the new wine will destroy the old bottles.
What I believe, part 5
Jesus and the Law of Moses
The more I studied, the more my confidence grew that Christ wanted us to obey him when he said not to hit back. But it was a long time before I could get over the strange feeling that came from being the only person (as far as I knew) who was saying this, in a world where millions of people had been saying for eighteen hundred years that they were following Christ. And I must say, the thought that Christ really wanted us to obey him had never come into my head before that time either. How could this have happened? I must have had some very false understanding of the teachings of Christ before that time. And when I thought back, I could see that I had.
When I first read the teachings of Jesus, it was not like I was hearing them for the first time. I had been growing up in a family, in a church, in a country that had all been telling me how I should understand them. From these people I came to understand that Christ was not a prophet on his own. What I had been told was that Christ was just one part of a bigger picture of God; and so when I first read of Christ, I read of him with a very strong picture in my mind already of how God must act. And this picture came from the law of Moses.
In the Gospels I had found the words, "You have heard that it was said, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,' but I say to you, Do not fight against the person who is evil." The words "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" were the law of Moses. The words "Do not fight against the person who is evil" were the new law, which took the place of the old one. If I had read this without the teaching I had earlier received from all those around me, then what Christ said would have been very clear to me from the start. I would have seen that he was simply throwing out the old law and giving us a new one. But I had been told that this was not true, that Christ strongly believed and followed all of the old law, and that the old law was spiritually equal to all that Christ taught. Both the old and the new were the perfect Word of God, and because they were the Word of God, they could never change.
There was a saying from Christ that was used to prove this teaching. It came from Matthew 5:17-18, where Christ says, "Do not think that I have come to destroy the law, or the prophets. I have not come to destroy, but to make the law come true. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth go away, not one word or letter of the law will be destroyed, until all of it comes true." These words had always confused me when I had read them before, because so many of the laws of Moses seemed to have little meaning for today,* and some of them sounded very cruel. I found it hard to believe that Christ was telling us to keep every last word of the law of Moses, most of which is never taught or followed in the Church today anyway.
| *The law of Moses has rules telling people what to do for many different physical problems. Here is one of them: If a house became dirty from a sickness or for other reasons, the owner was often forced to destroy the whole house for the good of others living near it. Laws like these may have been good in their day, but surely they must change as our understanding of science changes. Teaching that the law of Moses is the eternal "word of God" as so many churches do today, means that it can never change. D.M. |
At the time I first saw the difference between the law of Moses and the teachings of Christ, I was much younger than I am now. I was not interested enough to find an answer, so I left it to others to show how the law of Moses could agree with the law of Christ, and how the law of Christ could be the natural end of following the law of Moses. But now, as a believer myself, my interest in Christ is much more serious than it was in my younger days. I have seen for myself what Christ was saying, and I know that there can be no talk of it agreeing with what Moses said. You cannot take an eye for an eye and turn the other cheek at the same time. One does not lead to the other. They are opposites.
So I turned again to Matthew 5:17-18, and started to see it in a different light. I did not need to change the words at all to see the meaning. All I needed to do was to believe that Christ was bringing in the law of God to take the place of the law of Moses. The law of God will never be destroyed. Christ made the law of God come true. Read it with that in mind and you will see for yourself what I am saying: "Do not think that I have come to destroy the law [of God], or the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to make the law come true. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth are destroyed, not one word or letter of the law will be destroyed, until all of it comes true."
The difference between Christ's teachings and Moses' only becomes a problem if we say the "law" Christ was talking about in Matthew 5:17-18 was the law of Moses. Most of the time when Christ was talking about the law of Moses, he used the words "the law and the prophets", but here we have him talking about the law or the prophets (the first time he uses the word "law") and then just the law by itself without saying anything at all about the prophets the second and third times that he used it. I am saying that in all three places he was talking about the eternal law of God, and not the law of Moses. In Luke 16:15-17 we find Christ talking very clearly about the law of Moses, and he does it in such a way that he makes it clear that the law of Moses is opposite to his law (or the law of God). He says to those who put their faith in the law of Moses: "You are those who try to make yourselves look right in the eyes of others; but God knows your hearts, for that which is lifted up as good by people is very evil in God's eyes. The law and the prophets were until John. But from that time the Gospel of the Kingdom of God is preached, and everyone pushes into it. And it is easier for heaven and earth to be destroyed than for one word of the law [God's law] to be destroyed."
By saying that "the law and the prophets" were until John, Christ was saying that they are no longer in force. A higher law has been put in their place. And he talked of this higher law when he said "It is easier for heaven and earth to be destroyed than for one word of [this higher] law to be destroyed." To make it even more clear that the eternal law is higher and stronger than the law of Moses, he went on (Luke 16:18) to say something that changed the law of Moses. Moses said that a man could put his wife away from him, but Jesus said that a man could not do this.*
| *(See Matthew 19:8 for a fuller picture of Jesus saying that the law of Moses is not the eternal law of God when it comes to putting away a wife. D.M.) |
From that it was easier to understand that he was not talking about the law of Moses, but about the eternal law of God. There are some old writings that had the words "Do not think that I have come to destroy the law and the prophets." When the church was first putting together the books of the Bible, they agreed that these writings were wrong, and they did not use the word "and". They chose to keep the word "prophets" but to use the word "or" with it.
