re clarification of personal position jesus and the law sandvik newton apple com kent sandvik writes my online bible is on a cd but i don t own a cd rom system for the time being so i can t search for the famous cite where jesus explicitly states that he didn t want to break existing jewish laws in other words technically speaking christians should use saturday and not sunday as their holy day if they want to conform to the teachings of jesus i think the passage you re looking for is the following matthew think not that i have come to abolish the law and the prophets i have come not to abolish them but to fulfil them matthew for truly i say to you till heaven and earth pass away not an iota not a dot will pass from the law until all is accomplished matthew whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven matthew for i tell you unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and pharisees you will never enter the kingdom of heaven there are several problems with this the most serious is that the law was regarded by jews at the time and now as binding on jews but not on gentiles there are rules that were binding on all human beings the so called noachic laws but they are quite minimal the issue that the church had to face after jesus death was what to do about gentiles who wanted to follow christ the decision not to impose the law on them didn t say that the law was abolished it simply acknowledged that fact that it didn t apply to gentiles this is a simple answer which i think just about everyone can agree to a discussion of the issue in more or less these terms is recorded in acts however there s more involved in order to get a full picture of the role of the law we have to come to grips with paul s apparent rejection of the law and how that relates to jesus commendation of the law at least as i read paul he says that the law serves a purpose that has been in a certain sense superceded again this issue isn t one of the abolition of the law in the middle of his discussion paul notes that he might be understood this way and assures us that that s not what he intends to say rather he sees the law as primarily being present to convict people of their sinfulness but ultimately it s an impossible standard and one that has been superceded by christ paul s comments are not the world s clearest here and not everyone agrees with my reading but the interesting thing to notice is that even this radical position does not entail an abolition of the law it still remains as an uncompromising standard from which not an iota or dot may be removed for its purpose of convicting of sin it s important that it not be relaxed however for christians it s not the end ultimately we live in faith not law while the theoretical categories they use are rather different in the end i think jesus and paul come to a rather similar conclusion the quoted passage from mat should be taken in the context of the rest of the sermon on the mount where jesus shows us how he interprets the law the not an iota or dot would suggest a rather literal reading but in fact that s not jesus approach jesus interpretations emphasize the intent of the law and stay away from the ceremonial details indeed he is well known for taking a rather free attitude towards the sabbath and kosher laws some scholars claim that mat needs to be taken in the context of st cent jewish discussions jesus accuses his opponents of caring about giving a tenth of even the most minor herbs but neglecting the things that really matter justice mercy and faith and caring about how cups and plates are cleaned but not about the fact that inside the people who use them are full of extortion and rapacity mat this and the discussion later in mat suggest that jesus has a very specific view of the law in mind and that when he talks about maintaining the law in its full strength he is thinking of these aspects of it paul s conclusion is similar while he talks about the law being superceded all of the specific examples he gives involve the ceremonial law such as circumcision and the sabbath he is quite concerned about maintaining moral standards the net result of this is that when paul talks about the law being superceded and jesus talks about the law being maintained i believe they are talking about different aspects of the law paul is embroiled in arguments about circumcision as is natural in letters responding to specific situations he s looking at the aspect of the law that is currently causing trouble the law as specifically jewish ceremonies he certainly does not intend to abolish divine standards of conduct on the other hand when jesus commends the law he seems to be talking the law in its broadest implications for morals and human relationships and deemphasizing those aspects that were later to give paul so much trouble it s unfortunate that people use the same terms in different ways but we should be familiar with that from current conflicts look at the way terms like family values take on special meaning from the current context imagine some poor historian of the future trying to figure out why family values should be used as a code word for opposition to homosexuality in one specific period in the u s i think law had taken on a similar role in the arguments paul was involved in paul was clearly not rejecting all of the jewish values that go along with the term law any more than people who concerned about the family values movement are really opposed to family values
