While we were studying the ‘Sermon on the Mount’ in Matthew’s gospel, we ran across some interesting reading by David Flusser. It has to do with a famous passage the Evangelicals love to quote as proof that Jesus did away with the law. They ‘reason’ that since Jesus fulfilled the prophecies that have do with ‘getting saved’, and since he obeyed the Mosaic law perfectly, therefore he fulfilled the Mosaic law SO WE DO NOT HAVE TO.
They presume that the purpose for God giving the Mosaic law was to bring ‘salvation’ to mankind. But as we saw in a previous blog on Galatians 3, they are not quite on track. Either way, I want to correct a LONG HELD LIE that the Evangelical leaders brainwash their churchians with so they can keep them obedient to the Satan-state as well as keep them digging deeply into their pockets every Sunday to dump their hard earned mammon into the church treasury. There’s no point in getting into the foolishness of their ‘sola fide’ theology at this point, so let me start making my point by quoting the relevant NT passage:
17 “Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. 18 “For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished. 19 “Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 “For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5, GNT)
17 Moreover Yeshua Mashiach said to his talmidim, “Do not think that I came to throw down the Toraha and the Prophets, on the contrary, I came to confirm. 18 I say unto you in truth, that not one word will be diminished from the Torah – that it would not be performed until the end of the world. 19 And whosoever transgresses one of these smallest commandments, or teaches to break them, he will be small in the kingdom of heavens. On the contrary, whosoever teaches it and carries it out, great will he be in the kingdom of heavens. 20 And I say unto you in truth, that if you do not become righteous ones, more than the wise ones and the Perushim, you will not enter into the kingdom of heavens. (Matthew 5, Hebrew Gospels)
I have to admit that up until recently I had no proper understanding of that passage. I was taught various meanings for that saying, but nothing really made sense. So, all these decades I had no proper understanding of what Jesus meant by ABOLISH and FULFILL. Let me ‘tip my hat’ to my expensive Bible college education for that! Anyway, David Flusser has this to say about it, which makes a lot of sense in terms of the original context:
(Judaism and the Origins of Christianity, pages 378-379)
So, ‘according to the rabbinic terminology the two terms are used in connection with A RIGHT OR FALSE INTERPRETATION of a biblical verse…’. Therein lies the proof of what Jesus meant. He was talking just like his fellow countrymen talked about THE MOSAIC LAW when using the terms ABOLISH and FULFILL. Therefore, when Jesus said ‘I did not come to abolish but to fulfill the law’, he meant HIS TEACHINGS UPHOLD THE MOSAIC LAW.
Moreover, Jesus wasn’t CHANGING the Mosaic law in his teachings, as is popularly taught and believed today in the churches. Flusser explains the possible origin of that false belief (although he doesn’t label it a false belief!). It had to do with the social transformation of ideas that occurred over the centuries based on allegorical interpretations of Jesus’ teachings. The context in Flusser’s book is the redaction history of the Sibylline Oracles.
And contrary to popular church theology and belief, Jesus was NOT telling us that he was CHANGING The Mosaic law, NOR was he telling us that he was ADDING TO the Mosaic law. Instead, he was ‘hedging his bets’ by announcing to the public officials that he was PROPERLY INTERPRETING the Mosaic law and not NULLIFYING it like they were known to do! Make sure you also get that Jesus was NOT referring to fulfilling some kind of prophecy. He was talking strictly about the MOSAIC LAW, as is seen in the subjects that he discusses following that statement.
So, according to Flusser, Jesus was using a well-known rabbinic hermeneutic, thereby denying his political opponents the opportunity to accuse him of being a FALSE PROPHET. Remember that false prophets got the death penalty for leading the people astray from obeying the Mosaic law. Regardless of Jesus’ declarations in this matter, the public officials eventually strung him up anyway! He was a gigantic threat to their power structure, so they ‘got even’ for it. David Brewer points this out in his ‘Trial of Jesus’ paper. ‘Misleading’ (what a false prophet does) was one of the charges that got him ‘convicted’ at trial.
In this discuss of God’s INTENT for FULFILLING the Mosaic law, Jesus gives examples of the specific laws from the 10 Commandments, and explains how they apply to everyone in his own society. There is no doubt in my mind that ‘the shoe fits’ even today. In other words, Jesus not only did NOT nullify the Mosaic law for the people of his time, but he did NOT nullify it for Christians from that time forward. That means the MOSAIC LAWS apply to Christians even today. How shameful of the Evangelicals to repudiate obedience to God’s law today!
Ignoring the Evangelicals, let us take Jesus’ words to heart. Let us learn God’s law and then base our thought process and actions on obedience to it. Let us NOT be ‘inventors of evil’, as the Apostle Paul says. But instead, let us be INVENTORS OF GOOD. Otherwise, we will risk ‘the fiery hell’ in the next life!
Thanks for stopping by and reading our thoughts on this important practical subject. See you in the next blog!
Reality Bible 