Soyeong
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- Mar 10, 2015
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All right, let's talk about this text. Although there are many texts, especially from Paul, that declare the end of the Law of Moses, this one, above, seems to suggest otherwise.
Jesus was a product of his times and culture and we in the modern west have been careless in understanding the implications. On a surface reading, Matthew 5:18 is indeed a challenge to those of us who think the Law of Moses has been retired. Those who hold the opposing view have their own challenges to face, such as Ephesians 2:15 (and Romans 7) which declare the abolition of the Law of Moses.
In Romans 3:31, Paul confirmed that our faith does not abolish our need to obey God's law, but rather our faith upholds it, so he would also challenge those who oppose Moses. In Romans 7:7, Paul delighted in obeying God's law. In Psalms 119:142, God's law is truth, and in 2 Timothy 3:8, those who oppose Moses also oppose the truth, being corrupted in mind and disqualified from the faith.
So how can one read the text from Matthew and think that the Law of Moses has been set aside, given that heaven and earth are still here?
There is a way to faithfully read this text and still claim that Law of Moses was retired 2000 years ago as Paul so forcefully argues (e.g. Eph 2:15): In Hebrew culture, “end of the world” language was commonly used metaphorically to invest commonplace events with theological significance.
This is not mere speculation – we have concrete evidence. Isaiah writes:
10For the stars of heaven and their constellations
Will not flash forth their light;
The sun will be dark when it rises
And the moon will not shed its light
What was going on? Babylon was being destroyed, never to be rebuilt. There are other examples of use of “end of the world” imagery to describe much more “mundane” events within the present space-time manifold.
So it is possible that Jesus is not referring to the destruction of matter, space, and time as the criteria for the retirement of the Law. But what might He mean here? What is the real event for which “heaven and earth passing away” is an apocalyptic metaphor?
It is Jesus’ death on the Cross where He proclaims “It is accomplished”. Note how this dovetails perfectly with the 5:18 declaration that the Law would remain until all is accomplished. Seeing things this way allows us to honour the established tradition of metaphorical end-of-the-world imagery and to take Paul at his word in his many statements which clearly denote the work of Jesus as the point in time at which Law of Moses was retired.
Titus 2:14 describes what Jesus accomplished on the cross not by saying that he ended any laws, but rather he gave himself to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people of his own possession who are zealous for doing good works, so abolishing laws is the opposite of what he accomplished on the cross. Sin is the transgression of God's law and he gave himself to free us from sin so that we might be free to obey God's law and meet its righteous requirement (Romans 8:3-4).
Heaven and earth will not pass away until Revelation 21:1 and there are still the events of Revelation that are left to be accomplished, so neither condition has been met and will be met until end times. Both could also be metaphors for saying that it is never going to happen because eternal instructions for how to act in accordance with God's eternal righteousness can't be ended without first ending God's eternal righteousness.
"To fulfill the law" means "to cause God's will as made known in His law to be obeyed as it should be (NAS Greek Lexicon pleroo 2c3). After Jesus said he came to fulfill the law in Matthew 5, he proceed to fulfill it six times throughout the rest of the chapter by teaching how to correctly obey it or by completing our understanding of it. In Galatians 5:14, loving our neighbor fulfills the entire law, so it refers to something that countless people have done, not to something unique that only Jesus did. In Galatians 6:2, bearing one another's burdens fulfills the Law of Christ, so you should interpret that in the same way as you interpret fulfilling the Law of Moses.
We follow the teachings of Jesus and the promptings of the Spirit. Again:
But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code
When Jesus instructs us to follow His commandment - which He clearly does - you cannot simply assume He is referring to the Law of Moses; remember, Jesus gives us plenty of commandments.
If you agree that Jesus walked in sinless to the Mosaic Law, then to suggest that Jesus taught was not the same as what he practiced is to suggest that he was hypocritically saying that we should do what he said and not what he did. Furthermore, any difference would mean that Jesus was in disagreement with the Father about how we should live, and I see no indication of disagreement, but rather in John 14:24, Jesus said that his teachings were not his own, but that of the Father. In 1 John 2:3-6, it associates the instruction to follow Christ's commands with the instruction that those who are in Christ ought to walk in the same way he walked. Everything that Jesus taught by word and by example was in accordance with the OT and he did not establish the New Covenant in order to undermine anything that he spent his ministry teaching, but rather the New Covenant still involves following God's eternal law (Jeremiah 31:33).
Here is how this text is translated in the NASB, a translation known for its accuracy:
Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness.
See the difference? In this translation, the author merely declares that sin is lawlessness - a general term that need be connected to the Law of Moses in particular.
The existence of sin requires there to be a standard of what is and is not sin and that standard is God's law. Do you agree that the Israelites were given instructions in regard to what is and is not sin, and if so, then how else do you think that they were instructed if not through the Mosaic Law? In Mark 1:4, when John the Baptist called people to repent from their sins, how else do you think that the people knew what sin is? The same question for Acts 2:38? In Romans 3:20, the law was given to give us knowledge of what sin is.
There are very solid reasons for believing that, in this part of Romans 7, Paul is reflecting back on his life as a Jew under the Law of Moses. And that he is looking backwards to things that were, and that do not apply now, is clear from this (Romans 8:1):
Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death
What is this law of sin and death that Paul has been freed from? It is nothing other than the Law of Moses that you claim is still in force:
I was once alive apart from the Law; but when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died; 10 and this commandment, which was to result in life, proved to result in death for me; 11 for sin, taking an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.
Paul is arguing that the Law of Moses resulted in his death - it is the very same Law that Paul later declares (in Romans 8:1, above) himself to be set free from.
In Romans 7:25-8:2, Paul contrasted both God's law and the Law of the Spirit with the law of sin and death, so he equated the Mosaic Law with the Law of the Spirit. In 1 John 2:6, those who are in Christ are obligated to walk in the same way he walked, so the fact that therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ does not remove our obligation to walk in obedience to the Mosaic Law. On the contrary, the reason why there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ is because he gave himself to pay the penalty for our sin, which should make us want to go and sin no more by living in obedience to the Mosaic Law. In Romans 7:12-13, Paul said that the Mosaic Law is good and that what was good did not bring death to him, yet that is precisely what you are trying to use his works in 7:9-11 to blame, when it is actually the law of sin that caused sin to come alive.
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