Doctrine · The Articles of Religion

Article VI — Of the Old Testament. The Old Testament is not contrary to the New; for both in the Old and New Testament everlasting life is offered to mankind by Christ, who is the only Mediator between God and man, being both God and Man. Although the law given from God by Moses as touching ceremonies and rites doth not bind Christians, nor ought the civil precepts thereof of necessity be received in any commonwealth; yet notwithstanding, no Christian whatsoever is free from the obedience of the commandments which are called moral.

moderately contested

What it says

“The Old Testament agrees with the New — both offer everlasting life through Christ — and while the ceremonial and civil laws of Moses no longer bind, the moral law binds every Christian still.”

The stake
One sentence against Marcion (the Testaments are one) and one against the antinomian (the moral law abides).
Why it matters
It keeps the whole Bible Christian Scripture and keeps the Ten Commandments binding under grace — the third use of the law, made constitutional.
The Wesleyan take
Pure Wesley: the ceremonial law abolished, the moral law established through faith, not destroyed. His sermons on the Law are this article expounded.
Original English
The Old Testament is not contrary to the New; for both in the Old and New Testament everlasting life is offered to mankind by Christ, who is the only Mediator between God and man, being both God and Man. Wherefore they are not to be heard who feign that the old fathers did look only for transitory promises. Although the law given from God by Moses as touching ceremonies and rites doth not bind Christians, nor ought the civil precepts thereof of necessity be received in any commonwealth; yet notwithstanding, no Christian whatsoever is free from the obedience of the commandments which are called moral. Thirty-Nine Articles Article VII (1571), 'Of the Old Testament,' kept by Wesley essentially verbatim. Its spine is the classic threefold division of the Mosaic law — ceremonial (abolished in Christ), civil/judicial (not binding on commonwealths), moral (perpetually binding) — which is exactly Wesley's own teaching in his sermons on the Law. The article is also implicitly anti-Marcion and anti-antinomian in one sentence.
VersionRendering
United Methodist Book of Discipline (¶104) The Old Testament is not contrary to the New… Although the law given from God by Moses as touching ceremonies and rites doth not bind Christians, nor ought the civil precepts thereof of necessity be received in any commonwealth; yet notwithstanding, no Christian whatsoever is free from the obedience of the commandments which are called moral.
Thirty-Nine Articles (1571), Article VII The Old Testament is not contrary to the New… no Christian man whatsoever is free from the obedience of the Commandments which are called Moral. kept by Wesley; the threefold law is also the structure of his sermon *The Original, Nature, Properties, and Use of the Law*.

Traditions cited patristic ·reformed ·anglican ·wesleyan ·modern ecumenical

Article VI — Of the Old Testament

The Text

Article VI does two jobs in one breath, and both are perennial. First it binds the Testaments together: the Old is “not contrary to the New,” because in both “everlasting life is offered to mankind by Christ” — a single covenant of grace, one Mediator, against every Marcion who would cut the Old Testament loose or read its God as a lesser deity. Then it divides the Mosaic law into the classic three: ceremonial (rites and sacrifices, abolished in Christ), civil/judicial (Israel’s polity, not binding on Christian commonwealths), and moral (the commandments from which “no Christian whatsoever is free”). It is a small article carrying two of the largest questions in Christian theology — the unity of the Bible and the place of the law under grace — and Wesley kept it intact because both answers were his own.

Translation Notes

“not contrary to the New… everlasting life is offered… by Christ.” The unity is Christological, not merely historical: the Old Testament is Christian Scripture because Christ is offered in it, not only after it. “The old fathers” did not look “only for transitory promises” — they had the gospel in promise. This is the anti-Marcionite hinge.

“ceremonies and rites… civil precepts… commandments which are called moral.” The threefold division. It is not in the text of Moses as a labeled scheme; it is the church’s interpretive grid (patristic and scholastic, sharpened by the Reformers). The article commits Methodism to it: ceremonial abolished, civil not imposed, moral perpetually binding.

