2005-03-25
Good Morning Cherished Believers,
Last week I was led to write about MT 5: 17 and RO 10: 4-5, which for the sake of recall I repeat here. “Do not think that I have come to do away with the Law of Moses [Ten Commandments] and the teaching of the prophets. I have not come to do away with them, but to make their teachings come true…For Christ has brought the Law to an end, so that everyone who believes is put right with God. Moses wrote this about being put right with God by obeying the Law: ‘Whoever obeys the commands of the Law will live.’” When Paul was speaking about “putting the Law to an end,” what he was saying is not that the Law no longer applies, but instead, living without the opportunity of real salvation through God’s grace (which is how those under the Covenant of the Law lived) was over. It ended by virtue of Christ’s Atonement. The Ten Commandments have always applied and still apply today. They will apply until the end of time, and will no longer be needed in heaven. God’s most precious dream will finally be true there, “I will put My law within them and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be My people. None of them will have to teach his fellow countryman to know the Lord, because all will know Me, from the least to the greatest. I will forgive their sins and I will no longer remember their wrongs. I, the Lord, have spoken [JER 31: 33-34]. Christ is the fulfillment of the Law [RO 10: 4].
Today, I’m led to write about the true intent of the Law, as the Scriptures reveal it. People who lived under the Covenant of the Law, even modern day traditional Jews, approach it from the point of view of the Oral Torah. This is the writings of the Talmud, which include the Mishnah (the law of the land), the Talmud (the law explained by 1st to 3rd century BC rabbis), and the Midrash (stories told from sermons about the law). To traditional Jews, the Oral Torah is sacred scripture, just as the Tenach (the OT-Written Torah is -“Torah” used here in its broadest denotation). In my opinion, it is the arguments and inconsistencies of the Oral Torah that led up to 10 Laws ballooning to 613, of which no one but Christ Himself could keep all. It was also responsible for the legalism that is observed in the practice of traditional Judaism. While the Talmud served to pass on Jewish cultural practices, a valuable combat to assimilation and their loss, it also served to create some of the stubbornness that has kept traditional Jews from recognizing Who their Messiah really is. No human-written book can possibly approximate the perfection, truth, and consistency of the “God-breathed” one, the Bible. 2 TIM 3: 16-17, “All Scripture [meaning the OT and NT] is God breathed and is useful for teaching the truth, rebuking error, correcting faults, and giving instruction for right living, so that the person who serves God may be fully qualified and equipped to do every kind of good deed.”
To understand the true intent of the Law, we need to see Christ’s words in MT 5: 20, “I tell you, then, that you will be able to enter the Kingdom of heaven only if you are more faithful than the teachers of the Law and the Pharisees in doing what God requires.” There is no inconsistency between this statement and His words in MT 5: 6 [KJV], “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled,” or the words of HE 11: 6, “No one can please God without faith, for whoever comes to God must have faith that God exists and rewards those who seek Him.” The teachers of the law and Pharisees are the ones who approach the Ten Commandments with the same human-crafted legalism as those writers of the Talmud. You’ll remember that Christ argued with them in the temple the last week of His earthly life about being more concerned with form than the content of God’s teaching. In the modern sense, it is traditional Jews who rarely study directly from the OT, but instead, take all their direction from rabbinical commentaries on it based on the Talmud. Only a few excerpts from the Pentateuch, Isaiah, and the Psalms, which show up in the worship manual of the various services, are seen often. These are repeated rote (without the understanding that comes from studying them in context) by traditional Jews. As for those teachers of the Law and Pharisees of Christ’s time, they had put themselves in Moses’ place and had required rigid observance of 365 prohibitions and 250 commandments-placing a heavy yoke with an unbearable load on the people’s shoulders, indeed. Is it no wonder that Christ said these words in MT 11: 28-30? “Come to Me, all you who are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke an put it on you, and learn from Me, because I am gentle and humble in spirit; and you will find rest. For the yoke I give you is easy, and the burden is light.”
We all know that if we approach the Law as the anti-Nomians of Paul’s time did, we would take the attitude that there is no need for laws, and we should do anything we want because we are under grace and will be forgiven. Of course, that is not acceptable to God. It was never intended that the Ten Commandments should be discarded, an act like throwing out the baby with the bathwater. On the other hand, we should understand them and obey them in accordance with what God reveals in His word. Can you imagine what our daily lives would be like if we didn’t have traffic laws to obey? There would be one accident after another, real carnage on the roads. On the other hand, we don’t have to make obeying these necessary laws a basis for ballooning them in number to the point where no one could obey them all. Simple is best, a point which our Lord understands well. So, Dear Readers, the intent of the Law is that we should understand what a great blessing Christ brought us when He sealed the new covenant, the Covenant of Grace, with His own blood [1 COR 11: 25], so that we could with repentance and faith have salvation. We are richly blessed that Christ is the Fulfillment of the Law.
PRAYER: O Lord, as truly faithful believers, we understand that You want us to humble ourselves before You, accept our need to submit to Your Law and Your wonderful leadership in our lives. We acknowledge that we are sinners and that we must look for, uncover, and confess our personal sins before You. While that is often painful for us to face truths we don’t like about ourselves, You have set up this system of confession, to cause us to better recognize what is acceptable and what isn’t to You. Once we are willing to humble ourselves this way, You bless us with not only forgiving our sins (on the assumption we do not continue the sinful behavior), but You also forget them [HE 8: 12]. You deserve and require that we also acknowledge Your amazing attributes and actions. How wonderful that through daily study of Your word and an active, dynamic prayer life, You reveal Yourself to us! You cause us to gain that greater knowledge of Yourself by constantly renewing us in Your image [COL 3: 10]. In revealing Yourself to us, we can’t help but appreciate Your greatness, justice, compassion, patience, faithfulness, consistency, wisdom, honor, and righteousness. This list is not all You are, but it begins to give the idea of it. Dearest Abba, You gave us the Law and then Your Son on the cross, so that we could eventually come back to You for a life of blissful fellowship and worshipful service to You in heaven [COL 1: 19-20; JN 6: 39-40; JN 3: 16]. We thank and praise You. We offer You our utmost dedication to cooperating in the process of sanctification [becoming perfected], so that Your oft-repeated dream of JER 31: 33-34 will come true. In Christ’s name, Amen.
Next week, I’m led to write about what Christ teaches us about the true heart of the Law. This will go hand in hand with the true intent of the Law. Think about this: Our Lord reached down to us to invite us to believe in Him and enjoy all His blessings. Then, He first gave us a code of behavior, the Ten Commandments, twice-once when Moses went up to Mt. Sinai [EX 19-20] and the second time after the golden bull incident [EX 34]. That allowed people to know what is righteous and what is not [RO 7:7]. But, that’s not where God’s love for His creation ends. He eventually brought His only Son, Jesus Christ, to become incarnate and to serve a three year ministry ending in His Atonement and resurrection. His blood sealed a new and better covenant with us, one that opened the way for salvation. For people who repent and have faith in Christ, God gives the gift of the Holy Spirit to dwell within them, teaching them, giving them a conscience, correcting them, directing them, and encouraging them. Our Lord gives us His word to study, so He can reveal Himself to us and the open line to Him, which is prayer. He puts us in congregations, bringing other believers into our lives and giving us a chance to mature through service to Him. He leads us into His work of spreading the life-giving message of His Gospel, so that others may enjoy these wonderful blessings. What better way can there be to live? Our real home as believers is in heaven, where we will one day be by His very side. Hallelujah!
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn