Three Questions Concerning the Old Testament Law

In his helpful study, Robert Banks asks three important questions concerning the Old Testament Law.

1. The basis of Law. Is it to be viewed as a means of winning Yahweh’s favour, or as a response of gratitude to the favour he has already shown?

2. The character of Law. Is it an embodiment of timeless norms embracing the whole of life, or does it consist of regulations that are historically conditioned, capable of modification and applicable to some, but not all, spheres of human behaviour?

3. The permanence of Law. Is it an immutable and eternal order that will persist into the Age to Come, or does it possess only provisional and this-worldly significance.


Robert Banks, Jesus and the Law in the Synoptic Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), 13.