The End of the Law

The End of the Law?

By Richard P. Joseph

Moses was commissioned by God to write the law for the newly formed nation of Hebrews as they were coming out of slavery from the Egyptians.  This was a marvelous law

unlike any before it as it addressed nearly every aspect of life as well as prophecy of a coming Messiah and the end of the law as they knew it.  The law outlined sin and what the people had to do for atonement of sin. The law, however, could not abolish sin so it was an incomplete law.  When the Messiah finally arrived in 4BC and finished his mission, most people believe that the law was abolished and some believe it was only partially abolished.  I hope to show you that it was just transferred from one form to another.

There have been many “wise” men who attempted to show us the way.  Jesus, in contrast, said that He “is” the way.  This is a marked difference from mere human philosophers compared with almighty God.  I am going to show a few examples in this article that Jesus did not come to show us the way, but instead came to introduce us to the idea that he is the way.  Let us start with God himself.

El Shaddai, or God Almighty was a familiar term to the Jews.  God made himself known to Moses as “I am who am”.  A term which denotes the idea that God was not an idol which a mere man can name.  God really has no “proper name” despite man’s attempt to give him one.  God is claiming to be the “Eternally Existent One”(The real meaning of YHWH).  He has no beginning and certainly no end.  In the book of Revelation, John records Jesus as saying “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End".  Jesus is not saying he was there in the beginning and will be there in the end, he is saying that he “is” the Beginning and he “is” the End.  He is claiming deity.  He made this statement many times in the gospels in which he claimed that he was “I Am”.  My point being that Jesus is not a cult leader showing us the way to eternity, he is claiming to be the Eternal One.  The eternal is based more on spiritual things than the physical things.

In Romans 8:3-4 we clearly see the transition from physical to spiritual.  

3 For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, 4 that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

In other words the law is not just going to vanish into thin air, it is going to be transformed from death to life, from parchment to Christ.  It will now function personally inside each believer instead of being forced upon a nation.  Jesus expressed this idea many times and especially in the beatitudes.

In Matthew 5:17 Jesus is recorded as saying;

17 “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill".

He puts out a notice to all Jews that the keeping of the old law will still be in effect until all things are fulfilled which occurred in AD 70.  From the death of Christ to his return would be a 40 year period as noted all throughout the New Testament.  This is a transition period that would lead to a complete fulfilment of the old law and transition into the new law, from the old covenant to the new covenant consummated by the blood of Jesus Christ.  Notice what Jesus says in the following verses.

Jesus then gives examples of the old versus the new.  He mentions that we have heard that if we murder, condemn, commit adultery etc  they are punished according to the Mosaic Law.  He then tells us how we are to live in the spirit.  We are not judged by outward actions because we are already guilty of those same crimes in our hearts before we ever had the chance to commit the offense.  Jesus is pointing out the fact that we are far more guilty of sin than we ever imagined.  We are in a hopeless state of condemnation and without the ultimate sacrifice we are doomed to eternal punishment.  As we know, the old law required a sacrificial lamb or other appropriate sacrifice.  That is also required in the new covenant.

When John the Baptist saw Jesus coming he exclaimed “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29).  Man often offered a lamb to atone for sin but now it was God’s turn to offer a lamb.  Jesus did not offer a lamb, he was the lamb.  That is why his death, burial and resurrection were all on the required Jewish Holidays that the paschal sacrifice was required to be on. This same scenario played out many times throughout his ministry.  Another example is the Sabbath day itself.

The fourth commandment ordered the Hebrews to keep Holy the Sabbath Day.  This is the day that God Himself rested from his creative work and the Jews were to rest every seventh day from all of their labors.  As Jesus sat on the mount and spoke to a broken people who were   oppressed, and desperate, he said;

28 "Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

Again, he did not tell them to rest on the Sabbath day, he was telling them that “He was the Sabbath Day”.  Jesus knew that the old Jewish world was passing away and at his second coming in AD 70 it was finally consummated.  There would be no more temple, civil law, Jewish State, nothing.  He was preparing them for the new covenant which he would secure with his own blood.  There would be no more Sabbath Day to rest on according to civil law, there would only be Him to rest in.  Our rest now is in Christ Jesus, not in a day.

  Jesus made it clear that he was the new Sabbath day just as he made it clear that he was the new temple.  After Jesus drove the moneychangers out of the  temple for turning a house of prayer into a business market for scam artists, they challenged him to prove that he had authority to do such things.  In John chapter 2 we find this text:

18 So the Jews answered and said to Him, “What sign do You show to us, since You do these things?”

19 Jesus answered and said to them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”

20 Then the Jews said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days?”

Again, Jesus was not merely defending the physical temple but was trying to tell them that He was the new temple.  God’s presence was to be found in Jesus in the future, not in the old brick & mortar temple.

So, how do we know the way to the temple?    One of the disciples asked that very question:

5 Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?”

This is a common question even today.  People want to know the way to heaven.  Even worse, someone will tell them that Jesus came to “show” us the way.  That might be half right but it falls short of the absolute truth.  Here is the answer that Jesus gave:

6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.

Again, Jesus does not show the way, he claims that he is the way.  He does not tell us the truth, he is the truth.  He does not lead us to eternal life, he is the eternal life.  We must abide in him and we shall have all of these things.  All “religions” attempt to proclaim the true philosophies of life, but Jesus is the truth of life.  This is the difference between God and man, true and false, right and wrong.  Jesus is God incarnate, not just a mere religious leader.  

This is a lesson that Martha and Mary learned when their brother died.

Most of us are familiar with the story of when Lazarus died.  Jesus came to the Bethany four days after his friend was placed in a tomb.

John chapter 11 records this story:

21 Now Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died. 22 But even now I know that whatever You ask of God, God will give You.”

23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”

24 Martha said to Him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”

25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life.

Although Martha had it right that we will rise, either at the resurrection out of Hades, or directly after AD70, Jesus reminded her that He was the resurrection. Even though there would be a resurrection event, it could not have happened outside of Jesus being the power of that Event.  The life resides inside of Jesus. One of my favorite verses in the bible is Revelation 21:23

23 The city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it,[j] for the glory[k] of God illuminated it. The Lamb is its light.

This passage has hidden in it the great mystery of the divine Christ.  Notice that the light is not shining on the lamb, it is proceeding “from” the lamb.  Jesus is God incarnate.  He is not a philosopher, or a mere prophet or someone with great enlightening words, he is God in the human flesh, part of the trinity. Jesus is the new law.  This law has life in itself because grace abounds.  This law is not the written law that man cannot keep but rather the law that Jesus kept for us. We do not abandon the law but we fully accept it in our hearts as fulfilled.  We live the meaning of the law, not the outward letter of the law.  It’s tenets are still valid today but as a heart change, not a judgement club.  The old law vanished in AD70 and the new covenant of the blood of the lamb began.  We do not abandon the lessons of the old law, we embrace them, we live by them and we love them because Jesus made it come alive in us.  Instead of death brought by the law, we now have life by grace because Jesus Christ has became the fulfilment of the law.

We could go on and on with this subject but these are just a few examples of how Jesus was the fulfilment of the law and therefore God’s ways are not vanished but actually useful for us today in that we accept God’s Holy ways and justice.