Morality and Matthew 5

redleghunter · Feb 28, 2018

Athée said:
So what did Jesus mean when he said to follow and teach others to follow the entirety of the old law and to do so until heaven and earth pass away?

This should help in your journey to explore the Christian faith:

redleghunter said:
@Athée I just looked at the sub-forum and this is exploring Christianity. I attached two classics, Basic Christianity by John Stott and Mere Christianity by CS Lewis. Can't believe book shops are still trying to sell this for money but here are pdf copies, not pretty but the whole works.

https://www.dacc.edu/assets/pdfs/PCM/merechristianitylewis.pdf

https://www.wtsbooks.com/common/pdf_links/9780830834136.pdf

PamCAID · Feb 28, 2018

redleghunter said:
Read Hebrews. This is Exploring Christianity. If it is your desire to truly explore read Hebrews. I already provided that when Jesus was speaking He had yet to be crucified and resurrected.

Hebrews is not a Church Age book.

Why Hebrews is Unsigned - Church Age is Different

I understand you disagree. I'm just throwing out another view. God bless.

Athée · Feb 28, 2018

hedrick said:
Jesus seemed to endorse the 10 commandments. Mat 5 comments on most of the commandments. Mark 10:17 and parallels specifically endorsed them, and may even have seen it as a salvation issue. It's not so clear that he considered the whole Law mandatory.

In Mat 8:4 he told someone to follow an OT practice that isn't one of the 10 commandments, though there's no reason to think he would expect us to do the same. Matthew seems to have understood his intent as being to publicize the miracle.

Then there's the issue that in these examples he was speaking to Jews, and 1st Cent Jews often didn't consider Gentiles to be under the Law.

He also interpreted the commandments pretty freely. In Mat 5 he more or less replaced the letter with the intent. Note "you have heard .. but I tell you." This is pretty forceful, in that he's claiming the authority to replace Moses' commands. Of course his idea of intent actually created stronger standards the the letter. However in Mat 12:3 he weakened the OT interpretation of the Sabbath law.

I think Jesus expected Jews to obey the Law, though with a somewhat loose interpretation. Maybe like modern Reform Jews. He didn't interact with Gentiles a lot, so it's a bit hard to know his specific expectations. My own approach would be to say that he would expect us to follow the general intent of the 10 commandments, but not the more specific OT commandments.

That is interesting, I am not sure why Jesus would intend only 10 commandments out of a list of hundreds, and if the law is meant to be followed as described in Matthew 5, how do you make sense of the morality of having a death penalty for disobedient children, or sabbath breakers and others?

Athée · Feb 28, 2018

Soyeong said:
In Matthew 23:23, Jesus said that faith is one of the weightier matters of the Law, so obedience to God's instructions is about expressing our faith in Him to guide us in how to rightly live. Living by faith is always associated with a willingness to obey God's instructions such as with every example of saving faith listed in Hebrews 11, whereas disobedience to God's instructions is referred to as breaking faith. In 1 John 5:3, to love God is the obey His commands, which are not burdensome, so it is about growing in a relationship with God based on faith and love.

"To fulfill the Law" means "to cause God's will (as made known in the Law) to be obeyed as it should be" (NAS Greek Lexicon 2c3). After Jesus said he came to fulfill the Law in Matthew 5, this is precisely what he then proceeded to do six times throughout the rest of the chapter by teaching how to correctly understand and obey it. In Galatians 5:14, loving your neighbor fulfills the entire law, so it refers to obeying the Law as it should be obeyed, and refers to something countless people have done, not to something unique to Christ. Likewise, Galatians 6:2 says that bearing one another's burdens fulfills the Law of Christ, which refers to obeying it as it should be obeyed, not to doing away with it. In Romans 15:18-19, it says that Paul fulfilled the Gospel, which again referred to causing Gentiles to become fully obedient to it in word and in deed, not to doing away with it.

In regard to Matthew 22:36-40, the reason why the greatest two commands are the greatest is because they summarize all of the other commands and the reason why all of the other commands hang on the greatest two is because they are examples of what it looks like to correctly obey them. The command to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength is a lot easier said than done, so thankfully we have all of the other commands and Christ's example of obedience to those commands to paint us a picture of what that looks like. So love does not replace the Mosaic Law, but rather love is its essence. We can't obey God's command to love by disregarding all of His other instructions for how He wants us to love.

