What do you do with this verse from Scripture?
"For the law was given by Moses; grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." St. John 1:17
According to Scripture, his followers didn't know the law.
"The Pharisees therefore answered them: Are you also seduced?
Hath any one of the rulers believed in him, or of the Pharisees?
But this multitude, that knoweth not the law, are accursed." St. John 7:47-49
What do you do with sections of the law that Jesus obviously abolished, such as divorce, that were granted under Mosaic law?
St. Paul said, "Be it known therefore to you, men, brethren, that through him forgiveness of sins is preached to you: and from all the things, from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses."
If the law of Moses does nothing for justification, why practice it?
Please don't misunderstand me, I believe the OT isn't to be abolished or disregarded because in it is the story of Creation, Original Sin, the prophets, the Ten Commandments and the foretelling of our Lord Jesus Christ. I just think that it's obvious that we are no longer under Mosaic law.
That said, I have problems with some Protestants that I have spoken to that seem to think we aren't required to keep the Ten Commandments anymore. I personally don't know how they can justify that when Jesus repeated them to the rich young man to follow.
"For the law was given by Moses; grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." St. John 1:17
I'm not seeing a contradiction. As Sha'ul points out, the Torah, or Law, is spiritual and defines what sin is, but because we ourselves are carnal, it puts us under condemnation. Therefore, grace--God's unmerited favor--and truth--not limited to but including right interpretation of the Torah--came through Yeshua the Messiah, so that we are no longer under the condemnation of the Torah, but under His grace.
Nevertheless, the Torah still defines what is sin and what is good, and Sha'ul rightly says, "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid! . . . What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid!" (Rom. 6:1-2, 15). Therefore, while we are no longer "under the Law," we should still keep the Torah and not sin.
The difference is between a man keeping his Lord's commands because he is afraid of punishment and a man keeping his Lord's commands because he loves his Lord.
According to Scripture, his followers didn't know the law.
You're giving credence to the accusations of Yeshua's adversaries? Do you also accuse Him of blasphemy, or of being the agent of Beelzebub, as they did?
What do you do with sections of the law that Jesus obviously abolished, such as divorce, that were granted under Mosaic law?
Yeshua never abolished any of the Torah: "Think not that I am come to destroy the Torah, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the Torah, till all be fulfilled." (Mat. 5:17-18) What He did was call us to an even higher standard of keeping it.
Thus, where the Torah calls on one to not commit adultery, Yeshua tells us not to lust. Where the Torah commands us not to murder, Yeshua tells us to not harbour anger in our hearts. Thus He "fulfilled" the Torah--a rabbinical term which means to "interpret properly"; that is, one "makes the Torah full" by filling it with its proper meaning.
In the case of divorce, He was actually answering a long-standing debate between the rabbinical schools of Hillel and Shimmei: Whether one could divorce one's wife for any reason, or only for adultery, based on Deu. 24:1:
When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her: then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house.The key debate was over whether a man could divorce his wife simply for losing favor in his eyes (". . . even if she burns his dinner") as the school of Hillel claimed, or whether it had to be for sexual misconduct, as the school of Shimmei claimed the term "uncleaness" meant. Yeshua came down decisecivly on Shimmei's side (the only time He disagreed with Hillel, to the best of my knowledge).
The disciples wondered why Moshe allowed divorce at all, then. While not as common in their day as our own, divorce was hardly unknown. One could see an American audience wondering the same thing. Yeshua's answer does not override the Torah, but brings out its fullest meaning:
Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so. And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery. (Mat. 19:8-9)"Suffered you" is the key phrase. There are many instances in the Torah (and in the NT, for that matter) in which God permits a thing, but shows why it's a bad idea. God permits polygamy for the sake of protecting women and children, but one just has to read about Jacob and his wives to see why it'd be stupid to have more than one. There are any number of occassions in which the Bible presents a "second best" instruction: "Don't do X, but if you do do X, then you must do Y." The entire institution of repentence and sacrifice is a prime example: Don't sin, but if you do sin, repent and be atoned for by the blood of the sacrifice.
Ditto divorce: Why did God permit it? Strangely enough to protect the woman. A man wasn't simply allowed to cast aside a wife (as in other ancient near-east cultures of the time), but had to go through a legal proceding in which the wife obtained a bill of divorce. This provided protection to the woman: The man couldn't accuse her of adultery later when she remarried.
Yeshua's answer, then, comes to this: Divorce is wrong. A husband and wife become one flesh and one person in the institution of marriage, and if a man divorces his wife--unless she breaks the marriage first via fornication--he both sins against and dishonors her. However, the Torah given by Moses permitted divorce because God knew that the hardness of your hearts would cause you to do it anyway, so He provided a 'second best' answer that provided for the protection of the wife of an abusive husband (as one who would cast out his wife to marry another is clearly abusive).
St. Paul said, "Be it known therefore to you, men, brethren, that through him forgiveness of sins is preached to you: and from all the things, from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses."
That is correct. The Torah does not justify a man, "for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." Therefore, God sent a perfect Sacrifice to give us His grace. That doesn't mean that one shouldn't still strive to obey God: Just because you sometimes slip and sin by looking at a woman lustfully, does that mean that you should run around stealing, murdering, and blaspheming God just because you are under grace? "God forbid!"
You should practice the Torah to the best of your ability only because you love the God who bought you. If you're practicing any aspect of it--even not commiting adultery--out of fear of punishment or to garner favor, then you are putting yourself "under the law."
I'll say it again: I do not seek to keep the Torah in order to be saved, but because I am saved, and I want to be like my Savior in every way.
That said, I have problems with some Protestants that I have spoken to that seem to think we aren't required to keep the Ten Commandments anymore.
Why? That's the logical conclusion of saying that because we are no longer under the law, we shouldn't keep it.
I personally don't know how they can justify that when Jesus repeated them to the rich young man to follow.
Yeshua was giving a summary, not "cutting back" the Torah to just Ten Commandments. In fact, pretty much every command in the Torah can be derived from one or more of the Ten.
Besides, if you're going to say that, which day then do you keep the Sabbath on?
Now don't get me wrong. I'm not condemning anyone here on the basis of Torah. I who believe we should keep it still stumble all over the place, and I agree with you 100% that we are saved by grace, not by works.
What I'm trying to show you and others here is why I think the Torah is still valid under the New Covenant. I've written a longer piece on my blog that you may be interested in, called Why the New Covenant Doesn't Do Away with the Torah.
The cardinal error of so many Torah-observers is that they make it a matter of salvation: "Well, if you don't keep the Torah/keep the right sabbath/avoid pork/whatever, then you're not really saved." Wrong, wrong, wrong. Did YHVH save Israel from Egypt because they were following the Torah? No, He saved them by the blood of the Passover Lamb first, then gave them the Torah for their instruction on Mt. Sinai. Likewise, we are saved by God's grace, and then He teaches us how to walk with Him.
I'm no different from most conservative Christians in this regard. I just think that there are a few teachings that we've not been following for the last 2000 years that we should have been, that's all.