“no Christian whatsoever is free from the obedience of the… moral.” The anti-antinomian clause, and the strongest words in the article. No Christian whatsoever — not the most assured, not the most sanctified, not the one most sure of grace — is “free from” the moral law’s obedience. This is the constitutional form of the third use of the law.

Historical Context

Article VII of the Thirty-Nine was aimed at two sixteenth-century dangers at once: the radical antinomian claim that the gospel abolishes the law entirely, and any latent Marcionism that would demote the Old Testament. The threefold division was the Reformers’ inherited tool (Aquinas had it; Calvin systematized it) for saying how the law is both fulfilled and abiding. Wesley kept the article because the same two errors were live in the eighteenth-century revival — the “Gospel antinomians” against whom Fletcher’s Checks to Antinomianism (cited approvingly in the Discipline’s own ¶103) were written, and a sentimental Christianity embarrassed by the Old Testament.

This is one of the articles whose Wesleyan content is not thinner than the article (unlike, say, the Holy Ghost). Here Wesley wrote at length: The Original, Nature, Properties, and Use of the Law and the two sermons The Law Established Through Faith I and II, plus the fifth discourse Upon Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, are sustained expositions of exactly this article’s threefold scheme. The article and the sermons are, for once, a matched pair.

Lines of Interpretation

The disputed question: in what sense the moral law still binds the Christian who is “not under law but under grace.”

Patristic

Tradition: the unity of the Testaments against Marcion; typology

The Fathers’ great achievement against Marcion was exactly Article VI’s first clause: one God, one covenant of grace, the Old Testament read Christologically (typology, promise). The threefold law is implicit in their reading of the cross as the end of sacrifice.

Strengths

  • Secures the Old Testament as Christian Scripture, the article’s primary aim
  • Grounds the unity in Christ, not mere historical continuity

Weaknesses

  • Heavy typology can swallow the Old Testament’s own voice
  • The threefold division is less explicit patristically than the article’s confidence implies

Reformed

Tradition: the third use of the law; covenant theology

The Reformed tradition is Article VI’s natural home: one covenant of grace across both Testaments, and the tertius usus legis — the moral law as the abiding guide of the justified. “No Christian… free from the obedience of the… moral” is the third use, confessed.

Strengths

  • Matches the article’s anti-antinomian clause exactly
  • The covenant frame gives “not contrary to the New” real theological depth

Weaknesses

  • Covenant systematics can over-formalize a deliberately compact article
  • The third use, pressed legalistically, can obscure the grace under which the law is kept (Wesley’s worry)

Anglican

Tradition: the Thirty-Nine; Hooker on law

Anglicanism reads the article as moderate Reformation consensus: ceremonial gone, civil non-obligatory, moral perpetual, the whole Bible the church’s book. It is the via media against both antinomian and Judaizer.

Strengths

  • Faithful to the article’s plain, balanced intent
  • Keeps the law’s abiding force without legalism

Weaknesses

  • “Balance” can soften the article’s hard “no Christian whatsoever”
  • The threefold scheme’s seams (which precepts are “moral”?) are left unspecified

Modern / Ecumenical

Tradition: post-Holocaust rereading; the law as gift

Modern theology, chastened about supersessionism, presses the article’s first clause hardest: the Old Testament is not contrary, its God not lesser, its law not mere bondage but covenant gift — while still reckoning honestly with the threefold scheme’s limits.

Strengths

  • Recovers the Old Testament’s own dignity the article asserts but Christian practice often denies
  • Reads “the law… moral” as gift, not only restraint

Weaknesses

  • Can blur the article’s genuine discontinuities (ceremonial is abolished) into a flattening continuity
  • Anxiety about supersession can mute the Christological “by Christ” the article makes central

Wesleyan Voice

For once the Wesleyan voice does not have to be supplied from elsewhere; it is a direct, extended exposition of this very article. The Original, Nature, Properties, and Use of the Law and The Law Established Through Faith I–II are Article VI written long. Wesley’s fifth discourse Upon Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount states the threefold division almost in the article’s own terms: “the ritual or ceremonial law… our Lord indeed did come to destroy, to dissolve, and utterly abolish”; the moral law he came not to destroy “but to fulfil,” and through faith to establish. The article’s “no Christian whatsoever is free from the obedience of the… moral” is Wesley’s lifelong war on antinomianism in a single constitutional clause.

