The Law of Christ Is Not Moses Reinterpreted: A Response to David Wilber

David Wilber argues that Paul’s expression “the law of Christ” in Galatians 6:2 and 1 Corinthians 9:21 refers to the law of Moses as taught, interpreted, and exemplified by Christ [https://tinyurl.com/ycyz4ess]. Wilber states the point directly, describing the expression as a reference to the law of Moses “as it is taught and exemplified by Christ.” In his reading, Paul does not establish a second governing law distinct from the Mosaic covenant. Instead, the problem is misuse of Torah. Once believers are justified by faith and empowered by the Spirit, Torah continues as their righteous guide.

One distinction is important for the discussion that follows. Paul does not always use “Jesus” and “Christ” with the same emphasis. Jesus identifies the historical human Son who was born and lived under the Mosaic covenant, while Christ, in the passages central to this argument, foregrounds the divine side of the divine-human identity, and that divine reality is God Himself. That distinction matters when Paul speaks not of “the law of Jesus,” but specifically of the law of Christ.

The difficulty with Wilber’s interpretation is therefore deeper than the meaning assigned to one phrase. It begins with the purpose of the Mosaic law itself. If Torah is assumed from the outset to be God’s permanent behavioral constitution for humanity, then “law of Christ” will naturally be interpreted as Moses placed in Jesus’ hands.

But that framing begins with the question, Which commandments govern human behavior? Scripture begins with a deeper question:

How does the creature live?

The biblical story begins somewhere much earlier than Sinai. It begins with Life.

The Biblical Story Does Not Begin With Law

By Life, this discussion does not mean merely biological existence, nor merely endless duration. Adam and Eve were already physically alive while the Tree of Life still stood before them in the garden. Paul can likewise describe people as “dead in trespasses and sins” while immediately speaking of how they formerly walked in those sins (Ephesians 2:1–2). Scripture therefore distinguishes physical animation from a deeper category of Life.

Life names the creature’s God-derived participation in God as the one Life-source: the sustaining divine Life by which the creature is enabled to become, live, and fulfill what God created it to be. It is Life for the realization of God’s purpose, design, and intended destiny, not mere existence for its own sake.

The presence of the Tree of Life among people who were already biologically alive shows that humanity was never designed to become an independent source unto itself.

Genesis 2:7 begins with God giving the breath of life. Humanity does not earn Life through obedience. Life is gift because creaturely existence is necessarily dependent upon God. As Paul later says, God is not served “as if he needed anything”; rather, He gives “life and breath and everything else” (Acts 17:25).

This establishes the direction of the relationship. God does not need lawkeeping. Humanity needs Life.

The tragedy of Eden is therefore deeper than violation of a rule. Humanity chooses the attempt at autonomous existence, seeking independently what could only be received from God. The creature attempts to become its own source. Spiritual death follows because there is no independent reservoir of divine Life outside the Life-source.

The Mosaic covenant enters much later into that already-existing human problem.

Sinai Gives “Do and Live” Covenant Form

God gives the promise to Abraham, and Paul emphasizes that the Mosaic law comes 430 years later (Galatians 3:17). Sinai is therefore not simply the permanent form of the Abrahamic promise.

Nor is Sinai given universally to humanity. Paul explicitly describes Gentiles as those who “do not have the law” (Romans 2:14). The Mosaic covenant belongs specifically to Israel.

For Israel, however, it is binding. Its governing principle is:

“The person who does these things will live by them.” (Galatians 3:12; cf. Leviticus 18:5)

That is do and live.

The law is holy, righteous, and good (Romans 7:12). Its problem is not moral defect. Its problem is that it addresses fallen humanity through a covenant whose movement runs from doing toward Life.

Paul identifies its intended destination plainly:

“The very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death.” (Romans 7:10)

And Galatians makes the question unmistakable:

“If a law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law.” (Galatians 3:21)

The issue is Life.

But Life never resides in the law itself. God alone is the source of Life. The law defines the righteous covenantal standing required under the do-and-live arrangement. Through obedient performance, the covenant member seeks that standing, and Life is then received from God according to the covenantal works-and-wages principle.

The law therefore does not compete with God as another possible source of Life. It establishes the righteous standard within the covenant. God alone gives Life.

The law can define righteousness, expose sin, restrain, teach, diagnose, and function as guardian. But the commandments themselves never become another source of Life alongside God.

