Many Christians struggle with understanding how the Old Testament and New Testament fit together. One of the particular ares of difficulty is understanding how the Mosaic Law (things such as food laws and other ceremonials laws) fits together with the New Testament and the new covenant established in Jesus.
Time and space do not allow for a thorough treatment of the issue here, but there is one crucial dynamic that plays into the discussion that relates directly to my previous post Pain is God’s Megaphone.
In that post, I stated that, “One of the greatest symptoms of sin is that it fools us into thinking that there is nothing wrong with us.” The old saying goes, “Among the blind, the man with one eye is king!” The point here is that we judge our own state based on the people around us. This relates to the universal reality of death. Everyone dies. This is something that is just simply a part of life. Without the Good News, one would think that death was normal—that there was nothing wrong with it.
This is bad practice. We are not to judge our own state by the people around us, we are to judge ourselves on Jesus.
I had a friend once who decided that using foul language was the way the “real men” talked. Was Jesus, then, not a “real man”? According to my book, Is The Real Man. We are to base our definitions off of Him and Him alone.
So what does this have to do with the Mosaic Law and the connection with the New Covenant? You see, salvation requires repentance. Not a single one can be transferred from the Kingdom of Darkness to the Kingdom of Light without repentance. In turn, repentance requires conviction, and conviction, in turn, requires the recognition that there is a problem with human behavior. Satan wants us to think that there is nothing wrong because it keeps us from being convicted and repenting!
This is precisely why we must be weary when the ebb and flow and culture one-by-by dethrones biblical morality by saying, “There’s really nothing wrong with doing that, is there? All you need is love, after all, isn’t that right?” Satan wishes us to believe that there is really nothing fundamentally wrong with immoral behavior. Don’t be deceived.
This also is precisely the role of the Law of Moses. The Law of Moses was to reveal two things: (1) the holiness of God, and (2) the sinfulness of humanity. Concerning the holiness of God, we would never know that there was a death free and morally wholesome reality out there if our experiences were limited to the broken, decaying, and dying world of humanity. Once we see the holiness of God, we can understand that there is something different. There is a different reality (see Isaiah 6:1–8 where it is when Isaiah sees the Lord in his holiness that he shouts, “Whoa is me! For I am a mean of unclean lips!”). The law, by establishing God’s standards for life, reveals that God is different than this broken world.
What about how the law reveals the sinfulness of humanity? It is once we see that there is a better, whole, and holy reality in God that we understand that we are sinners. We need help differentiating between right and wrong. This is what the law does. This is what Paul means when we calls the Law the “guardian” (Gal 3:24). The Law helps us to identify the will of God, what’s wrong and what’s correct.
To finish, now that we have the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, we have a far superior way of knowing the will of God! We no longer need the external laws of the Torah to help us identify what’s bad and what’s good, or to help us understand that God is different because we now have God Himself dwelling in our hearts! To turn back to the Law is to minimize (and Paul would argue blaspheme) the Holy Spirit!
Pain is God’s Megaphone. This means that God always finds a way to communicate with his people his will. In the new covenant, we have the Holy Spirit’s help.
Matthew, the Word says Christ came not to abolish the law but to fulfill it. In Hebraic this means to properly interpret the Word and so He did in practice and in word. So the problem may lay within the “so-called” believer. Many claim to have been born into the faith and others followed their peers under pressure of being the one left behind. So perhaps, they are not operating truly as a son of God should and therefore, they grieve the Spirit and for them the law remains as a tutor when the Spirit of Holiness is the one who guides the believer into all truth, but to the non-believer, the Spirit convicts of sin because they do not believe, of righteousness and of judgement because the Word says they are already judged. I do not place my convictions on others for I believe it is the Spirit’s function, but those of us who teach are also held doubly accountable and so I am obedient to the Word, not rabbinical laws and encourage others to seek first and choose rightly for themselves. He says if we love Him, obey Him and how do we do so if we’re told we don’t have to do so. I know many who teach this concept and I sat under many and followed it myself. When I began to question, I was now on the outside. God is faithful though and I serve Him so my walk is all I concern myself with. I pray others will seek and find also. The Word says we have no need of a teacher when the Spirit is within us and so we continue to seek in His Word; I don’t think we can dissect it though without cutting off our root and then how would the branch grow?
I offer this to contemplate: the Word in Matt 5:19: says Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. It is His Spirit of Holiness that should ultimately direct us if we truly have accepted His ways.
Thanks for the comment! A good word indeed. Concerning Matthew 5:19, which is a crucial passage for a dialogue of this nature, I interpret this to mean that Jesus comes to bring the same righteousness that the Law was intended to bring. I believe this is the same idea behind Matthew 5:20 where Jesus says that our righteousness must exceed that of the pharisee.
As noted, the law came to make righteous. Jesus came to make righteous. The Holy Spirit came to make righteous. All of these direct the believer in truth and holiness.
Thanks so much for the comment.