The decisive Wesleyan note is the relation of law and grace, and it is the hinge of his whole soteriology. Wesley refused both errors the article straddles. Against the antinomian who said grace abolishes the law, he insisted (Article VI’s last clause) that the justified are more, not less, bound to the moral law — but kept it now by faith working through love, not by their own strength. Against the legalist who made law-keeping the ground of acceptance, he insisted the law is established through faith, not against it: the moral law is the fruit and rule of the justified life, never its price. This is the same architecture as the General Rules’ “do no harm / do good” ([[general-rules/first-rule-do-no-harm]]): the moral law specified, required of the saved, evidenced by them, never the ground of their salvation. Article VI is the doctrinal root of which the General Rules are the practical flowering — which is why a Wesleyan reading must hold them together: the law abides (Article VI), is itemized as a rule of life (General Rules), and is kept as fruit, not merit (Article X, [[articles-of-religion/article-10-of-good-works]]).

The Christological first clause is also Wesleyan to the core. Wesley preached the Old Testament constantly as Christian Scripture — the “everlasting life… offered… by Christ” in promise — and his Notes on the Old Testament assume exactly the article’s unity. A Wesleyan who finds the Old Testament an embarrassment has departed Article VI at its first sentence; one who treats the moral law as optional under grace has departed it at its last.

Hymnody

The Wesleyan hymnody of the law is the hymnody of the law fulfilled and written on the heart. Charles Wesley’s “O for a heart to praise my God, a heart from sin set free… write thy new name upon my heart, thy new best name of Love” is Article VI’s moral law under grace — not abolished but internalized, the third use sung as gift. “Jesus, thy boundless love to me” and “Love divine, all loves excelling” (“take away our bent to sinning… pure and spotless let us be”) are the law established through faith, not destroyed. And the whole Wesleyan use of the Psalms and Old Testament canticles in worship is the article’s first clause in practice: the church sings the Old Testament as Christian Scripture. There is no Wesleyan hymn celebrating freedom from the moral law — the songbook, like the article’s last clause, knows no such freedom.

Pastoral and Liturgical Use

The first pastoral use is the anti-Marcion clause, which is more needed now than ever. Many congregations functionally operate a canon-within-the-canon that quietly drops the Old Testament as harsh, primitive, or sub-Christian. Article VI forbids it constitutionally: the Testaments are “not contrary,” the same Christ offered in both. Pastorally this licenses, even requires, preaching the Old Testament as gospel, not as foil — the discipline the article hands a lectionary-shy church.

The second use is the article’s hard last clause against the perennial antinomian drift. Whenever grace is preached as freedom from the moral law rather than freedom to keep it, Article VI is the brake: “no Christian whatsoever is free from the obedience of the… moral.” The pastoral skill, which is Wesley’s, is to preach this without re-erecting works-righteousness — the law established through faith, kept as the fruit of grace, never its price. A sermon that makes obedience the ground of acceptance has broken the article from the other side.

The third use is to teach the threefold division as a reading tool, because most lay confusion about “do we still follow the Old Testament?” dissolves the moment ceremonial, civil, and moral are distinguished. Why Christians eat shellfish and do not stone Sabbath-breakers but still must not murder or covet is not arbitrary; it is Article VI, and it is Wesley’s sermons on the Law in miniature. Handing a congregation that grid is one of the most practically clarifying things this article makes possible.

