Wednesday 8 January 2014

What Jesus Said About Law

Maybe I have a black-or-white way of thinking.

To me, if:

"...every least commandment; every jot and tittle; nothing shall pass from the Law until all be fulfilled..."

can be reduced to mean:

"Just do what you can; do what's applicable - the rest has passed",

then we've made the meaning of words a bit too vague. Way too vague!

I'd rather face what Jesus said square-on, and deal with it.

Maybe the word "fulfilled" did mean fulfilled after all. 

("...I came to fulfil..."

"...until all be fulfilled".)

Not that the Old Testament has lost all usefulness. Of course there will always remain an appropriate use for reading the Old Testament.

But Jesus didn't say that He came to give them a newly adjusted version of the Torah to follow. He said exactly the opposite.

We have to face that. He said exactly the opposite.

No adjustments. Ever. Is what He said.

He obeyed and taught the unadjusted Torah fully during His life, and He completely fulfilled it by His death.

And He categorically stated that He was not endorsing any altered version of keeping Moses' Law.

He offered Himself to God (on the cross) for us in fulfilment of the promise that was given to the forefathers before the Law was ever given.

Fulfilling the Torah completely, required that He introduce a new covenant, seeing the Torah itself spoke of the New Covenant.

Thus He brought the new without breaking the old in the process.

But now you can't have two covenants at the same time. 

Keeping some newly adjusted version of Moses' Law is neither what Jesus said nor is it what the Torah said, but alters what they both said.

But by having Jesus in our hearts, we fulfil - we daily experience and live - both what Jesus said and also what was promised in the Torah - without needing to alter what either of them said.

By embracing the New Covenant, I am staying true to everything Jesus said about the Torah, and true to everything the Torah itself foresaw.

But if I adjust the requirement in Moses' Law, then I'm not taking Jesus literally and I'm falling short of what the Torah itself said.

The only way to truly fulfil what both Christ and the Torah intended for us today, is to have Jesus in our heart and live in the power of the New Covenant.

As Paul said:

Christ is all and in all.

Now scroll to the top of this comment and read it again slowly...please

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