It is impossible to follow Jesus by refusing to follow the Law that he followed and taught his followers to follow by word and example. Following Jesus is not just for Jews and Gentiles can either choose to follow him or not, but there is no sense in claiming to follow him while refusing to follow him. While the Law was only given to Israel, it was never meant only for Israel because Israel was given the role by God to be a light to the nations, of blessing them by teaching them about Him, to turn from their wicked ways, and to walk in God's ways (Isaiah 2:2-3, Isaiah 49:6, Deuteronomy 4:5-8). There are many other verses that describe God's Law as being instructions for how to walk in His ways, such as Deuteronomy 10:12-13, Joshua 22:5, and Psalms 103:7, so it is not instructions for how to act like a Jew, but rather it is instructions to all of God's followers for how to reflect His attributes, such as holiness, righteousness, goodness (Romans 7:12), justice, mercy, faithfulness (Matthew 23:23), love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, and self-control (Exodus 34:6-7, Galatians 5:21-22).

You can say that you don't prefer the death penalty for certain offences, but without being able to appeal to standard that is independent of human opinion, you have no way to establish that anyone has a moral obligation to do what you prefer instead of what they prefer, and vice versa. Morality is inherently a theistic concept.

So... The loving thing to do with a blasphemer, a disobedient youth, an adulterer etc is to put them to death? Presumably this is as true today as it was then...right?
We can have the morality debate on another thread but for now I will just point out that critiquing my basis for moral judgement is not the same as you making the case that what is apparently commanded in the Bible is moral.

redleghunter · Feb 28, 2018

Athée said:
So... The loving thing to do with a blasphemer, a disobedient youth, an adulterer etc is to put them to death? Presumably this is as true today as it was then...right?

There would be a lot less politicians for sure. Just saying....

Athée · Feb 28, 2018

ToBeLoved said:
It is a little odd someone who hasn't really studied the Bible to tell us what is in the Bible and that an entire religion was based off of Jesus Christ's death and crucifiction, but that Jesus wasn't telling us what the Bible says it did?

Yes, Jesus came to fulfill the Law and He did. The Law was perfect obedience to all of God's Laws and the perfect, Jesus Christ fulfilled that obligation when He died a death after living a perfect life.

No one up until Jesus had ever done that. When He died, still having been perfect, the Law was fulfilled in that someone had kept it perfectly.

Would you like the Bible verses so you can look at them or something? You've gotten a lot of good answers here in this thread, which you didn't respond to except to say we are wrong, but you are only in Matthew chapter 5 and there is the whole rest of that gospel and four others that have a lot of content.

So how do you feel you have made your case? Or are you not trying to understand, only to tell us what you don't see as possible which doesn't jive with the 31,000 verses in the Bible?

I am honestly confused by this response. I have never claimed Jesus didn't come to fulfill the law, rather what I said was that when some believers tell me that fulfilling it means that it was done away with, that they are mistaken based on my reading of Matthew 5. I would argue that in the context of the story he did fulfill it and required others to live by it to the best of their ability.

As for how you are doing... well this isn't a debate thread and I am not here to critique or argue the point. That said, of all the responses so far the only one that seems internally coherent and heuristically sound (odd that someone who doesn't know the Bible at all according to you would have an opinion on this, but I digress), was from 2PhiloVoid. As I see it, the basic problem the Matthew 5 text presents is this:

1. The intended recipients of the message are to obey all the laws (even the least of them), and teach others to do likewise.
2. The run time of this command is given a stop date, specifically, when heaven and earth pass away. So unless that has already happened (see 2PV), 1. still holds.
3. The laws referenced include things most believers i have talked to would think are immoral today, such as the death penalty for sabbath breakers, unruly youth and adulterers.
If 1,2,3 then it is the case that somewhere today some group of Yahweh followers is under the command of Jesus to legislate or behave in ways that most christians find morally wrong, and yet they are so commanded by God.

How that tension is resolved for the various participants of this forum is my interest. How do you resolve it for yourself?

Peace

Athée · Feb 28, 2018

Sketcher said:
There are many laws that Jews haven't practiced since the temple in Jerusalem was torn down, since they require a temple or tabernacle. There are also laws that Jews are not to practice outside of Israel, if my understanding is correct. Finally, one needs to look at the purpose of the laws on the death penalty and slavery, and the legal conditions that have to be in place for them to be legitimate options. Jewish sources can get quite verbose on these topics. I haven't found one yet that advocates taking slaves today, btw.

