Micah King
From St John the Baptist
4 October 2009 - 8:30pm
I'm no theologian, and I'll undoubtedly prove this throughout this forum but my limited laymans knowledge of the Bible tells me that through the New Covenant made by Jesus Christ we have been saved from our sins and can now look forwards to eternal life in Heaven. Hopefully that, for the sake of this forum, is enough to build my question upon.
It seems that because of Jesus, we have been saved! Which is awesome!!! But before Jesus reveals himself clearly in the New Testament, three-quarters of the Bible is devoted to the story of the Old Covenant made between God and the Isrealites. I've been reading this recently and up until Deuteronomy (which is far as I've gotten thus far) the bulk of the text is a list of rules and instructions made to the Isrealites, which in the 21st Century we would call the Jewish laws. In Deuteronomy 29 the scripture says 'I am making this covenant both with you who stand here today in the presence of the Lord our God, and also with the future generations who are not standing here today.' (v15)
Now again, I need to refer to my laymans knowledge of the Bible but the laws of the Old Testament seem pre-dominantly to be laws written in accordance with the Old Covenant made between God and Abraham, confirmed then with Jacob and then with Moses. Now we have the New Covenant, are the Old Testament laws those which we should follow? For example, the Ten Commandments seem good and just but when it comes to rules such as 'if a man's testicles are crushed or his penis is cut off, he may not be admitted to the assembly of the Lord' (Deu. 23 v.1) or marrying the widow of your brother (Due. 24) or even smaller rules such as giving a tithe of your crops or wearing hats in church, are these rules we must abide by? In my first quotation it was denoted that these laws applied to future generations very clearly, but now we have the New Covenant; so whats the rub?
I guess my question is this. Does the New Covenant made by Jesus change or even negate the laws made in the Old Testament?
gavinball
From Fishponds Baptist Church, Bristol, UK
4 October 2009 - 9:21pm
hi micah,
interesting question. im no theologian, but i remember Jesus saying something like, he didnt come to abolish the law but to fulfill it.
the short answer is (in my opinion), no, what Jesus did doesnt negate the laws made.
im sure others will have better answers than me to this discussion!
God bless,
gav.
Hi Micah
Short answer is no and no.
A great book to read to counter this is Romans, as it is part of the debate that St. Paul looks at. Read it with a good bible commentary next to you, and it puts things in perspective.
Paul's take was as follows... Israel was supposed to follow the law, but they broke it, and hence the role of the law to them is pointing towards sin. Jews can't rely on the law to say that they're not under judgement from God with the rest of the world... that's like appealing to the policeman who caught you in the act of committing a crime!
It's also wise to remember that the law - like the sabbath - was intended to benefit the Jews as a whole. Not quite sure about the section regarding their wedding tackle, but a husbandless widow would have been practically homeless & destitute, so the commandment about the brother marrying them was intended to ensure that they were provided for. This is updated in the NT where there are multiple scriptures about the importance of caring for widows and orphans.
I shan't rabbit on too long, as I have to start work now...! But Romans is a good book to read to answer your questions.
Great question.
It important to understand the Old Covenant before tackling the question of the New Covenant. The Jews didn't view the Mosaic law as a series of rules to follow to "be saved". The Mosaic covenant was seen as an opportunity for Israel to live in a way that pleased God for what he had already done in rescuing them from slavery in Egypt. There were several parts to the law but it can be crudely split into moral (how you should behave towards your family/neighbours) and ceremonial laws (concerning purity and sacrifices).
Jesus has abolished the ceremonial laws by his death and resurrection. We don't need to go through ritual to be purified and we don't need to offer sacrifices at a temple. The moral law remains, but as in the Old Covenant, it's not keeping the moral law that saves, but the motivation for keeping it should be a desire to please God for what he has already done. However, Jesus teaching stressed the importance of following the spirit, rather than the letter, of the moral law - it's not sufficient to stop doing evil, we should also stop thinking evil AND start doing good.
So God's moral law remains, but has been reinterpreted by Jesus. Like the Old Covenant, following the moral law should be seen as a response to God's grace rather than a means to gain grace from God.
Great answers.
I would also like to add something, concerning the spirit of the ceremonial laws. Now many will ask: what's wrong with giving birth? What wrong with menstruations? I mean women didn't exactly choose to do these things, they happened to them. So why is God condemning them?
The first thing to point out is that there is a difference between impurity and sinfulness. When someone was impure, he wasn't allowed to go and give sacrifices. This doesn't mean that God's wrath was burning up against him for what he had just done or for what had just happened to him. So impurity and sinfulness are not the same thing: impurity is symbolic of the actual reality that sin is. So it isn't morally wrong and sinful to give birth or to eat porc for example.
And this uderstanding of impurity as symbolic of the reality of sin helps us to understand God's pedagogy in giving the law the way that he did.
