A month ago I began a periodic series of posts highlighting conversations I have with a very bright, curious and astute college friend I mentor. He is a junior psychology major and loves to wrestle with the scriptures and theology, and I have the huge privilege of wrestling with him and wading through his questions, doubts, and fears. Here is an email he sent me a week ago and my subsequent response.

A few days ago, I became aware of the importance of Judgment, that YHWH will Judge us after death. Now, I know that legalism is something Jesus came to at least re-balance. But for some time now I’ve believed that Jesus came to eradicate legalism. So I guess my question is: To what extent did Jesus come to eradicate legalism? Does He want us to obey the Law merely because it is best and healthiest for us and our relationship with YHWH? That would be most consistent with the idea that Jesus came to eradicate legalism. Or does He want us to obey the Law simply because we should be obedient to YHWH? This doesn’t seem true to me. But could the truth lie in an integration between the two? A balance between obeying the Law because doing so is obedient to YHWH and good and healthy for us and our relationship with Him?

Alright here we go:

Remember that Torah (the jewish law) was given to the children of Israel AFTER they were already in relationship with God; God’s grace (unmerited favor) extended to this chosen people, they were blessed to be a blessing, they did nothing to earn this initial blessing/favor.

So then Torah was given to YHWH’s people after they were His people and functioned in 2 ways: These obligations were central and fundamental to Israel’s identity as God’s covenant people, so they were what it meant to LIVE as set-a-part people; and two, Torah helped Israel (and the world) know was right and wrong in relationship to God, it was the standard of right and wrong, the measure to righteousness and justice, and utterly defined right relations between God and His people and between His people and themselves (in short it helped them love God and love people).

Legalism is what the good law was transformed by certain leaders of Israel. The parable of the good samaritan is a good example of what those leaders did to Torah requirements of cleanliness, for example. Jesus’ constant run-ins with those leaders over His healings on the Sabbath represent another dimension of what Jewish leaders did to the good Torah: mainly stifling people and self-righteous exactness at the expense of loving their neighbor as themselves (you missed my sunday school talk on this, btw!)

But there is also this sense of progressive revelation throughout the Scriptures: Torah isnt God’s LAST word to his people, but is in a sense provisional, looking forward to a time of fulfillment through the Messiah. In Matt 11:13 while speaking of the pivotal moment of John the Baptist he said “all the prophets and the law prophesied until John.” So in speaking about the pivotal point of John, the Law is linked with the prophets as looking forward to a time of fulfillment, which has arrived in Jesus.

And Jesus himself said that he did not come to abolish Torah, but to fulfill it. This is one aspect of atonement that Scot McKnight holds, and I agree is a big part: the notion that Jesus perfectly performed the Law that Adam misperformed on our behalf. Its called recapitulation. Look at Matt 5:17-20. In essence Jesus says: Far from wanting to set aside the law and the prophets, it is my role to bring into being that to which they have pointed forward, to carry them into a new era of fulfillment.”

So Torah isnt abolished and remains the authoritative words of God. But their role is different now that to what they’ve always pointed has arrived (Jesus), and its up to us as Jesus’ followers to discern in the light of Jesus’ teachings and practices what is now the right way to apply those texts of the OT to the new situation which Jesus’ coming has created: the Kingdom of Heaven.

From now on it will be the authoritative teachings of Jesus which must govern the disciples understanding and practical application of the Law. Which is really what you see throughout Acts and the Letters of Paul (particularly Acts 10 and Galatians). No longer is it about the literal observance of the letter level, but rather the deeper level of God’s will underlying the Text, which is…ta-da: loving God and loving people. (which I’m preaching about on May11!)

And in the process of discernment we see that some practices are dropped and abolished, it isnt because they’ve lost their status as God’s words and authority, but because their role has changed in light of the era of fulfillment with Jesus’ in-breaking presence (who is the ultimate authority) and dawn of the Reign of God.

So then what are we to obey? And why?

We obey the whole of Scripture as fulfilled in Jesus’ teachings and worked out in the epistles. Which in short means we need to consider the whole of God’s Words and never raise Moses, Jesus, or Paul up as maestro…we need all of the Scriptures to inform how we are to love and relate to God and how we are to love and relate to others.

And in the same way Torah was given to God’s people AFTER they were His people, the teachings and practice of Jesus and their outworking as seen in the epistles and other NT books are given to us to “work out our salvation” post-committment to Jesus (repentance of sin and pisteuo [remember that greek word?!] of Jesus as Lord). God has chosen to provide restoration and forgiveness through His grace, it isn’t anything we earn (Ephesians 2:8-9), but we are called to deliberately set ourselves apart through following the teachings and Way of Jesus.

In the same way the Children of Israel showed they were “covenanting” with God by following Torah, we show we are following Jesus by living in His Way. That Way is loving God and Loving people.

So there you go…I hope this all made sense 🙂 It was good for me to write because it helped me work through somethings myself regarding our responsibility to God.

I leave you with this, my friend, from 1 Peter 2:

“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you have not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Dear friends, I urge you as aliens and strangers in this world, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong they might see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us…”