At the the end of the day, if after all that there is still room for slavery of non-Jews and executing Jews who commit certain sins, God commanded it. Because the holy God determines right and wrong, and gives us all rights that we have - governments can either respect and protect those rights, or deny them and trample them, not give them or take them away - the "dos" he gives us are moral for us to do, and the "don'ts" he gives us are immoral for us to do.

However, Jewish Christians are under the New Covenant as well. By faith, they uphold the Law, but the words of Jesus are supreme. This is why the Jewish believers in Acts didn't organize into death squads to kill sorcerers and fortune tellers - they exorcised them and preached to them instead. Nor is there any New Testament example of taking on a new slave - the closest anyone can come is Paul sending Onesimus back to Philemon to reconcile the two of them.

Thanks for your input on this one I guess if you ascribe to divine command theory then this isn't much of a difficulty for you and fair enough.
Thanks again

Athée · Feb 28, 2018

redleghunter said:
There would be a lot less politicians for sure. Just saying....

lol, for sure

As funny as that was, I am genuinely curious about how you would respond to the more difficult examples I offered.

Peace

Albion · Feb 28, 2018

Athée said:
As I see it, the basic problem the Matthew 5 text presents is this:

1. The intended recipients of the message are to obey all the laws (even the least of them), and teach others to do likewise.
2. The run time of this command is given a stop date, specifically, when heaven and earth pass away. So unless that has already happened (see 2PV), 1. still holds.
3. The laws referenced include things most believers i have talked to would think are immoral today, such as the death penalty for sabbath breakers, unruly youth and adulterers.
If 1,2,3 then it is the case that somewhere today some group of Yahweh followers is under the command of Jesus to legislate or behave in ways that most christians find morally wrong, and yet they are so commanded by God.

How that tension is resolved for the various participants of this forum is my interest. How do you resolve it for yourself?

I haven't taken in all the posts in this thread, but when Jesus refers to the Law there, isnt the usual interpretation that he is referring to the Decalogue? If so, the problem of point 3 above is solved.

redleghunter · Feb 28, 2018

Athée said:
lol, for sure

As funny as that was, I am genuinely curious about how you would respond to the more difficult examples I offered.

Peace

I believe states should have the liberty to execute murderers as the punishment fits the crime. However, as some states do it, it is unjust IMO. Torah required 2 or more witnesses 'or caught in the act' which means witnesses. I think that is a just measure to apply the death penalty for murdering in cold blood.

The other sins which required the death penalty in Torah involve sexual immorality and general bad behavior. I do not advocate the death penalty for any of those offenses as another life has not been taken. It is the duty of love for Christians to be that vessel to shine the light of Christ to those who are in darkness. For God is "longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." (2 Peter 3:9)

Israel was a theocracy under the Sinai covenant and there were no jails in the law. They were to swiftly deal with disobedience as they were in the presence of YHWH. To not deal with the offenses meant those who were appointed judges would suffer the same consequences.

All of our governments save the Islamic types are secular in law and order (see Romans 13). Meaning no Pope, bishop, or clergy execute justice outside the church. In the Israelite theocracy the religious elders and priests executed the justice for the government which was governed by the covenant law.

Again, Jesus left us with the church and as such our commission is to preach the Gospel of Christ has died, Christ is Risen and Christ will come again. When He comes again on earth He will be King, Priest and Judge and all the nations will be under His rule.

redleghunter · Feb 28, 2018

Athée said:
lol, for sure

Oh and I forgot, Hollywood would be a ghost town as well.

hedrick · Feb 28, 2018

Athée said:
That is interesting, I am not sure why Jesus would intend only 10 commandments out of a list of hundreds, and if the law is meant to be followed as described in Matthew 5, how do you make sense of the morality of having a death penalty for disobedient children, or sabbath breakers and others?

I can think of two reasons:
* the 10 commandment came directly from God (though the wording in Mat 5 makes me unsure whether Jesus believed that)
* Jewish thought considered them basic, and others based on it

The second seems likely. Jesus' whole approach was to emphasize basic moral principles.

The three places where Jesus referred positively to commandments are Mat 5, Mat 15:3, and Mat 19:17. All involved all or part of the 10 commandments. In Mat 19:7 he seems to see divorce law as a command from Moses, which was a concession and not what God originally intended. Mat 22:36 is an exception, but here he's looking at the principle behind the Law. The approach behind Mat 22:36 is consistent with the idea that Jesus looked at basic principles more than legal code. I think he saw the 10 commandments that way, as suggested by how he interpreted them in Mat 5.

