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The Passing Away of the Law
A Brief Scriptural Summary:
Only the people of Israel came to be under the Law. — Exodus 19:5,6; Deuteronomy 4:4; 7:6; 26:18; Psalm 147:19; Isaiah 63:19; Amos 3:2; Romans 3:1,2.
All the other nations were not given that Law Covenant. — Exodus 12:43,45; Deuteronomy 14:21; Romans 2:12,14.
The Law becomes inactive for any Jew who becomes dead to the Law through acceptance of Jesus. — Luke 16:14-31; Romans 7:1-6; 1 Corinthians 7:39.
It does not automatically pass away for the Jew, but such passes away for each Jewish believer. — 2 Corinthians 3:14.
And even then, it is the typical Law Covenant that passes away (Colossians 2:16,17; Hebrews 7:11-28; 8:4,5,13; 10:1), not the reality of God’s eternal Law of love which is expressed within the Law Covenant. — Matthew 22:37-40; Romans 13:10; Galatians 5:14; James 2:8.
November 29, 2010
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ResLight · 
One Comment
Tags: God's eternal law, Law Covenant, passing away of the law, under the law · Posted in: Law Covenant
One Response
You seem to be implying that Jewish followers of Yeshua today are under no obligation to be circumcised and obey Biblical Jewish Law. How do you reconcile this, though, with the “zeal” of the original Jewish disciples of Yeshua, including the Apostle Shaul/Paul, for the Mosaic Law, including circumcision, as described in Acts 21, not to mention elsewhere? Were these original Jewish believers not just doing what Yeshua told them to do in the Sermon on the Mount? When Yeshua, for example, said, Do not even look at another man’s wife to lust after her…, isn’t this what it means to be zealous for the Law? Not just to avoid gross adultery or other sin but also to avoid even any hint of adultery or other sin? In Deut 30, moreover, Yehovah strictly commanded the Jews to obey His commandments forever and promised that if they did so, anywhere, anytime, He would forgive them and bring them back to Israel? Doesn’t anytime include now?
These are just a few examples, which suggest to me that Jewish believers today should be zealous for the Law, just like Yeshua and the original Jewish disciples. Gentiles disciples, however, are the “uncircumcision” and are not under Biblical Jewish Law, don’t have to celebrate Passover, etc., and don’t have to be circumcised.
Yes, there are some passages, mainly, if not only in Shaul, saying that the Law is over and that sort of thing, but these passages must be reconciled with the passages above, which state that “the rule” in all congregations is that each should remain in the state in which he or she was called and that Jews should remain Jewish, and Gentiles should not seek circumcision (see I Cor 7). Man does not live by bread alone but by every Word that comes from the mouth of Yehovah. This means that we must not neglect some passages and overemphasize others but that we must include all passages and thus arrive at the original intended, correct interpretation. If we do this, I would arrive at the idea that Jewish disciples today must be zealous for the Law, just like our ancient predecessors, but we are no longer under the Law in the sense that the sacrifice of Yeshua enables all of us, despite our best efforts, to overcome our inevitable failure to keep the whole Law. This interpretation, though hard for the modern mind, polluted as it is by centuries of conflict, mis- and dis-information, to understand, enables us to avoid throwing out a whole Biblical theme having to do with a continuing distinction between Jewish and Gentile believers. Yes, there is no longer Jew nor Greek or male and female, etc., but the fact is that Jewish men still are Jewish men and don’t get pregnant, but Jewish women still get pregnant and are unclean seven days after childbirth (see Lev 12:12), not to mention other differences between men and women. So likewise there are still differences between Jews and Gentiles, for example, Jews must be circumcised, as Shaul circumcised Timothy because Timothy’s mother was Jewish, but Shaul did not circumcise Titus, who was pure Gentile.
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