Further Reading

  • Matthew 5:17–20 — “not to destroy, but to fulfil” (Wesley’s text in Discourse V)
  • Romans 3:31; 7:7–12; 8:3–4 — the law established through faith
  • Luke 24:27, 44 — the Old Testament as witness to Christ
  • Thirty-Nine Articles, Article VII (1571) — Wesley’s source
  • John Wesley, The Original, Nature, Properties, and Use of the Law; The Law Established Through Faith I & II; Upon Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, Discourse V — the article expounded at length
  • John Fletcher, Checks to Antinomianism — cited in the Discipline’s own doctrinal history (¶103)
  • The sufficiency rule this presupposes: [[articles-of-religion/article-5-of-the-sufficiency-of-the-holy-scriptures]]
  • The moral law itemized as a rule of life: [[general-rules/first-rule-do-no-harm]]
  • The law kept as fruit, not ground: [[articles-of-religion/article-10-of-good-works]]

Related

The Articles of Religion

Article I — Of Faith in the Holy Trinity. There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body or parts, of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness; the maker and preserver of all things, both visible and invisible. And in unity of this Godhead there are three persons, of one substance, power, and eternity — the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Article II — Of the Word, or Son of God, Who Was Made Very Man. The Son, who is the Word of the Father, the very and eternal God, of one substance with the Father, took man's nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin; so that two whole and perfect natures, that is to say, the Godhead and Manhood, were joined together in one person, never to be divided; whereof is one Christ, very God and very Man, who truly suffered, was crucified, dead, and buried, to reconcile his Father to us, and to be a sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for actual sins of men. Article III — Of the Resurrection of Christ. Christ did truly rise again from the dead, and took again his body, with all things appertaining to the perfection of man's nature, wherewith he ascended into heaven, and there sitteth until he return to judge all men at the last day. Article IV — Of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost, proceeding from the Father and the Son, is of one substance, majesty, and glory with the Father and the Son, very and eternal God. Article V — Of the Sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures for Salvation. The Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation; so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man that it should be believed as an article of faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation. Article VI — Of the Old Testament. The Old Testament is not contrary to the New; for both in the Old and New Testament everlasting life is offered to mankind by Christ, who is the only Mediator between God and man, being both God and Man. Although the law given from God by Moses as touching ceremonies and rites doth not bind Christians, nor ought the civil precepts thereof of necessity be received in any commonwealth; yet notwithstanding, no Christian whatsoever is free from the obedience of the commandments which are called moral. Article VII — Of Original or Birth Sin. Original sin standeth not in the following of Adam (as the Pelagians do vainly talk), but it is the corruption of the nature of every man, that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam, whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and of his own nature inclined to evil, and that continually. Article VIII — Of Free Will. The condition of man after the fall of Adam is such that he cannot turn and prepare himself, by his own natural strength and works, to faith, and calling upon God; wherefore we have no power to do good works, pleasant and acceptable to God, without the grace of God by Christ preventing us, that we may have a good will, and working with us, when we have that good will. Article IX — Of the Justification of Man. We are accounted righteous before God only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, by faith, and not for our own works or deservings. Wherefore, that we are justified by faith, only, is a most wholesome doctrine, and very full of comfort. Article X — Of Good Works. Although good works, which are the fruits of faith, and follow after justification, cannot put away our sins, and endure the severity of God's judgment; yet are they pleasing and acceptable to God in Christ, and spring out of a true and lively faith, insomuch that by them a lively faith may be as evidently known as a tree is discerned by its fruit. Article XI — Of Works of Supererogation. Voluntary works — besides, over and above God's commandments — which they call works of supererogation, cannot be taught without arrogancy and impiety. For by them men do declare that they do not only render unto God as much as they are bound to do, but that they do more for his sake than of bounden duty is required; whereas Christ saith plainly: When ye have done all that is commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants. Article XII — Of Sin After Justification. Not every sin willingly committed after justification is the sin against the Holy Ghost, and unpardonable. Wherefore, the grant of repentance is not to be denied to such as fall into sin after justification. After we have received the Holy Ghost, we may depart from grace given, and fall into sin, and, by the grace of God, rise again and amend our lives. And therefore they are to be condemned who say they can no more sin as long