The Destruction Of Perfection
There is one very important question that all those who believe God the Son’s law was done away with at His death on the cross must ask themselves. Why? Why would Christ abolish something that He had earlier given to be a delight, and what did He replace it with? As we saw in my last post on the subject, numerous old and new testament authors called God’s law the delight of their hearts. They viewed His law as a blessing and a delight, so why then would Christ have done away with it? It can’t be because it was oppressive and a heavy burden. The Bible clearly shows that the view of its authors was quite to the contrary. It was only oppressive to those who broke it. If the law Christ gave in the old testament was indeed a delight and a blessing, something good and helpful, why did He come back to die to get rid of it? Or is that what He got rid of with His death? I seem to remember Him saying that He was wiping away our sins, not the law. What, then, is the reason that Christ would do away with the law?
Paul was a pharisee, one of the most learned and respected classes of Judaism. When he was called to follow Christ, he took all of that learning with him into his new path in life. The first Christians would have seen themselves as a type of Judaism, the old testament doctrine fully restored to its pure form. In this setting, is it conceivable that a learned Jew in a Church formed of Jews would consider the sacred law that he (Paul) referred to as, “So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.”¹ is it conceivable that this same man would teach that the law had been abolished? What we find Paul teaching instead is that the law is not the same thing as salvation, and keeping the law cannot earn us salvation. This was not a new groundbreaking theology. The law had never promised salvation through the keeping of it. In fact, salvation and eternal life were never a part of the old covenant, to begin with.
What was promised through the old covenant were physical blessings. If this had always been the case, why, then, would Paul need to explain this to his readers? Most of his writings were to predominantly gentile Churches, and there was always heresy creeping in. The most common form was the teaching that you had to be circumcised to be saved. Now the teaching that you have to be circumcised to be saved is found nowhere in the Bible. What is found is that circumcision is a mark of those who are descended from Abraham, including the Ishmaelites. This circumcision is not always a mark that someone is following God. Instead, we now have spiritual circumcision of our hearts (which has always been a sign of following God, it’s just more prominent in the New Testament). This circumcision shows that we are heirs of Christ rather than Abraham and is very necessary for salvation. It is the putting off of the Old Man of sin and the entrance of the Glory of God into the Holy of Holies of our hearts.
Coincidentally, we only know what belongs to the Old Man of sin because of the law of God. Odd how that just fits so perfectly in there… what the three-legged duck. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence. Weirdly perfect coincidences aside, other authors call the law of God, “perfect.” If Christ destroyed the perfection He had created, what did He replace it with?
The law of God is referred to at different times as the law of Moses, but Moses got the law from God. This raises another question as to why Christ would get rid of His “perfect law of liberty.”² Everything we have seen lends to the idea that not only should we still keep the law of God, but we should also do it with joy and make it the delight of our hearts. This is a far cry from how the Pharisees treated the law, however. They focused so much on the letter and added so many traditions that they created a heavy burden that they followed with their lips and not their hearts. Christ thus described their hearts as, “being far from me.”³ We can draw important lessons from this treatment of God’s law. While it is very important for us to keep the law, it is as equally important for us to make His law the delight of our hearts and to keep His precepts with our whole heart. Not only this, but we must teach others to do this and to see the beauty and goodness of God’s perfect law.⁴ What we can take away from all of this is that I have yet to write part two of Galatians. Aside from that, as we head into the Sabbath, we see that everything God created is for our good, including His law. I hope all of you have a blessed Sabbath! Happy Sabbath to you all!
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