What is the Christian obligation to or connection with the law of Moses, the law of God?
Matthew 22:36-40. "'Teacher, what is the great commandment in the law?' Jesus said to him, 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets."
The signal here is given that it is God who numbers and prioritizes. They expected His answer to come from among the Ten". His surprise response lets us know that although God's eternal law will be written on our hearts it may not look exactly like it did on the tablets of stone. There will be extensions and new depths expressed, but still it will be an expression of what God has always wanted. The want or the will of God, that is what law is.
This concept is even further brought out in Jesus' famous comparisons of Moses and Himself in Matthew 5:21-43. In this passage He quotes Old Covenant laws and principles, then proceeds to deepen them. Far from abolishing law, He lets us all know that in the New Covenant the perfect ways of God will be instilled in us, not a surface memory-work sort of business by which we can impress others that we are moral. He presents a law so much more difficult than Moses that it will take miraculous intervention for us to keep it. And that intervention is exactly what is promised, as by Paul in Romans and Galatians:
Romans 8:3-4. "For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit."
Notice the law is not condemned here or anywhere. As Paul says in Romans 7:12, "The law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good." It is our flesh that is the problem, because the law is too holy for us to keep. So He gives us His Spirit, and tells us to pursue the life of the Spirit. When we do that, we keep the law as a matter of course.
Galatians 5:14. " For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'
Fulfilled. Not abolished. Fulfilled. Paul goes on to urge us, therefore, to "Walk in the Spirit", Galatians 5:16ff. He says that if we do this we will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh, that is, we will not break God's law! So the Covenant change is one of perspective, one of life-style. Rather than fearful slavish obedience to a code of conduct, we seek God Himself. God puts His own desires in us, and we keep His law because we are new creations. God is not a distant Monarch before whom we are in constant doubt and dread, but a living presence who writes messages to us in places we can understand, in our heart.
http://chosunhouse.com is a website I put together a few months back to get the word out to believers that they need to pray for North Korea. I have created over 200 blogs and the site features a live news feed , lists of resources, picture essays, and ways to respond to the overwhelming need in North Korea. Let's love Chosen together! Contact me any time at diakonos5@yahoo.com
And who am I? A man found of God over 50 years ago, called to the ministry, serving the Lord as needed in my world. Married, member of a local church in the Chicago area, with full time work in public education. I love to write Scriptural works. Who are you? Would love to fellowship with believers who respond.
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