Does God’s Law Still Apply?

What is the relevance of all of that law that took place under the old covenant now that we’re in the new covenant? Is there any application of the Old Testament law to our day? I’ve told the story of being invited to speak in New York several years ago, more than two decades ago. I was speaking at a very large church and was doing a series on the holiness of God. The sponsoring group from the church asked me to come to a private prayer meeting for about twenty of the members of this church that was to be held after the first service in this series that I was speaking. After this evening service, we went to this person’s home, and it was a mansion. Priceless works of art adorned the walls, and even the front yard had a Henry Moore piece of sculpture in it. We came inside, and they said we were going to pray. And they turned out all the lights, and that was fine. And these people started to pray, and they started to pray to their dead relatives.

I said, “Whoa, wait a minute, time out! What’s going on here?” They said, “Oh, we’re being led by the Holy Spirit to contact our departed relatives who are in heaven.” I said, “We’re not allowed to do that.” They said, “Why not?” and I explained to them what the Old Testament law was. That in Israel, this was a capital offense, that this was an abomination to God. Their glib reply to me was simply this: “But that’s the Old Testament. It doesn’t have any bearing on us.” I asked the question, “What has changed in redemptive history? What has changed in the character of God and of His relationship to His people that makes a practice that once was utterly odious to Him now something in which He takes delight?” Thy Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. It’s a scary thing to walk a dangerous path when you have no light for your feet, and that’s where we are when we are ignorant of the law of God.