God did not need Sinai in order to discover humanity’s condition. Humanity needed the demonstration. The history reveals humanity to humanity.

Paul Does Not Say Christ Helps Us Keep the First Law

Wilber’s model effectively resolves the difficulty by distinguishing law as a means of salvation from law as a guide for people already saved. In his reading, Paul rejects seeking justification through Torah but retains Torah as the Spirit-empowered guide for righteous living.

But Paul describes something more radical than improved Torah observance.

He says:

“Through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God.” (Galatians 2:19)

Then:

“I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith…” (Galatians 2:20)

The sequence matters:

died to law → live for God → Christ lives in me → present Life lived by faith.

Paul does not say, “I died to the misuse of the law so that Jesus could enable correct Torah observance.” He places death to law immediately beside Christ living in the believer.

That distinction matters. Paul does not say that the teachings of Jesus live in him. He says Christ lives in him.

Romans 7 says the same thing. Believers have “died to the law through the body of Christ” in order to “belong to another” and “bear fruit for God” (Romans 7:4). They have been “released from the law” to serve “in the new way of the Spirit” (Romans 7:6).

That is covenantal release followed by another governing Life reality.

Romans 8 then states the answer with remarkable clarity:

“For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did…” (Romans 8:3)

Notice the subject.

God did.

The answer to the failure of flesh is not another commandment, a more demanding law, or a better interpretation of the same arrangement. God Himself acts.

There Are Two Laws

Romans 8:2 names them:

“The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death.”

The first is the Mosaic law viewed according to its operative result in sin-weakened flesh. It is not itself sinful. But the commandment intended for Life produces death because flesh cannot carry the do-and-live arrangement to its destination.

The second is the law of the Spirit of Life, the governing reality that Paul’s wider argument identifies as the law of Christ.

Paul’s use of nomos does not always mean a written legal code. Romans 8:2 itself speaks of “the law of the Spirit of Life” and “the law of sin and death” as governing operative realities. Merely seeing the word law therefore does not require us to import the Mosaic code into every occurrence.

Most importantly, there are not two competing sources of Life. God alone is the Life-source under both covenants. What changes is the covenantal relation between righteousness and Life.

Under the first law:

• works → attained righteous standing → Life received from God according to the covenantal wage principle

Under the second:

• Christ is your Life → faith → God Himself lives and acts in and through the believer → righteous living appears as fruit

This is why Paul does not describe the believer’s new reality primarily in relation to another written it. He says, “Christ lives in me,” and elsewhere calls Christ “your life.”

The first covenant confronts the person as a code that commands.

The second centers upon a who.

That personal source does not leave righteousness undefined. The righteous shape of that Life becomes visible in the fruit Paul describes in Galatians 5–6.

Paul’s language is personal, not merely instructional. When Paul says, “Christ lives in me,” he is not saying that Jesus simply left behind a better set of teachings to imitate. Christ foregrounds the divine side of the divine-human identity, and that divine reality is God Himself.

Paul’s contrast is therefore between living toward Life through commandment performance and God Himself living and working in and through the believer.

This is precisely why “the law of Christ” should not be reduced to the collected commandments spoken by Jesus during His earthly ministry. Jesus was born under the Mosaic law and taught within Israel’s covenantal world, while also announcing realities of the coming new covenant. His teaching remains authoritative and reveals righteousness, but the law of Christ is not simply the Sermon on the Mount, the Upper Room discourse, or another collection of instructions turned into a Christian Torah.

The law of Christ is not simply the law of Jesus.

Jesus teaches. Christ is Life.

Instruction is therefore witness and orientation. It is not the source of Life.

Scripture reveals, corrects, and identifies the shape of righteous Life. But Paul’s defining new-covenant language is not merely “remember what Jesus commanded.” It is:

“Christ lives in me.”

Life itself must therefore not be imagined as a spiritual commodity that God portions out independently of Himself. God Himself is the Life-source.

Under the new covenant, Christ is the believer’s Life, and God Himself lives and works in and through the believer. Righteous living consequently does not proceed from an impersonal possession called Life.

It is the visible result of God Himself living His Life in and through the participating believer.

The believer really wills, chooses, loves, serves, and acts. But the believer is participant, not source.

