John,
🙂
In listening to the Sermon this morning I have often pondered when this scripture is quoted Ac 15:10.
Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?”
When this was spoken was it because things which were not of the Law were mixed in even for the disciples? My thinking is God wouldn’t have given a Law which couldn’t be followed.
What is missing about how I am thinking about this?
The thought about the new covenant doesn’t clear it up for me completely, why would a new covenant needed if the first was perfect. But now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises.
Wendell
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Hi Wendell
I think I understand what you are asking. If, for example, John the Baptist’s parents “walked before the Lord blameless, in all the statutes and commandments of the Lord”, then how could Peter call the law of Moses a yoke that the Jews were unable to bear? This is an interesting question, and one that has entered my mind often. I have an idea as to where the answer lies, so I will take a shot at it.
Paul pointed out that the law could not bring anyone to perfection, even though it was a holy and good law. To keep the details of the law was possible, but the point is that even at that, we fell short of the righteousness of God. Because of our sinful nature, it often happened that those who kept the law assiduously fell victim to pride against those who did not keep the law so well. In that case, as Paul explained in Romans 7, what was good (the law) actually worked against us because the better we kept it, the more ungodly we became (on the inside).
I think the requirement on the Jews to keep the law in spite of the law’s inadequacy was the burden, the “yoke”, to which Peter was referring. As holy and good as the law was, it still could not deliver us from our sinful nature, and in some cases, because of our proud spirits, keeping keeping the law even made us less like God than we were before.
jdc