system
encapsulated in the ten commandments. 2 This is a bad, bad
mistake, and the source of much misunderstanding and trouble.
True, ‘the ten commandments’ is a biblical phrase, but its use in
Scripture is very rare, and the law is never defined in this way,
never! The phrase ‘ten commandments’ occurs only three times
in the entire Bible (Ex. 34:28; Deut. 4:13; 10:4), never once in the
New Testament. Of course, the ‘tablets of stone’, and ‘the
ministry... written and engraved on stones’ are mentioned in the
New Testament (2 Cor. 3:3,7), but whether these are references
exclusively to the ten commandments or to the entire Sinai
covenant is debatable.