God's commands are important in that they show us the heart and character of our loving God and the need for Jesus Christ to be our Savior. Understanding the law within these two principles helps us build a better appreciation of God's laws and motivates us to fulfil them.
Some believers claim that the Old Testament laws are now obsolete because of the obedience of Jesus to the will of the Father. And while that may hold true for some cultural and traditional laws- such as the need for atoning sacrifice- principles behind the rules still stand to be true and applicable to us today. Although the Lord no longer requires us to abstain from certain kinds of food, He still calls us not to steal, kill and envy.
The greatest proof that much of the Mosaic law still applies today is the great commandment that Jesus gives us in Matthew 22:37-38 where it says, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets."
Take note of the last statement where Jesus says that these commandments are what the Law and Prophets depend on. Jesus is not giving us a new commandment in Matthew 22:37-38, but rather the same law in a new light and perspective. The laws of God have always called us to live out have always been to simply love God and love others and let our actions be ruled by that love.
In Deuteronomy 6:2, Moses gives the ultimatum to God's laws: "that you may fear the Lord your God, you and your son and your son's son, by keeping all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be long." This law sounds pretty much similar to Jesus' "new" version.
The Mosaic law was built around the directive to love God and love others. In the Decalogue, for instance, God tells us to have no idols because we are to love and serve Him alone. He also calls us to honour our parents, avoid killing, avoid stealing, avoid envy because these would simply be acts that go against loving our neighbors.
Jesus' great commandment is no different, and it's also not that simple. As easy as the great commands sound, none of us can fulfil God's law on our own. That's why we need the grace of God to pardon and empower us to walk in His ways and to live a life adjacent to the command to love God and love others.
We cannot love God and love others apart from the person of Jesus Christ just as the people of the Old Testament never could. From start to end, the Bible and all of time has always been about the grace of God.
