I have been thinking a lot about the “Law of Moses” the past 4 years, because I have been so drawn to the discussion of the so called “New Perspective” on Paul. One thing in particular that I have been coming to a concensus on in my own mind, is that when when the New Testament writers refer to “nomos,” they are primarily speaking of the Mosaic Covenant as a whole. This gets extremely thorny once you look at the letters of Paul, specifically Romans and Galatians. My friends out there who hold to the historical “Law/Gospel” distinction may find my reading troublesome, as I would say that I hold to a “Old Covenant/New Covenant” distinction. There is certainly overlap in our perspectives, and I generally believe we would have similar if not identical conclusions about Sin and the nature of Grace. It was good to finally hear someone else say this, even if only in passing. I have been listening to N.T. Wright’s lecture “Preaching and Teaching from Romans: New Exodus, New Creation, New Humanity” that he did at Calvin Seminary a while back. He makes the comment:

Torah, yes, not just law in the abstract. Not, please, Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative. When a lot of people say “Law” in Post-enlightenment, Western world, they are thinking not about the Law of Israel, the Law of Moses, but some sort of principle of “Law” in general. No, when Paul uses “nomos” in every single use in Romans, he means the Law of Moses.

More in the future on this since I am writing a paper about the concept of covenant in Paul.