[Index] [Previous] [Next]
1.3.5 - A History of Christianity in the Apostolic Age
The Origin of Christianity
Jesus - His Framework for Observing the Law
The conditions of entrance into the kingdom of God were phrased by Christ in various form, but a careful analysis of all his utterances upon the subject makes it plain that he regarded as the essential and all-embracing condition the true spirit of sonship toward the father God.
He always laid emphasis upon the heart rather than the external act. The act might by proper and right enough, but it had value in his eyes only as the disposition which prompted it was what it ought to be, only as it was the disposition of a son of God. And so when he summoned men to repentance, as we are told that he did at the very beginning of his career, it was not primarily to a repentance for unrighteous words and deeds, but for the lack at any time and in any degree of the spirit and purpose of the true son.
It is in the light of this fact that Jesus' attitude toward the Jewish law must be interpreted. That law was a divine law to him as truly as to any of his countrymen, and the obedience which he insisted upon as a essential part of the conduct of a true son of God included its observance. As he inculcated the most absolute and thoroughgoing conformity to God's will [Matt. 7:21, Mark 3:35], so he inculcated the most absolute and thoroughgoing conformity to the law, a conformity which should far surpass that of the Pharisees [Matt. 5:17 - sq.].
The trouble with the Pharisees was that they observed the law not too much, but too little. Their boasted righteousness was immeasurably below the standard that Jesus set. Not only in their practices, but also in their precepts, they were far from what they ought to be. They were hypocrites, for they did not practice what they preached [Matt. 13]. They were at the same time blind leaders of the blind, for they taught a false observance of the law, which defeated the very purpose for which it had bee given. [Matt. 15:14, 23:16,24].
A large part of Jesus' energy was devoted to the undoing of the mischief that they had done. It was his great endeavor to interpret the law properly and to show the people what true obedience of it meant. The principle of interpretation he found in love for God and man.
In the word "love" the spirit and conduct of the true son are fully expressed, and in that word the law, which is nothing else than God's revealed will for the government of his children's lives, may be comprehensively summed up. [Matt. 22:37].
But the application of that principle meant an entire change of emphasis and a new estimate of values. It meant that the external rites and ceremonies, which constituted so large a part of the Jewish law, were not an end in themselves, but only a means to a higher end. Those rites and ceremonies had value only because they expressed and promoted the true attitude of a man toward God and his fellows.
Jesus did not mean that the external rites and ceremonies were to be neglected, but that they were to be used as aids and instruments only, and that they were therefore to be subordinated, whenever they came in conflict with them, to the weightier matters of the law, to judgment and mercy and faith. [Matt. 23:23 -- Cf. Luke 11:42, Matt. 5:23, Mark 7:10, sq.]
This principle made it possible for Jesus to exercise a large measure of liberty in connection with the law, while at the same time maintaining its divine character and inculcating its faithful observance. [See Matt. 17:26, Mark 2:27 sq. and parallels].
That Jesus anticipated that the law would ever be done away there is no sign. He saw no inconsistency between it and the exercise of love toward God and man, and it perhaps never occurred to him that the time would yet come for its abrogation.
He certainly observed it faithfully himself, and he spoke and acted in such a way that his disciples did not think of any other course as legitimate or possible.
Used by permission of the publisher.
[Index] [Previous] [Next]