Wednesday, February 9, 2011

The Old Testament Laws are obsolete?

I have had several people quote me the following verses as reasons why the commandments of the Old Testament are obsolete.

Mat 22:34 But the Pharisees, having heard that He had silenced the Sadducees, were gathered together,
Mat 22:35 and one of them, one learned in the Torah, did question, trying Him, and saying,
Mat 22:36 “Teacher, which is the great command in the Torah?”
Mat 22:37 And יהושע said to him, “ ‘You shall love יהוה your Elohim with all your heart, and with all your being, and with all your mind.’
Mat 22:38 “This is the first and great command.
Mat 22:39 “And the second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’
Mat 22:40 “On these two commands hang all the Torah and the Prophets.”

(The following is a friend's response which I wanted to share)

"In my opinion someone who uses this as an argument against Torah is not being honest with the language. What does it mean on these two commandments "hang" all the law and the prophets?

If we use a simile we could say that to hang the Torah ...and the Prophets is like hanging a dress on a manikin. Why do we hang a dress on a manikin? So that we can tell what the dress looks like when someone wears.

Or we could say hanging the Torah and prophets was like having muscles on our skeleton. What does that do? It causes us to be able to stand upright and makes our muscles much more accurate and useful.

What would our skeleton be without the muscle? A pile of bones.

What would our muscles look like without the skeleton? A big blob.

Without the love of the two great commandment the Torah and the prophets have no real definition or meaning?

Without the Torah and prophets the two great commandments have no power?

The two great commandment were made to go with the Torah and the prophets. The are integrally entwined.

There is a Christian song that says "Lord we praise you because of who you are. Not because of all the mighty works you've done". My question would be, "Who would YHVH be without His mighty works? Would any of us be saved if he was just a great guy, but never acted on His greatness?"

Just the same love without the commandments is meaningless. Faith without works is dead."


I do not believe for one second that the laws of the OT are done away with because of this passage. The Pharisees were asking what were the greatest commandments, not what were the only commandments. Big difference!

1 comment: