The Enduring Word

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Matthew 5:17-20

A famous Atlanta Pastor is backtracking from previous statements that Christians needed to “unhitch” from the Old Testament. He was also taken to task for Tweeting this, “The Christian faith doesn’t rise and fall on the accuracy of 66 ancient documents. It rises and falls on the identity of a single individual: Jesus of Nazareth.”[1] He has gone on record saying that the entire Old Testament law, including the moral law, was done away with in Christ.[2] My point is not to address this ongoing controversy, but to challenge us to consider how we view the Old Testament.

Notice what Jesus says, he came to FULFILL the Law and the Prophets. He did this in several different way. Most obviously, he fulfilled all the Old Testament prophesies regarding his First Coming. The rest of the prophesies he will fulfill with his Second Coming so that no prophesy of Scripture will go unfulfilled. Secondly, he lived in perfect obedience to the entire Old Testament ceremonial and moral law. He never sinned or broke any of the laws recorded in the Old Testament. Those ceremonies were shadows pointing to the reality in Christ. By signs and symbols, they testified to what Jesus was going to do in his perfect life, sacrificial death, and glorious resurrection. When Jesus died and rose, all the ceremonial laws were fulfilled completely, and we were freed from them as believers. (Mark 7:19, 2 Cor 1:20, Romans 10:4, Heb 9:12, Heb 7:23-24, Heb 8:13, et. cetera)

Were the moral aspects of the law also done away with the death and resurrection of Christ? One must first ask, what is the moral law? The moral law reflects the character and nature of God. As such, the morals found in the Old and New Testament point back to him. So, can the moral law be repealed or ignored? Unless the character and nature of God change then his moral law cannot change. This means we can discern those aspects of the Old Testament that are of enduring value and continue to apply them today. This isn’t always a simple task, but it is necessary to understand the enduring value of all Scripture. This is what Paul says in 2 Cor 3:16-17, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” As he wrote that he was thinking about the Old Testament because not all of the New Testament had not been written or gathered together yet.

There is a whole lot more to this passage we need to investigate but we will come back to it again next week.

[1] https://www.christianpost.com/voices/andy-stanleys-tweet-about-the-bible-is-seductive-and-harmful.html

[2] https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2018/october-web-only/andy-stanley-irresistible-response-to-foster.html

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