As to death penalty, the only place I'm aware of Jesus dealing with that was John 8:5. While he didn't explicitly overrule the law, he prevented its application. My understanding is that 1st Cent Jewish opinion generally didn't believe the death penalty should be carried out. They hedged it with so many restrictions that it couldn't actually be done. Several rabbis said they would always find some reason not to do it. That may have been part of what was behind Jesus' approach in John 8.

Remember, if you're thinking of Christianity, there was a widespread Jewish understanding that the OT Law did not apply to non-Jews. What applied to them was a set of basic moral principles supposedly connected to the Noah story. That seems to be the basis for the decision in Acts 15. We don't see Jesus treat ethics for non-Jews, but it's most likely that he accepted it.

[Incidentally, there's a textual issue with this passage of John. I doubt that this was part of John originally. I think it was most likely transmitted separately, landing in John later. Given the legalism of the early church, it's hard to imagine that it was invented by the Church. I think this is a fairly common position.]

royal priest · Feb 28, 2018

Athée said:
I

I'm a bit confused since fulfilled very clearly does not mean to do away with . Jesus said to His audience to follow even the least of the laws until heaven and earth pass away.
How cpuld it be disobedient to follow his direct command?

As with all subjects to be considered, the meaning and intention of the teacher becomes clearer as you consider the whole of what they taught pertaining to that subject. For instance, Jesus said much about the law within the context of His teaching pertaining to the Kingdom of God.
For example, Jesus taught that His kingdom is not one in which the enemies of the King are to be subdued by physical force. John 18:36
The main reason for this is because Jesus is not interested in subjects that are loyal to Him by mere show, but in those which are so from the heart. Luke 17:21; Matthew 15:8-9.
Therefore, to penalize or execute someone for not following Him would contradict and grossly undermine this spiritual nature of Jesus' Kingdom.
The Kingdom of God is certainly at battle. But it is not one in which she takes up stones, or swords, or guns. Jesus isn't interested in feigned loyalty induced by such things. For that kind of warfare would do little to yeild the spoils which He seeks. 2 Corinthians 10:4-5

Soyeong · Feb 28, 2018

Athée said:
So... The loving thing to do with a blasphemer, a disobedient youth, an adulterer etc is to put them to death? Presumably this is as true today as it was then...right?
We can have the morality debate on another thread but for now I will just point out that critiquing my basis for moral judgement is not the same as you making the case that what is apparently commanded in the Bible is moral.

If something is moral, then it is moral regard of whether or not anyone agrees that it is moral. Without a standard or morality that exits outside of human opinion, there is nothing that I can appeal to in order to establish that those actions are moral. Without that standard, at most I could try to persuade you that the things prescribed in the Bible are things that you should prefer, but I could only do that by showing that it is in accordance with other things that you prefer, and I could not establish that you ought to prefer something other than what you prefer. Furthermore, you have no way to establish that God ought to act in the way that you prefer, so it would be rather fruitless for anyone to attempt to do what you asked.

ViaCrucis · Mar 2, 2018

Athée said:
Hi Christians,

It's your friendly neighbourhood atheist again. Awhile ago I posted a thread about Matthew 5 and how Jesus seemed to be commanding that we should all be following the OT laws. Not as a salvific imperative but rather simply out of obedience to His command.

I got some great responses that resolved into a few main lines of discussion.

1. That's the OT, and Jesus came to fulfill the law, meaning we don't need to follow it anymore.
1a. I was not terribly convinced because in the passage Jesus says the exact opposite.

2. The law is summed up by love God and love your neighbor and so any act that doesn't fit with their understanding of those two summary commands must be in contradiction of the law and so not apply today.
2a. This is unconvincing because Jesus says to obey all the specific commands of the law.

3. Jesus was talking to a Jewish audience and meant it for them not for the gentile.
3a. This was much more compelling and gave me a lot to think about. It will also serve as the starting point for my main question in this thread.

Our new question:

If God does intend for one people group to follow the law until heaven and earth pass away, no matter who it is, He would be commanding the killing of spiritualists, sanctioning some form of slavery, the stoning to death of a few groups of people etc. Even if this doesn't apply to the majority of the world today, how is this moral?

Looking forward to your thoughts as always.

