Revision of the Law?
15th January 2006
A little while back, I wrote a post questioning whether Jesus revised the law. Normally, when we think about this topic, we stop at juxtaposing the New Testament’s emphasis on grace with the Old Testament on the Law. Perhaps, passages such as Romans 6 or Galatians 2 where Paul talked about grace vs. law, or even John 1: 17, “For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ,” underscore for us the contrast between Jesus’ morality and the Mosaic Law of the Old Testament.
In a couple of previous posts, I examined the undertones of grace throughout the law, but I was surprised that I haven’t noticed this before: even in the Old Testament, there were numerous “revisions” of the law similar to Jesus’ momentous announcements, “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago… but I tell you…” of Matthew chapter 5. We find incidents when God not only condoned, but actually encouraged the “Neither do I condemn you” theme of the gospel of grace, in His dealings with His people. (By the way, the last link is a post I wrote quite a while back, but it is representative of my thinking and writing on this issue and I highly recommend it to you if you haven’t read it yet). Read the rest of this entry »
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