Matthew 22:34 - 40
34 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together.35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
Question:
ReplyDelete- Can we just replace all laws and rules with "love God and love each other"?
http://www.thebible-tencommandments.com/the-two-greatest-commandments.html says:
ReplyDeleteMany times I hear Christians saying that the two greatest commandments that Jesus gave replaces the ten commandments of the Old Testament. Is this true? In a word, no! Because Jesus was merely summing up the ten commandments, not replacing them. It's so clear when you study the New Testament, that Jesus exalted the ten commandments and gave new meaning to them. He did not do away with them and replace them with "another law".
The truth is, Jesus was showing us the CONTINUATION of God's moral law found in the Old Testament and summing it up as a LAW OF LOVE, not replacing it. Of course we are talking about the moral law here, not the ceremonial laws which Christ did away with at the cross (Colossians 2:14).
The Pharisees were very meticulous about keeping the laws of God, ALL 613 of them. But the problem was, they lost sight of the true meaning of their relationship with God, which was love. They completely lost sight of loving God with all their heart, mind, soul and strength, and the law just became this "thing they had to do" in order to be saved. Hence why they were very legalistic. Without that love for God, the external observance of God's Commandments becomes worthless legalism. THIS IS WHAT JESUS WHAT TEACHING THEM.
There must first be love in the heart before a person can, in the strength and by the grace of Christ, begin to keep the precepts of God's law. Obedience without love is worthless, which is exactly what the Pharisees practiced. But where love is present, a person will automatically set out to order his life in harmony with the will of God as expressed in His commandments (John 14:15; 15:10).
Obedience does not lead to love, but love DOES lead to obedience.
By saying "Love the Lord with all thy heart, soul and mind", Christ is revealing that the love of God, if truly present in us, will permeate every aspect of our being.
Now many Christians love to quote the verse where Jesus says "on these two commandments hang the law and prophets" to suggest that the law is now "hung" upon the cross and has been done away with.
Jesus didn't say hang the law and prophets on the cross. He said hang them on these two greatest commandments. In other words, if we are truly keeping these two commandments, then we will keep the ten commandments and what the prophets said.
Which is why he has put many of his own "theologians" in place to discredit God's law and replace it with a "wishy washy" love that doesn't produce good works or obedience to God.
http://frame-poythress.org/the-greatest-commandment-the-very-heart-of-the-matter/ says:
ReplyDeleteOne month, while I was in college, I struggled with what it meant to obey God and follow him. I went from one extreme to another. For awhile I devoted myself fanatically to obeying commandments. But I became stiff and artificial in my obedience. People must have wondered whether there was a real person behind the appearance. On top of it all, I was miserable. I came to my senses only when a fellow Christian reminded me of God’s love. God’s grace to me did not depend on my scrupulosity, but on his forgiveness and on the fact that he accepted me through Jesus Christ. How could I have forgotten such a basic truth?!
So I went to the other extreme. Feeling myself free because of God’s love, I decided to do what I wanted, regardless of what anyone thought. But then another Christian brother had to take me aside and gently point out to me that I was hurting other people by not showing consideration for them.
I had to take stock. Neither of my two ways worked. Neither had really honored God. So what was the answer? I did not know. I decided that I had to follow Christ and have personal communion with him, without having a simple formula.
The Pharisees prided themselves on meticulous observance of the Law. They not only knew the Ten Commandments, but they paid rigorous attention to all the laws in the books of Moses–613 laws1 according to a traditional count. They tried to reason out the implications of the laws, and to make sure that they avoided even the possibility of violating any of them.
But the Pharisees had lost sight of the very heart of the matter–loving God. Without love for God, the external observance of the commandments becomes an empty form.
Loving God means receiving cleansing inside first. Only in this way is our obedience genuine. Otherwise, even though we may appear to others to be righteous, our obedience is corrupted by bad motives.
God himself gave us the central commandment to love God, along with the other commandments (Deuteronomoy 6:1-25). This central command helps to define the spirit in which we must keep all the other commandments. If we are not ardently following this one command, we are not really keeping any of the others either.
