Because of the dire consequences of resting in the Mosaic covenant once the new covenant has arrived, with some regularity the New Testament will warn against such resting. Frequently, Christians have taken these warnings to imply that the New Testament sees some sort of defect in the Mosaic covenant itself, and some even have used these warnings to suggest that the Mosaic covenant is different in important ways from the covenant of grace. * However, in its warnings not to rest in or return to the Mosaic covenant, the New Testament is not presenting the Mosaic covenant as negative in a qualitative or absolute sense; rather, the Scriptures are asserting that it is negative to revert to that Mosaic covenant. What the Scriptures are condemning is covenantal regression-seeking to move backward in the order of God’s mounting revelation of the covenant of grace. Importantly, it is the moving backward that is bad, not the Mosaic covenant in and of itself. It is easy to lose sight of this distinction. Since the Mosaic covenant was the most prominent disclosure of the covenant of grace prior to the coming of Christ, when men and women in the New Testament era were tempted to move backward against the progression of God’s covenant of grace, it was the Mosaic covenant to which they were tempted to regress. But, again, it was the regression that was condemned, not the Mosaic covenant in and of itself.

Stephen Myers, God To Us (p. 209)