Ok - I don't know how to approach this topic but I'll try to explain.
Under the Old Covenant, I saw a passage in the OT (Deut. 13:6-11) that explains that if anyone is found to be worshiping any other God other than the one true God, they're to be killed.
I need to know that, if we are trying to explain our objections to the idea that if you are apostate of Islam, you are to be killed - and we are pointed to the passages in the Bible that the Jewish religion did the very same thing, how are we to respond?
Jesus Christ made everything new - and did away with the old laws. We are no longer bound by the laws of old.
In the Old Testament, God had to get tough. The chosen people were just not 'getting it'. He gave them chance after chance after chance to follow His commandments and they continued to fail Him. Then He sent His Son, Jesus to save us.
Some important quotes about the old and new laws:
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Council of Florence, DS 695: There are seven sacraments of the new Law: namely, baptism, confirmation, Eucharist, penance, extreme unction, orders, and matrimony, which differ a great deal from the sacraments of the Old Law. For those of the Old Law did not effect grace, but only pronounced that it should be given through the passion of Christ; these sacraments of ours contain grace, and confer it upon those who receive them worthily.
Pope Benedict XIV, Ex Quo Primum, #61: The first consideration is that the ceremonies of the Mosaic law were abrogated by the coming of Christ and they can no longer be observed without sin after the promulgation of the Gospel.
Pius XII:
Mystici Corporis, 29: And first of all, by the death of our Redeemer,
the New Testament took the place of the Old Law which had been abolished; then the Law of Christ together with its mysteries, enactments, institutions, and sacred rites was ratified for the whole world in the blood of Jesus Christ
but on the Gibbet of His death Jesus made void the Law with its decrees fastened the handwriting of the Old Testament to the Cross, establishing the New Testament in His blood shed for the whole human race. To such an extent, then, says St. Leo the Great, speaking of the Cross of our Lord, was there effected a transfer from the Law to the Gospel, from the Synagogue to the Church, from the many sacrifices to one Victim, that, as Our Lord expired, that mystical veil which shut off the innermost part of the temple and its sacred secret was rent violently from top to bottom.
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From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
1965 The New Law or the Law of the Gospel is the perfection here on earth of the divine law, natural and revealed. It is the work of Christ and is expressed particularly in the Sermon on the Mount. It is also the work of the Holy Spirit and through him it becomes the interior law of charity: "I will establish a New Covenant with the house of Israel.... I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people."
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1966 The New Law is the
grace of the Holy Spirit given to the faithful through faith in Christ. It works through charity; it uses the Sermon on the Mount to teach us what must be done and makes use of the sacraments to give us the grace to do it:
If anyone should meditate with devotion and perspicacity on the sermon our Lord gave on the mount, as we read in the Gospel of Saint Matthew, he will doubtless find there . . . the perfect way of the Christian life.... This sermon contains ... all the precepts needed to shape one's life.
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The Law of the Gospel "fulfills," refines, surpasses, and leads the Old Law to its perfection.
21 In the Beatitudes, the New Law
fulfills the divine promises by elevating and orienting them toward the "kingdom of heaven." It is addressed to those open to accepting this new hope with faith - the poor, the humble, the afflicted, the pure of heart, those persecuted on account of Christ and so marks out the surprising ways of the Kingdom.
1968 The Law of the Gospel
fulfills the commandments of the Law. The Lord's Sermon on the Mount, far from abolishing or devaluing the moral prescriptions of the Old Law, releases their hidden potential and has new demands arise from them: it reveals their entire divine and human truth. It does not add new external precepts, but proceeds to reform the heart, the root of human acts, where man chooses between the pure and the impure,
22 where faith, hope, and charity are formed and with them the other virtues. The Gospel thus brings the Law to its fullness through imitation of the perfection of the heavenly Father, through forgiveness of enemies and prayer for persecutors, in emulation of the divine generosity.
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I hope this helps.