The history of Matthew 5:17-18 is very interesting. Where we now read Jesus saying, "Do not think that I have come to destroy the law, or the prophets," most of the oldest writings that we get the Bible from did not have the words "or the prophets" in them at all. In them, Jesus simply said, "Do not think I have come to destroy the law."
It seems that someone along the line believed (or wanted to believe) that Christ was saying that the law of Moses was eternal. To make this clear, they added the words "and the prophets", and changed the meaning. Other Christians, who could not believe that Jesus was talking about the books of Moses, took out the added words or changed "and" to "or", which is why we now have "or the prophets" in our Bibles. But even with this change, more and more people have over the years leaned toward teaching that Jesus said the law of Moses can never be changed; and so this is the way that we have been taught.*
| *It is interesting that the "Good News" Bible has now returned to using the word "and" and has even added the words "of Moses" to help the people who argue that we are still living under the law of Moses. It says: "Do not think that I have come to do away with the Law of Moses and the teachings of the prophets. I have not come to do away with them, but to make their teachings come true." D.M. |
The argument that the law of Moses is eternal comes from believing that each time the word "law" is used in the Bible it is talking about the written law of Moses. But in every language, the word "law" can mean a force that is true with or without it being put in writing, or it can mean a rule that has been put in writing.
The Jewish prophets used the word torah for the eternal truth of God. But later the same word started to be used for the first five books of the Bible, or the "law of Moses". This false worship of their law is what has confused so many people even in the Church today.
So when Christ was talking about the law of Moses he would either say "the law of Moses", "the law and the prophets", or something like "your law" or "their law". But when he was talking about the eternal law of God, he would just say "the law". When he said that the whole of what the law and the prophets teach could be covered with the words "Act toward others as you would want them to act toward you," he was saying that this one teaching could take the place of all that is eternal in the law of Moses. Anything more than that is not the law of God.
When he said (John 7:19) "Did not Moses give you the law?" he was talking about the law of Moses, that he had destroyed by bringing in a higher and better law, and he was talking about the law that had him killed: "The Jews answered Pilate, "We have a law, and by our law he should die." (John 19:7) Clearly the law that was used to kill Christ was not the law that he had been teaching. But when he said "I did not come to destroy the law" and "Nothing can change in the law", he was talking about the eternal law of God. Let us, for a minute, think that the church is right in saying that Christ did not come to destroy the law of Moses. Let us say that every word in it is still in force.
If that is true, then we must ask ourselves what it was that Christ taught? He taught that he was the Son of God and that he was going to die for the sins of the world. We all agree on that. But that is only a small part of what he taught. What did he teach besides that?
Christians have always had to agree that what Christ taught was how we should live. So, if Christ taught a new way of life, we should think for a minute about the people he was teaching this new way of life to. Even if the people had been from Russia, Britain, China, or India, they would have all had rules about how to live already. So any teacher coming with a new way of life would be saying that there was something wrong with the old way of life. The new would, in time, destroy the old. This would be true in any country. But for us, not being Jews, it would be possible (but not easy) to think that the teacher only wanted to change the rules of our country, and the way that we act. We could think that he did not want to destroy the rules of our religion. This was not possible in Israel. The Jews had only one book of rules. It covered all that they did, and they believed that it was all from God. If a preacher came saying that the Jewish book of rules was the right one, there was nothing more that the preacher could preach. His or her one job would be to teach people to obey the Jewish book of rules.
If this is not enough to prove that Christ was not saying the Jewish book of rules was the right one, but was, in truth, going against the law of Moses by teaching the higher law of God, then ask yourself this question. Who were Christ's enemies? Who hated his teachings? Whose High Priest had him killed? Who were these people that he called "teachers of the law"? If Christ was teaching the law of Moses, and these people were following the law of Moses, why didn't they receive him? And if they were just a few bad Jews who had moved away from the law of Moses, then where are the people who did believe the law of Moses? Can it be that not one Jew believed and tried to follow the law of Moses? Can it be that not one Jew was happy to hear someone teaching the law of Moses?
It was the people who believed in the law of Moses, who studied the law of Moses, who taught the law of Moses, and who protected the law of Moses, that saw Christ as their enemy. And they saw him as their enemy because he was bringing in a new law to take the place of their old one. He wanted people to stop following the old law so they could follow the new one.
We are so used to thinking that it was a small group of bad people called Pharisees who killed Jesus, that the thought never comes into our heads as to where the good Jews were through all of this. But the Pharisees were the good Jews. And they understood that Jesus was coming to change, if not destroy, their law and their religion.
Any teacher – good or bad, God or man – coming to a people who say that they have the law of God and that it covers every part of their life, must think very seriously about how his or her teaching is going to fit in with the teachings that people already have in that place.