Today we also need this reminder about obeying all the commandments of God. Some people today understand “love” as merely a happy feeling of friendliness or good will. They think that, provided they feel good about the idea of God, they may do as they please. Indeed, an approach called “situation ethics” has claimed that love replaced all the commandments. But that is not a Biblical conception of loving God. Love does not replace Commandments. Love gives us the right motive so that we genuinely can obey the Commandments.
This is true even on a human level. What would a mother think if her eight-year-old boy is constantly saying that he loves her, but then disobeys, back-talks, and never helps out? In First John we read, “Let us not love with words or tongue, but with actions and in truth” (1 John 3:18 NIV).
Really loving God means honoring Him, revering Him, and paying close attention to His desires as expressed in the Bible. And not only are we to pay attention, but we are to obey. The Bible warns, “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says” (James 1:22 NIV).
http://www.gotquestions.org/Christian-law.html says:
ReplyDelete"Do Christians have to obey the Old Testament law?"
The key to understanding the relationship between the Christian and the Law is knowing that the Old Testament law was given to the nation of Israel, not to Christians. Some of the laws were to reveal to the Israelites how to obey and please God (the Ten Commandments, for example). Some of the laws were to show the Israelites how to worship God and atone for sin (the sacrificial system). Some of the laws were intended to make the Israelites distinct from other nations (the food and clothing rules). None of the Old Testament law is binding on Christians today. When Jesus died on the cross, He put an end to the Old Testament law (Romans 10:4; Galatians 3:23–25; Ephesians 2:15).
In place of the Old Testament law, Christians are under the law of Christ (Galatians 6:2), which is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind…and to love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37-39). If we obey those two commands, we will be fulfilling all that Christ requires of us: “All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:40). Now, this does not mean the Old Testament law is irrelevant today. Many of the commands in the Old Testament law fall into the categories of “loving God” and “loving your neighbor.” The Old Testament law can be a good guidepost for knowing how to love God and knowing what goes into loving your neighbor. At the same time, to say that the Old Testament law applies to Christians today is incorrect. The Old Testament law is a unit (James 2:10). Either all of it applies, or none of it applies. If Christ fulfilled some of it, such as the sacrificial system, He fulfilled all of it.
“This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome” (1 John 5:3). The Ten Commandments were essentially a summary of the entire Old Testament law. Nine of the Ten Commandments are clearly repeated in the New Testament (all except the command to observe the Sabbath day). Obviously, if we are loving God, we will not be worshipping false gods or bowing down before idols. If we are loving our neighbors, we will not be murdering them, lying to them, committing adultery against them, or coveting what belongs to them. The purpose of the Old Testament law is to convict people of our inability to keep the law and point us to our need for Jesus Christ as Savior (Romans 7:7-9; Galatians 3:24). The Old Testament law was never intended by God to be the universal law for all people for all of time. We are to love God and love our neighbors. If we obey those two commands faithfully, we will be upholding all that God requires of us.
My 2 cents:
ReplyDeleteThere is a lot of confusion among Christians on whether the Old Testament Law applies to us.
I believe the Bible says that it does not, and that the Old Testament Law died with and was fulfilled by Jesus.
However, we have a new Law - that is the Law of Christ. Many of the Old Testament laws have similarities with the Law of Christ. Also, the O.T. Law gives us clues to what Christ's laws are.
If we don't get this straight in our minds, we get into trouble. If we hold on to the Old Testament laws, we either tend to go straight back to legalism, or we start justifying a lot of our actions.
If we are still under the O.T. law, why are we not keeping kosher? If we aren't, why are we keeping the Sabbath? See the problem?
We are under the Law of Christ. We don't have to follow written rules anymore, but the Holy Spirit. The written rules do help remind us what the Holy Spirit is teaching us - Love God and love each other, among a whole bunch of other "rules".
For example, Christ's Law might be that I need to take Sunday off to spend with friends and family. Or, Christ's Law may be that I need to have a daily quiet time. Any intersection with Old Testament Law is somewhat coincidental (although I'm sure there is some overlap).
We are free from the O.T. Law. It has died because it's weak and useless.
Now why do people want to hold on to it?
P.S. There is a Lot of articles on the internet that thoroughly disagree with me. I am willing to explain the verses they say tell us to follow the Law, and am willing to show a lot of verses that unequivocally say that we don't.