Question about the Jewish Law

Question

I’m not sure if this is the proper channel to really ask this question, but I’m going to give it a shot anyway. Please help me the best that you can.

I’m a Christian who has recently converted. I have understood so far, that most Christians teach that they are no longer under the Mosiac law, but “under grace” i.e. keeping the Feast days, keeping the Sabbath, the dietary laws, etc. That the Savior came to “fulfill” the Law so that it was no longer binding.

Romans 7:6

But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.

Here is an example of the verse that they use.

However, I have been doing some research, and there are certain groups like Messianics who teach that the Savior did not do that, but he pointed us to God’s perfect Law and that we should live under it.

I have read in the Word that most of the early Christian groups did keep the Feast days and practiced Jewish law.

Acts 15:19-21

It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood. For the law of Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath.

I don’t know what to make of this. But the Lord has laid this on my heart to investigate this. I wonder what a Jewish person would have to say about this. What would you say? I am going to pray on this, and I wish you the best of health.

God bless you!

Answer 1

Followers of Jesus (Christians) are not under the law of Moses. The Messiah fulfilled it perfectly (John 19:28-30), but it wasn't His law. John in his gospel shows us that three times: 8:17, 10:34, 15:25. In contrast, John also shows us three times when Jesus talks about His own law: 13:34-35, 14:15-21, 15:12-17.

The law of Moses dealt with the flesh and it's desires and kept them under control (1 Timothy 1:5-11). Jesus died for us, so we can also die with Him (Matthew 16:24, Romans 6, Colossians 2:6-15). If one is dead, the law of Moses does not apply to him any more (Romans 7:1-6). The law of love was from the beginning (1 John) and was way before the law from Sinai. The law of Moses boils down to the law of love, so if one loves his brother like himself he fulfils the whole of the Old Testament law (Matthew 22:36-40, Romans 13:8-10, Galatians 5:14). The law of Moses dealt with the flesh and it's desires, but ”flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption ”(1 Corinthians 15:50).

So either the law of Moses was done away with or it still applies. And as James tells us, one can not pick and chose which laws he keeps and which he does not.

10 For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. 11 For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law. James 2

The Jews were given forty years to repent. Then the temple was destroyed. One can not keep the law of Moses without it. If God allowed the temple to be destroyed but also wants everyone to keep the Old Testament law, is God confused? Or is it us?

There is nothing wrong with remembering the sabbath or the OT feasts days. You can do it, but you don't have to. And if you do, God doesn't smile at you more because you do. They were all shadows of the real rest in the Messiah (Hebrews 3-4). He is the new high priest of the new law of love (Hebrews 7:12).

Answer 2

Until the destruction of Temple and the scattering of the Jerusalem church, observant Jews were clearly a key component of the Christian tradition. Paul's writings were addressed to non-Jewish Christian congregations. But from Acts we get a sense of the way the Jerusalem church approach Jewish law and customs.

For one thing we can be certain that many observant Jews became Christians without necessarily changing their customs:

So the word of God spread. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith. (Acts 6:7 NIV)

Then some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, “The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to keep the law of Moses.” The apostles and elders met to consider this question. (15:4-6)

This meeting of the apostles and elders, know as the Council of Jerusalem, resulted in the ruling mentioned in the OP. It held that gentile Christians did not need to be circumcised or follow most of the Jewish dietary laws. It said nothing about what was required for Jewish Christians, but we can presume that the priests and Pharisees who had accepted Jesus continued to consider themselves to be bound by the Mosaic Law. This becomes very clear in Acts 21, when Paul arrives in Jerusalem once again:

When we arrived at Jerusalem, the brothers and sisters received us warmly. The next day Paul and the rest of us went to see James, and all the elders were present... Then they said to Paul: “You see, brother, how many thousands of Jews have believed, and all of them are zealous for the law. They have been informed that you teach all the Jews who live among the Gentiles to turn away from Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children or live according to our customs. What shall we do? They will certainly hear that you have come, so do what we tell you...” (21:17-25)

So in the Acts account there were "many thousands" of Jews in Jerusalem who were Christians yet still adhered to the Law. After 70 c.e. this group was scattered and Paul's teaching (about no longer being under the Law), originally directed to the gentile Church, became the general standard for all Christians. Jewish Christian groups were marginalized as heretical. They must have either assimilated into the main stream of Christianity or else blended back into normative Judaism.

Messianic Jews today generally see themselves as inheritors of the original tradition practiced by Jesus' Jewish apostles in the primitive church. They have various attitudes in terms of how strictly they interpret and observe the various commandments. In the middle ages, Christians who retained Jewish customs where considered heretics, and that attitude still persists to some degree. Non-Jewish Christians today tend to accept Messianic Jews as fellow Christians, but some look askance at their following Jewish law.

Answer 3

There is no contradiction. The act of releasing [someone] from certain precepts does not imply outlawing those precepts. Romans 7:6 only is in terms of the former.

That release from Mosaic laws is selective, though. One debatable example of release from Mosaic law is Mark 3:4. As example it is debatable because Matthew 12:3 purports that Jesus premised on David's acts a position in favor of doing good during Shabbat.

Other passages further weaken the proposition about being released from Mosaic law. One example is Matthew 5:17 [NRSV] ("Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill"). The clarification as to not abolishing a law precludes the conclusion that others are henceforth released from that law. Also the command in Matthew 7:12 "In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets" (emphasis added) establishes a continuity of at least some Mosaic precepts. Indeed, being "the law and the prophets" is Jesus's stated reason for formulating what is known as the golden rule.

Other precepts such as Matthew 5:32 (equivalently 19:9) are more stringent than their Judaic predecessors. That sort of replacement hardly constitutes a release from prior precept(s).