Peace

Athée

1) Without a Sanhedrin nobody can be put to death under the Torah, because a valid court of law is the only body with the legal authority to do so. There isn't, and hasn't, been a Sanhedrin in a very long time.

2) Are you presently concerned about Jews wanting to put any class of people to death or instituting slavery? I'm certainly not.

3) In Christianity, regardless of whether one is Jew or Gentile there is a new covenant. Jesus says this at the Last Supper when He instituted the Eucharist, when He took the cup He said of it, "This is the cup of the new covenant which is in My blood, which is poured out for you." (Luke 22:20). The most cursory reading of the Acts of the Apostles and the letters of St. Paul should be sufficient to show that, regardless of whether one is Jew or Gentile, Christians are not subject to Torah because our covenant with God is not the one God made on Mt. Horeb, but that which was made in the Messiah's life, death, and resurrection.

As such, if one wants to argue that anyone is required to observe Torah, that applies only to observant Jews (i.e. non-Christians). As such, see points 1 and 2 above.

In truth, I think you're asking your question in the wrong place. If you want to know what it means to follow Torah then you should ask the people who follow Torah. They've been doing it for over three thousand years, so I suspect they probably can answer your questions about it better than we can.

-CryptoLutheran

Serving Zion · Mar 2, 2018

Athée said:
Wow what a reply! Thanks for all your thinking here.
I feel like I didn't quite hear a response to the OP specifically. Or maybe I just missed something that is obvious to you

Yeah you are right, it did have some extra information that I thought would be useful to build into your view. I'll just trim out the extra stuff and you should see it then:

Serving Zion said:
justice requires all things to be considered..

This law of execution for capital offence was given to a holy people, so as to maintain the purity of their culture.

they did in fact lose their authentic knowledge of The Holy One.

they reformed the nation using their best human efforts (their understanding/reasoning/mind - see Proverbs 3:5), creating a highly restrictive system so as to reduce the opportunity of transgressing God's law - yet they had lost sight of the way such as Jesus called them hypocrites

Same thing happens on a huge scale among those calling themselves Christian today.

they just don't have the life in them

So you will see that written law is still able to be misused by those who do not apply it with the same spirit which it is written.

In that way, the nation of Israel declared it's total desolation through the act of condemning the most innocent, and the kingdom was taken away from them, to be given to a new nation (Matthew 21:33-46, Daniel 7:13-14,21-22).

We know that Christianity is now overrun with gentiles that have no knowledge of Torah, they have good intentions, but they do not truly reflect the holy society that Moses established.

Therefore, these are times like no other and Torah is much more difficult to apply justly, because justice demands that a person is not only found to have acted contrary to the law, but also guilty of doing wrong so as to disobey (consider Romans 5:13, James 4:17).

The Jews fell short of it by opposing Jesus, and the gentiles were ignorant of it, having chosen to believe doctrines that do not lead them toward it (2 Timothy 4:3, 1 Timothy 4:1-2).

those now walking in darkness do not know where they are going.

This interstitial period is a time of grace, a charitable final offer for repentance, as it is written in Hebrews 10:26-31 that there is no more sacrifice remaining - anyone who keeps sinning after knowing the truth does disrespect toward the blood of the son of God.

See how this situation is now, where the official priesthood of the Kingdom of God is in the hands of Gentiles who do not know how to exercise Torah as it was originally prescribed, and the present nation of Israel does not have God's mandate to exercise it until they receive Messiah to lead them in such righteousness that is beyond reproach (consider the likes of Matthew 26:52, Matthew 7:2, Exodus 21:24, Nehemiah 7:65).

As a result, there is not a nation on earth presently that is able to exercise the righteousness of Torah to the extent [prescribed to the Jewish people under the covenant via Moses] that would justify their action to use capital punishment in God's view (Numbers 15:34, Exodus 20:7) - no such nation exists where it has devoted itself to being holy as they did. Under the covenant of Zion via Jesus (Hebrews 12:18-29), we are commanded to let His judgements execute by heaven's power (Matthew 5:38-39, John 18:36, Matthew 10:30-31, Acts 5:1-11).

Athée said:
In light if Jesus' injuctionnto continue it practice all the old laws (2PV's option notwithstanding), how do you square the morality of such a command in the face of the capital punishment passages in the Old testament?