One might ask: "what's wrong with a pig that isn't wrong with a cow for food?" a lot of people believe that it is motivated by health reasons. God was basically Jamie Oliver's predecessor, and if he were to give the law again today, Big Macs, Kebabs and Whoppers would be on his "impure food" list (and that would really not be cool!). There are two main objections to that: the first one is that there are some foods which are prohibited by the OT law which are in fact healthy (although it is true that pig isn't the best meat, healthwise). The second reason is that if it were for health reasons, it wouldn't have been dissed in such strong terms in the NT. I can hardly imagine Paul, with his theology of our body being a temple of the Holy Spirit also encouraging us to be fat, greasy slobs.
The second most common view is that the NT law is entirely random, and that God is teaching his people to obey him even when they can't see God's reasons behind it. I don't have any objections to that in principle and it seems fairly healthy to say: "obey God no matter what. Ask questions, obviously (we're not called to stupidity) but accept when God keeps the answer for himself..."
But it seems that there is more than that. Impurity is figurative of sinfulness. And the things which are considered impure are all things which are "unwhole", or carry strong conotations of death, through corpses, blood etc. It is animals with split hooves which are considered impure. There is an unwholeness in their bodies. Giving babies, menstruations, ejaculation are all things which speak of separation of one thing from another. Corpses made people impure, as did mildew on house. All of these things are symbolic of the fall. The idea is this: "you are to be a people set apart, and you are to have nothing to do with this world and it's fallen sin. You are now my people and I am your God through this covenant. Every time that something in your life happens which reminds you of the fall, symbolically, then you will also have restrictions which will symbolically cut you off from me (the emphasis being on the "symbolic")."
And so the spirit of the OT law is that as God's people we are called to radical holiness, being set apart for God. Everything which keeps you from being set apart and which binds you to this world must be put away lest you displease your God.
I don't really have a great deal to add, other than the fact that I really do not think the Old Testament is irrelevant.
For me, the Old Testament (in a nutshell) is an endless cycle of God urging His people to come back to Him. In the first place (eg. Genesis) man is in harmony with God - they walked side by side through the garden of Eden. But man ignored the commands of God and then an eternal wedge was driven between both parties; the wedge of sin.
The Old Testament is subsequently a cycle of God saying "obey my commands and we'll be fine, but disobey them and there'll be consequences". And of course, when Israel are walking godly lives they prosper, but when they fall away from God things start to go wrong.
The entire Old Testament speaks of God's devotion to His chosen people, and His desire for relationship with them. It is this desire and devotion (as well as the law, of course) that becomes fulfilled through His son, Jesus Christ.
Guys your comments are really interesting and insightfull. Thank you.
Neil I didn't mean to give the impression that I think the entire Old Testament it relvant, merely that I am questioning the purpose of the 'ceremonial laws' as Paul refers to them. My question to you guys, and particuarly Paul, is if Jesus negated the 'cermonial laws' through his ressurection, then why do we continue to obey his moral laws? I know that might seem really obvious at first but when you contemplate on it you can't help but consider that it's seems bizzare that Jesus should abolish one set of laws but not another...
We obey moral law for a few reasons. First, because we've been saved and we want to please God by being obedient to him and his commands. Being obedient to the moral law has two dimensions: not sinning (not lying, not committing adultery, or even thinking lustfully, etc) AND actively pursuing virtue (telling truth, being faithfully committed to your spouse, etc). Second, following the moral law helps us to be (a little more) like Jesus. Third, moral laws are there to benefit us and our communities by leading to action that builds up rather than undermines community.
We are not required to obey the moral law to be saved, although it would be expected that someone who has truly encountered Jesus' grace would be motivated to try to live life according to God's moral laws (with the help of the Holy Spirit!)
Totally agree with Paul; the Bible says that the law can only bring death, because none of us are capable of sticking to it properly. So we are saved by grace, through faith in Jesus Christ alone.
But, as Paul said, a genuine experience of God's power in us should result in a transformed life - so we strive to obey His moral law because we love Him.
And the sacrificial laws are irrelevant, obviously, because Christ has fulfilled their purpose: to pave the way to the Father. We now don't need the symbolism of the ceremonial laws (and as I have shown above, they are nothing more than symbols with a very strong meaning behind them), because the real thing has been acted out once and for all for the whole world to see: Christ was lifted up on the cross, making himself a perfect atonement for our sins!
What a God!
The Old Covenant points out where sin begins. Without it we would never know what sin is. The New Covenant however shows us how to live out of sin, not by our own strenghts as the early believers did with ceremonial laws and traditions, but by a new way atoned for us through the finishing work of Christ's blood on the cross but it does not mean we are ignorant of its existence, for sin still dominates this perishing earth. We have received new life from Christ and with it a new awareness that it was by His GRACE we have escaped sin and death, and it is with the same GRACE that will empower us to live victorious lives in Christ Jesus.
c",)
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