as they live here; or deny the place of forgiveness to such as truly repent. Article XIII — Of the Church. The visible church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men in which the pure Word of God is preached, and the Sacraments duly administered according to Christ's ordinance, in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same. Article XIV — Of Purgatory. The Romish doctrine concerning purgatory, pardon, worshiping, and adoration, as well of images as of relics, and also invocation of saints, is a fond thing, vainly invented, and grounded upon no warrant of Scripture, but repugnant to the Word of God. Article XV — Of Speaking in the Congregation in Such a Tongue as the People Understand. It is a thing plainly repugnant to the Word of God, and the custom of the primitive church, to have public prayer in the church, or to minister the Sacraments, in a tongue not understood by the people. Article XVI — Of the Sacraments. Sacraments ordained of Christ are not only badges or tokens of Christian men's profession, but rather they are certain signs of grace, and God's good will toward us, by which he doth work invisibly in us, and doth not only quicken, but also strengthen and confirm, our faith in him. There are two Sacraments ordained of Christ our Lord in the Gospel; that is to say, Baptism and the Supper of the Lord. Article XVII — Of Baptism. Baptism is not only a sign of profession and mark of difference whereby Christians are distinguished from others that are not baptized; but it is also a sign of regeneration or the new birth. The Baptism of young children is to be retained in the Church. Article XVIII — Of the Lord's Supper. The Supper of the Lord is not only a sign of the love that Christians ought to have among themselves one to another, but rather is a sacrament of our redemption by Christ's death… The body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in the Supper, only after a heavenly and spiritual manner. And the means whereby the body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is faith. Article XIX — Of Both Kinds. The cup of the Lord is not to be denied to the lay people; for both the parts of the Lord's Supper, by Christ's ordinance and commandment, ought to be administered to all Christians alike. Article XX — Of the One Oblation of Christ, Finished upon the Cross. The offering of Christ, once made, is that perfect redemption, propitiation, and satisfaction for all the sins of the whole world, both original and actual; and there is none other satisfaction for sin but that alone. Wherefore the sacrifice of masses, in the which it is commonly said that the priest doth offer Christ for the quick and the dead, to have remission of pain or guilt, is a blasphemous fable and dangerous deceit. Article XXI — Of the Marriage of Ministers. The ministers of Christ are not commanded by God's law either to vow the estate of single life, or to abstain from marriage; therefore it is lawful for them, as for all other Christians, to marry at their own discretion, as they shall judge the same to serve best to godliness. Article XXII — Of the Rites and Ceremonies of Churches. It is not necessary that rites and ceremonies should in all places be the same, or exactly alike; for they have been always different, and may be changed according to the diversity of countries, times, and men's manners, so that nothing be ordained against God's Word. Every particular church may ordain, change, or abolish rites and ceremonies, so that all things may be done to edification. Article XXIII — Of the Rulers of the United States of America. The President, the Congress, the general assemblies, the governors, and the councils of state, as the delegates of the people, are the rulers of the United States of America, according to the division of power made to them by the Constitution of the United States and by the constitutions of their respective states. And the said states are a sovereign and independent nation, and ought not to be subject to any foreign jurisdiction. Article XXIV — Of Christian Men's Goods. The riches and goods of Christians are not common as touching the right, title, and possession of the same, as some do falsely boast. Notwithstanding, every man ought, of such things as he possesseth, liberally to give alms to the poor, according to his ability. Article XXV — Of a Christian Man's Oath. As we confess that vain and rash swearing is forbidden Christian men by our Lord Jesus Christ and James his apostle, so we judge that the Christian religion doth not prohibit, but that a man may swear when the magistrate requireth, in a cause of faith and charity, so it be done according to the prophet's teaching, in justice, judgment, and truth. Of Sanctification (appended 1939; legislative, not constitutionally protected). Sanctification is that renewal of our fallen nature by the Holy Ghost, received through faith in Jesus Christ, whose blood of atonement cleanseth from all sin; whereby we are not only delivered from the guilt of sin, but are washed from its pollution, saved from its power, and are enabled, through grace, to love God with all our hearts and to walk in his holy commandments blameless. Of the Duty of Christians to the Civil Authority (appended 1939; legislative, not constitutionally protected). It is the duty of all Christians, and especially of all Christian ministers, to observe and obey the laws and commands of the governing or supreme authority of the country of which they are citizens or subjects or in which they reside, and to use all laudable means to encourage and enjoin obedience to the powers that be.