If the teacher wants to give the law of God to the people, and the people already have a law that they believe to be the law of God, then the teacher must talk about their law in two ways. Jesus did this. He agreed in some ways that the law of God could be found in the law of Moses, but he also had to disagree at times with "their law" or "your law" as he called it. It was important for Jesus to use "law" in both ways, and to teach the people to understand the difference if he was to help them to change.
Every smart preacher will use those parts of the people's law that fit in with what he or she is saying, and work from there to turn the people toward the new truth that is not in their law. Christ did this over and over with the Jews, who used the same word, torah, for both the eternal law and for the law of Moses. He did it a little with the law of Moses, and even more with the prophets, like Isaiah, pointing to sayings from Isaiah that agreed with what he was saying. The Jewish teaching to love God and others was the bottom line in his teaching. He often pointed out that it was part of the eternal law of God. In Luke 10:26 he asked a Jew, "What does the law say? How do you read it?" He was saying that in the Law of Moses there are eternal truths if you read it in the right way.
In Matthew 13:52, after using many stories to show the meaning of his new teaching, Christ said, "Every person who wants to understand the law [of God] is like a person who owns a house with both old and new things in it." The Church teachers agree that Christ was talking about truths from the law of Moses being mixed with his new teachings; but, without any good reason for doing so, they also say that everything that is in the old law is the perfect Word of God. Why do they do this, when it is clear that the real meaning is that a smart person will not throw away things just because they are old. Christ did not throw away the eternal truths that were there in the old law; but when it came to the old law as a whole, he said that you could not put new wine into old bottles because the new wine would destroy the old bottles. Instead of taking it the way Christ said it, a teaching has come into the Church that has been used to make all that Christ said just a "dream" if it does not fit in with the old law.
| When it comes to the old law as a whole… the new wine will destroy the old bottles. |
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From a short time after the time of Constantine to the present, the Church has been teaching that Christ did not say anything that went against the law of Moses. But how can they say that? How can the law of Christ be joined with the law of Moses? No answer comes to these questions. All that we get are word games. We are told that Christ the Person is the perfect answer to the law of Moses, but when it comes to Christ the teacher, the law of Moses always wins out and Christ's teachings are turned around.
What has happened is not an honest accident. It is part of a clear plan with a clear end in mind. It was needed, and it is clear why it was needed. Here is what St. John Chrysostom says about those Christians who would not follow the law of Moses:
They argue against the law of Moses because it tells us to take an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. They say, "How can we be good and teach this?" But the eye for an eye teaching is the highest law of love. God made this law to put fear into people who hurt others… If he could not control them through good will, fear would keep them from hurting others.
If this is cruel, it is also cruel to put a killer in prison or to punish a person for adultery. Only the craziest person would say this is wrong. Where they say he is cruel for telling us to take an eye for an eye, we say that he would be cruel not to give us this law.
This church expert believed that a law opposite to the law of Moses (that is, Christ's teaching not to hit back) would be wrong, crazy, and cruel. He said it was God who told us to hit back. But we are told by His Son not to hit back. We must follow one or the other. The Church in general chooses the "Father" (Moses), and does not believe the Son (Christ).
Christ went against the law of Moses; he gave a new law with important changes. Anyone following Christ will simply choose to forget about Moses and follow Christ. And anyone following Moses, as the Jews do, will simply choose to forget about Christ and follow Moses. There is only a problem for those who say they follow Christ, but who choose to live by the law of Moses. They will say that they believe both, but when forced to choose, they will always side with Moses and against Christ. If people will look at this closely, they will see a serious war going on here between the forces of evil and the forces of good; and we must choose which side to be on.
Christ came to the Jews, a people with rules for all that they did. All of the rules came with the words "God said to Moses" on them. For these people, the words "God said to Moses" made the rules perfect; they could never change. They believed that everything God said to Moses was an eternal law for all the world. So what was Christ (or any other teacher) to do if he wanted to teach new truth without making the people too angry? He would take the best rules and mix them with his own rules to show a better way. Because God really was talking to Moses and their prophets, there would be much that he could use; he would not need to destroy everything.
But, because the people believed the law was equal and perfect in all parts, the law would still be broken. Because Christ had thought to change the law, he was taken before the courts for breaking what the people believed was the law of God, and for this he was killed.
Then the followers of Jesus buried his teachings under other teachings. Instead of saying "God said to Moses," the church experts made it sound like "God said to us" that Jesus did not mean what he said. Because everyone was afraid to question what "God said", the spirit of what God really was saying was lost again. And what is most surprising is that it was lost through a teaching that took us back to the very law that Christ came to change in the first place. The law of Moses is lifted up again and said to be the perfect Word of God for all time. And the end effect is that the teachings of Christ have been brought down to being nothing.
This is why, after eighteen hundred years, finding what Christ said came to me and to all those around me as such a new thing. I had to do what anyone must do to find the eternal law of God now; I had to cut away all the other vines that had been growing over it… vines that everyone was trying to say were also the eternal law of God.