Click on the above link to review the blog, “Fulfilled”. See previous post “blog Fulfilled” for additional responses.
Pastor John,
Reading this makes me wonder, then, how it was acceptable for any Jew who received the holy Ghost baptism to continue in Moses’ Law. I always understood the reason to be that it was acceptable because for a time, tactically speaking, it was easier to spread the gospel amongst the Jews when early converts did not have to convince them also of Jesus’ fulfillment of Moses Law. However the point you make in this blog, especially the point that “his fulfilling the law proved beyond all question that the law was from God,” to me at least, feels that permitting Jews to continue living by the Law is a denial of Jesus’s fulfillment of it. It feels to me a bigger deal than, for example, believing in the Trinity while honoring Jesus as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Seems to fall more into the essential bucket to me.
Michael D.
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Thanks for the thoughts, Michael.
God was very gentle and patient with His beloved nation of Israel, granting them some time to adjust to the great change from the Old Testament church(temple)-based religion to the New Testament’s Spirit-based religion. I can see your point, that to continue in a church-based religion after the Spirit came denied that Christ had fulfilled the law, and that is undeniably true. But God. He is so tender when it comes to human hearts, and He knew how hard it would be for the Jews to make an immediate, clean break with the past, principally because they KNEW that God commanded Israel to obey the law or be damned.
You see the spiritual weakness of ancient Jewish believers who were unable to leave the law behind and worship God only “in Spirit and in truth. But there are similar instances in the Old Testament of God showing unlawful mercy and great forbearance, such as the following:
- God did not condemn David and his desperate men when they ate the bread which the law allowed no one but God’s priests to eat.
- God did not have David executed after his murder of Uriah and adultery with Bathsheba, even though the law demanded no mercy be shown in such cases.
- Naaman the Syrian general was permitted by God to kneel in a heathen temple whenever the Syrian king required him to.
- God forgave the Israelites who ignorantly disobeyed the law when they failed to prepare for the Passover feast that King Hezekiah had prepared. In fact, instead of punishing them, God even healed them.
So, yes, it is a reproach to God’s Son for believers to continue worshipping in ceremonies as if the Son had never come to earth and suffered and died to provide the Spirit and purge our conscience from dead works. But God is very patient. He gives people time to grow in grace and to grow in the knowledge of the truth. As David said, “He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor has he recompensed us according to our iniquities.”
After God poured out His Spirit on the Jews in Acts 2, He gave Jewish believers several years to grow in the Spirit. Then, He raised up Paul and anointed him to fully explain what the Son had accomplished and to declare that the Son’s glory so far exceeded the law that the law had no more glory at all, and no more purpose.
I am thankful that we understand that, Michael. It is a gift to us from our heavenly Father. As Paul said, “Thanks be to God for His unspeakable gift!”
May God help us walk worthy of His wonderful Son.
Pastor John
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This is good! I now have a better understanding of what it means that Jesus fulfilled the Law. So thankful Jesus has opened the eyes of our hearts to see these things. On the way to Savannah yesterday, the glory of God filled my car, and I was overwhelmed with thankfulness for what He has shown us. I said out loud, “I love the fellowship I have with Paul!” While I may not completely understand everything Paul writes, we share the same feelings, and I know his gospel is the Truth. I want that fellowship with all of God’s children! Blogs like this one are the perfect antidote for the poison that’s being fed to them in Christianity. I hope someone who reads this will begin to question what they’ve always been taught and begin to seek the truth.
Lee Ann
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