Christians are no more capable of understanding and obeying the Jewish Law than they are capable of building a rocket and flying to Saturn. Here's why:
"Then Paul said: ‘I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city. Under Gamaliel I was thoroughly trained in the law of our fathers and was just as zealous for God as any of you are today.’" Acts 22:3 NIV
The "Law" that Gamalel would have taught Paul included the Oral Talmud. That is exactly how the Talmud was transferred down through history until it was put in writing about 200 AD.
NOWHERE does either Jesus or Paul condemn the Oral Talmud. Since Paul was trained as a Pharisee by Gamalel, who was also a Pharisee, it is important to note Paul's views on the Oral Talmud:
"The most important of the three were the Pharisees because they are the spiritual fathers of modern Judaism.
Their main distinguishing characteristic was a belief in an Oral Law that God gave to Moses at Sinai along with the Torah. The Torah, or Written Law, was akin to the U.S. Constitution in the sense that it set down a series of laws that were open to interpretation. The Pharisees believed that God also gave Moses the knowledge of what these laws meant and how they should be applied.
This oral tradition was codified and written down roughly three centuries later in what is known as the Talmud."
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/sadducees_pharisees_essenes.html
Are you getting it? Much of the Torah was given to Moses orally and passed down orally through the centuries. Christians usually think that the Talmud is "silly" and "irrational," but I can assure you that Paul would disagree: The Oral Torah is something no Jewish legal scholar would call "Silly." The Talmud plainly was a necessary part of the "Law." Nobody trained in the Law like Paul was would think otherwise. How could they? The Talmud contained much of the oral Torah given to Moses. It was not written down until 200 AD.
None of it is in the Christian Old Testament, which makes it absolutely impossible to understand the Law as anything other than the "shadows" and prophecies pointing to Christ. There is no chance whatsoever that you can understand the law, or follow it without the Oral Talmud. And THAT, unfortunately, is not in your Old Testament. And why isn't it? Because the Early Fathers knew that Christians weren't bound by the Law, so had no need of understanding or following it. The Mosaic Law is a complete and utter waste of time for Christians. It has NOTHING to do with Christianity. They included what was important for Christians: The prophecies, history and law that pointed to Christ. And so you have at BEST a small part of the Mosaic Law. You have no way of understanding or following it. What is there is just enough to give historical context to Jesus Christ.
One of the WORST things a Christian can do is to urge that the Mosaic Law still applies.
Our Old Testament contains maybe 5 percent of what is meant by the Mosaic Law! The vast, overwhelming majority of the Torah was oral that never made it into our Old Testament. And vast parts of that Talmud are the orally-transmitted Torah that was not written down until the second century. We were given enough of the Law and the Torah to understand that Christ was the fulfillment of both the Law and Prophecy. Outside of that limited use, our Old Testament is so deficient and scanty it is utterly useless. The Old Testament is not a Mosaic law primer. It is a simple history book, that recites a simple history that predicted and prophesied Jesus Christ. It gives us the "inside story" of God's dealing with the Israelite Tribe that Jesus Christ would one day be born in. The Law was to completely separate the Israelites from all other nations, so that there would be no mistaking things when Christ arrived. Christ and Christianity had the OPPOSITE goal of what the Law did: it was to completely reunite all of the nations of the world under Christ. It was to allow Gentile world to be on equal footing with the Jews. It was designed to get an outline of how the Old and New Covenants worked, and compared and contrasted them.
The vast majority of Christians simply have no capacity to understand the law or how it works. Christians should take Paul's outright and complete rejection of the Mosaic Law on behalf of Christians
as a gift and run with it and be exceedingly grateful! That is
ALL you are probably capable of understanding anyway.
Christians who fall for the Ebionite/Judaizing heresies have been severely handicapped in two ways: They have a delusional and unhistorical view of the Law, and they have never been taught pure Christianity the way it has been taught for 2,000 years. They have not the slightest clue about either Christianity or the Law. These are people who think a "history book" is the
Great Controversy. I won't go into the massive and irreparable fatal defects of that book, but needless to say, you have been taught nothing remotely resembling the reality of either Christianity or the Old Testament Law.
Christians cannot understand the law, because they have never even THOUGHT about the entire law. You have never even HEARD about the full law. For you to get up on enough speed on the law to even have an intelligent conversation about it would probably take at least 3 years. And all three years would be spent studying things that never made it into the Bible.
There are Rabbis that have spent 50 years of their life, studying 20 hours a day, just to get a handle on the Sabbath. THAT is what it takes to understand and comprehend the law, and to follow it.
Nobody that blogs on this website has the time or will to do such a thing.
"But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed.
Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.
But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster." Galatians 3:23-26
Its a Gift. Take it an run as fast as you can away from the Seventh Day Adventists - the modern day version of the Galatians, Judaizing and Ebionite Heresies - that are trying to enslave you into something that is completely obsolete. And something you can never dream of doing.
