He certainly claims explicitly that at least part of the Old Testament is obsolete. Do you disagree with that?
[Beware: this is a “trap question”…]
It’s interesting that a whole lot of people are implying that “we need to keep the law.”
What is the purpose of the law? Or, more precisely, the Law?
Jesus said we need to keep the law.
BUT… He also said that all the law can be summarized in 2 commandments to love God and love your neighbor as yourself.
Therefore when we read in the OT that cutting your hair is an abomination, I am not going to take that seriously even to the tiniest degree.
Jesus was sent to the lost sheep of Israel.
He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel .”
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It is true that Jesus said this.
And yet Jesus was not entirely consistent with this. Thus we have good reason to believe that Israel was but a stepping stone to the world, and this is confirmed by the rest of the NT, such as John 3:16 and the writings of Paul. It is in fact what the Jews believed for it is how they have always understood the suffering servant passages of Isaiah. That they have been held to a higher standard as an example to the rest of the world that through them all the world might be changed.
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While Jesus was sent to the lost sheep of Israel, Jesus sent others into the all the world.
But it took three visions and an event of speaking in tongues to convince Peter.
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Who is the “we” in this statement?
I got that the first time and it is the reason for my like on your post. But ok…
This would seem to depend on what is meant by “the law.”
Surely you don’t think the command to love your neighbors as yourself only applies to Israel.
On the other hand, it wouldn’t makes sense to think a command to love God would apply to those who never had any reason to think such a thing exists.
This isn’t unhitching in the same way that Andy Stanley used it.
I would expect at least several study bibles.
Look at the entire passage. At first Jesus refuses to heal the Canaanite woman, but then she shows such great faith that he changes his mind and heals her.
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I have read the story many times. His compassion for the woman does not eliminate His clear statement.
After Jesus gave them the new commandment at the Last Supper, He gave the 11 this command (here from Matthew 28):
16 Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”[d]
So the commandment to love one another given to the Apostles was extended to all nations.
But Paul said the law was temporary, a tutor/teacher (pedagogos - akin to the role of Aristotle, tutor to Alexander the Great); Galatians 3:23-25.
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Okay, no takers on this one.
“By calling this covenant “new,” he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear.” - Hebrews 8:13 (NIV)
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He never annuls the laws of love (aka ‘moral law’.)
I think that particular verse in Hebrews (8:13) perhaps best expresses what Stanley (and Vance here) have labored hard to highlight. In fact, seen in isolation it would seem to solidly clinch everything in Stanley’s favor (and I have no objection to that, leaning those directions myself). But there is still the interesting tension to explore from the Bible itself of how on one hand: the old covenant is now taken to be obsolete and falling away in the presence of a now better one, and on the other hand how the new covenant is also solidly seen to be a fulfillment (not an abolishment) of the old. Many scriptures can be found to support that side too, not insignificantly from Jesus’ own lips.
In attempting to get beyond the “yes it is / no it isn’t” exchanges here (yes we already know where everybody has planted their flags and dug in to defend them to the bitter end) it seems to me that there is interesting scriptural space to explore where scriptures actually argue with themselves over this very issue. For being an “obsolete covenant” the apostles sure weren’t above using it to prove that Christ was the long awaited messiah to any who already had familiarity with Jewish scriptures! So whatever “obsolete” is taken to mean, it apparently did not mean ‘useless’ or ‘to be done away with’.
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I think that’s what appears to be the “new law” (John 13:34), although it is represented in the first covenant by love of God and love of neighbour.
I’ve heard that 1st-century interpretation of Law (the big “theological battles”) could be introduced by the question of the “greatest commandment.” Of course, there were always two, because the first was always the sh’ma, the love and devotion to God. The second was the lens of interpretation for the rest of the law, whether it was sacrifice, purity, obedience, zeal, or, as in Jesus’ interpretation, love.
They are also represented in the Ten Commandments (and embellished upon considerably throughout the Epistles).
Part of the issue is what is meant by “abolish” and “fulfill” (not sure if this was said in this conversation).
To “abolish” the law is to “render it invalid through misinterpretation.” Everybody “believed in” or “agreed with” the law. The question was, how? That’s where interpretation came in. To interpret it incorrectly was to “abolish it.” To interpret it correctly was to “fulfill it” (as in, uphold it). That was rabbinic terminology.
Jesus “fulfills the law” by interpreting it correctly (through the overarching lens of love). But he also “fulfills the law” because he is the “end of the law” (not so much the terminator of the law, but the telos or goal of the law). The law points to Jesus and he is its fulfillment.
Then there is “first covenant” and “second covenant.” The “first covenant” (not really the first, but the Mosaic covenant; there were earlier covenants with Noah, Abraham, etc.) is the “law,” in which the law lays out the terms of the agreement, specifically with ethnic Israel. Because ethnic Israel is under this agreement (the temporary one that points to Jesus), the terms of that agreement define things like dress, diet, etc. When Israel breaks that covenant, God himself is faithful to it, because the exile itself is expressed and defined within the terms of that covenant.
But those “laws” (the terms of that covenant, the first one) are done away with in Jesus.
Do we have to “keep the law”? Well, no, because keeping the law does not accomplish what it points to. But “second covenant living,” that is, Spirit-led life (as defined in Romans and Galatians) does accomplish what the law points to. Thus, the Spirit-led life is manifested by spiritual fruit, and “against such things there is no law” (Galatians 5:23).
You can’t make the spiritual fruit happen with laws/rules or efforts to keep laws/rules. You can’t, for example, become more loving, joyful, or peaceful by “trying hard to do so.” What you can do is abide in Christ, live Spirit-led, and then fruit…“happens.”
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