Galatians 6 Does Not Put Believers Back Under Moses

Wilber argues that because Galatians 5:14 says the whole law is fulfilled through love, the nearby “law of Christ” in Galatians 6:2 naturally refers back to Mosaic law.

But the intervening argument must not be skipped.

Paul says:

“Walk by spirit.” (Galatians 5:16)

Then:

“If you are led by spirit, you are not under the law.” (Galatians 5:18)

Then comes the fruit of the spirit (5:22–23), restoration in gentleness (6:1), and burden-bearing as fulfillment of the law of Christ (6:2).

The progression is:

love fulfills righteous content → walk by spirit → not under law → fruit → burden-bearing → law of Christ fulfilled.

If fulfilling what Mosaic law identifies as righteous meant continuing under Mosaic jurisdiction, Galatians 5:14 and 5:18 would contradict one another.

They do not, because fulfillment and subjection are different categories.

The second law is therefore not ethically empty. Its righteous reality has an identifiable shape and becomes visible as fruit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, and ultimately the concrete burden-bearing Paul identifies in Galatians 6.

These are not merely another collection of external demands for the believer to manufacture. The believer truly loves, serves, and acts, but that righteous living is the visible expression of God Himself living and acting in and through the believer.

This also clarifies Jesus’ statement in Matthew 5:17 that He came not to abolish the Law but to fulfill it. Here the distinction in terminology matters. Jesus, the historical human Son, was born under the law and truly obeyed it. But He did not live toward Life through commandment performance.

From the beginning, Jesus lived from God as His Life-source, and His righteous obedience proceeded from Life already present rather than from an attempt to attain Life through law.

In Jesus the law was not abolished.

It reached its purpose.

That historical fulfillment by Jesus should not simply be collapsed into Paul’s later expression “the law of Christ.” They are related realities, but they are not interchangeable phrases.

First Corinthians 9 Makes the Distinction Even Clearer

Wilber interprets Paul’s statement that he is “not under the law” in 1 Corinthians 9:20 as meaning merely that Paul no longer follows Pharisaic interpretations of Torah. He then reads being “in the law of Christ” in verse 21 as Torah according to Jesus’ interpretation.

But Paul’s own contrast is simpler.

He distinguishes being under law from being in relation to Christ. The expressions are not identical. Paul explicitly denies that he remains under the Mosaic law, yet immediately guards against the conclusion that he is therefore lawless toward God.

His positive relation is now defined by Christ.

That does not collapse him back into Mosaic jurisdiction. It describes another governing relationship.

And this fits Paul’s larger theology of union. Believers are baptized into Christ, belong to Christ, and live in Christ. The positive reality replacing subjection to the first covenant is not independence from God but participation in Christ, the divine-human reality in which the divine side is God Himself and Christ is the believer’s Life.

The alternatives are therefore not:

Moses or lawlessness.

Paul is no longer under the first law because he lives within the second.

The First Law Does Not Need to Disappear

None of this requires the Mosaic law to become evil or irrelevant.

The second law does not require the first to become unreal.

An airplane does not fly because gravity disappears. Aerodynamic law operates in gravity’s continuing presence and makes purposeful flight possible. Likewise, the law of the Spirit of Life sets the believer free from the first law without requiring the first law to cease existing.

The first covenant remains holy testimony. The Mosaic writings remain authoritative Scripture. They reveal righteousness, expose flesh, diagnose sin, teach, guard, and testify to the righteous purpose of God. Their continuing revelatory value does not mean that believers remain covenantally subjected to Sinai.

That distinction matters:

continuing authority as Scripture is not continuing jurisdiction as covenant.

The first covenant’s continued testimony makes the greatness of the second covenant visible.

The law of Christ is therefore not Moses reinterpreted by Jesus. It is the better covenantal reality in which the destination of the first law becomes the starting point of the second.

Under the first covenant, God remains the sole Life-source, but Life is received according to the righteous standing established through the works-and-wages arrangement.

Under the second covenant, Christ is the believer’s Life. God Himself lives and acts in and through the believer, and righteous living appears as the fruit of that divine Life expressed through the participating human person.

Paul’s definition remains the clearest:

“Christ, who is your life.” (Colossians 3:4)

The first law says, do and live.

The law of Christ says, Christ is your Life. Live by faith as God Himself lives and works in and through you.