Well, just as you have expressed in post #63 and #64, there isn't actually a nation on earth this day that agree's it is morally right to exercise justice that way. It can potentially produce cognitive dissonance for Christians if they haven't got the right perspective, though I expect that you will be getting a fair idea by now as to how judgement is executed under the new covenant where Jesus' priesthood is everlasting (Hebrews 7:23-25 - perhaps you'd consider Hebrews 10:26-30 again in this context).

ToBeLoved · Mar 2, 2018

Athée said:
I am honestly confused by this response. I have never claimed Jesus didn't come to fulfill the law, rather what I said was that when some believers tell me that fulfilling it means that it was done away with, that they are mistaken based on my reading of Matthew 5. I would argue that in the context of the story he did fulfill it and required others to live by it to the best of their ability.

As for how you are doing... well this isn't a debate thread and I am not here to critique or argue the point. That said, of all the responses so far the only one that seems internally coherent and heuristically sound (odd that someone who doesn't know the Bible at all according to you would have an opinion on this, but I digress), was from 2PhiloVoid. As I see it, the basic problem the Matthew 5 text presents is this:

1. The intended recipients of the message are to obey all the laws (even the least of them), and teach others to do likewise.
2. The run time of this command is given a stop date, specifically, when heaven and earth pass away. So unless that has already happened (see 2PV), 1. still holds.
3. The laws referenced include things most believers i have talked to would think are immoral today, such as the death penalty for sabbath breakers, unruly youth and adulterers.
If 1,2,3 then it is the case that somewhere today some group of Yahweh followers is under the command of Jesus to legislate or behave in ways that most christians find morally wrong, and yet they are so commanded by God.

How that tension is resolved for the various participants of this forum is my interest. How do you resolve it for yourself?

Peace

Ok, so maybe I misunderstood what you were saying.

The Law is still the will of God, but our salvation does not rest in keeping the Law, our salvation rests in our faith of the One who fulfilled the Law.

What Jesus did by fulfilling it, is no longer are we judged by it in the sense that it is the most important thing and to get close to God we must do this or do that.

What Jesus death did is restore the relationship between God and man. So with this restoration, putting it in OT Law like terms, no longer is there a human high priest that must be the go between between God and man. Each one of us has direct access to God.

Athée · Mar 2, 2018

Albion said:
I haven't taken in all the posts in this thread, but when Jesus refers to the Law there, isnt the usual interpretation that he is referring to the Decalogue? If so, the problem of point 3 above is solved.

What supports that reading of it?

redleghunter · Mar 2, 2018

Athée said:
What supports that reading of it?

Frankly, as I pointed out earlier, the context.

Athée · Mar 2, 2018

hedrick said:
I can think of two reasons:
* the 10 commandment came directly from God (though the wording in Mat 5 makes me unsure whether Jesus believed that)
* Jewish thought considered them basic, and others based on it

The second seems likely. Jesus' whole approach was to emphasize basic moral principles.

The three places where Jesus referred positively to commandments are Mat 5, Mat 15:3, and Mat 19:17. All involved all or part of the 10 commandments. In Mat 19:7 he seems to see divorce law as a command from Moses, which was a concession and not what God originally intended. Mat 22:36 is an exception, but here he's looking at the principle behind the Law. The approach behind Mat 22:36 is consistent with the idea that Jesus looked at basic principles more than legal code. I think he saw the 10 commandments that way, as suggested by how he interpreted them in Mat 5.

As to death penalty, the only place I'm aware of Jesus dealing with that was John 8:5. While he didn't explicitly overrule the law, he prevented its application. My understanding is that 1st Cent Jewish opinion generally didn't believe the death penalty should be carried out. They hedged it with so many restrictions that it couldn't actually be done. Several rabbis said they would always find some reason not to do it. That may have been part of what was behind Jesus' approach in John 8.

Remember, if you're thinking of Christianity, there was a widespread Jewish understanding that the OT Law did not apply to non-Jews. What applied to them was a set of basic moral principles supposedly connected to the Noah story. That seems to be the basis for the decision in Acts 15. We don't see Jesus treat ethics for non-Jews, but it's most likely that he accepted it.

[Incidentally, there's a textual issue with this passage of John. I doubt that this was part of John originally. I think it was most likely transmitted separately, landing in John later. Given the legalism of the early church, it's hard to imagine that it was invented by the Church. I think this is a fairly common position.]

Reading your response it seems like you are a tension in the text between this section of Matthew 5 and some of the other thoughts of Jesus On the law, or at least his action that should be informed by his interpretation of the law. Is that correct?

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