It's true that God has written a 'law' on the hearts of all human beings - but the Torah that was given to the descendants of Jacob cannot unequivocally be for all people for all time, despite having been given to them in a wilderness.
For instance, the Passover had to be kept in Spring, in the month of Nisan - and it had to involve pilgrimages to the altar at Jerusalem where genealogically verifiable descendants of Levi were serving as priests, to offer sacrifices.
It's never Spring in the month of Nisan in the Southern Hemisphere - so that means the Passover isn't for at least half the world.
As for the other half of the world, the altar no longer exists in Jerusalem, nor do the required genealogies - therefore the Passover cannot be kept according to the Torah in the Northern Hemisphere either.
And remember that according to the Bible, if a person reneged on a single detail of the Law, he was reneging on the whole Law. So keeping the Torah at all in this day and age is a logistic impossibility for anyone.
But even if it was logistically possible to keep the Feast today (which it isn't, but IF it was) it still wouldn't be necessary to do so - because the Old Covenant has been fulfilled and superseded by the New Covenant which Christ Jesus has already made.
There's still value however in knowing about the Passover and in fact about the whole Torah which was once required of Jacob's descendants (it can be valuable in a number of important ways) - but it's not directly, unequivocally, literally applicable to anyone anywhere any time any more. It was never meant to be!
But JESUS is!
And Jesus makes us live in such a way that no spiritual reality which the Torah could only model in shadow form, will ever be broken.
For instance, the Passover had to be kept in Spring, in the month of Nisan - and it had to involve pilgrimages to the altar at Jerusalem where genealogically verifiable descendants of Levi were serving as priests, to offer sacrifices.
It's never Spring in the month of Nisan in the Southern Hemisphere - so that means the Passover isn't for at least half the world.
As for the other half of the world, the altar no longer exists in Jerusalem, nor do the required genealogies - therefore the Passover cannot be kept according to the Torah in the Northern Hemisphere either.
And remember that according to the Bible, if a person reneged on a single detail of the Law, he was reneging on the whole Law. So keeping the Torah at all in this day and age is a logistic impossibility for anyone.
But even if it was logistically possible to keep the Feast today (which it isn't, but IF it was) it still wouldn't be necessary to do so - because the Old Covenant has been fulfilled and superseded by the New Covenant which Christ Jesus has already made.
There's still value however in knowing about the Passover and in fact about the whole Torah which was once required of Jacob's descendants (it can be valuable in a number of important ways) - but it's not directly, unequivocally, literally applicable to anyone anywhere any time any more. It was never meant to be!
But JESUS is!
And Jesus makes us live in such a way that no spiritual reality which the Torah could only model in shadow form, will ever be broken.
No comments:
Post a Comment