Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Law To Become Void (part 2)

It becomes clear that Jesus is insisting that those to whom He is directing His discourse, perhaps along with those within range of hearing Him, have not been faithful to the true purpose of the law, which was (among other things) to mark Israel out as God’s covenant people, so that they could be a light to the nations in reflection of their God’s glory, in a way that would cause all peoples to want to seek out and know and serve the Creator God of Israel. 

Through His parables and their explanations, as provided in the Gospel narratives, Jesus indicates that the Pharisees and the experts in the law (with the people that they represented and influenced in tow) had been unfaithful to the purpose of the law, using it dishonestly and inappropriately.  It appears that many men of influence used the law as a way to keep Israel separate from all nations and to block those who found themselves outside of the covenant due to nothing more than race, ethnicity, or national origin, from entering into the covenant so as to enjoy its blessings that would be had by keeping to the way of being human prescribed by what was understood to be Israel’s divinely given law.  When measured against the big picture of Scripture and Israel’s story, this would have clearly run contrary to the Creator God’s promise to Abraham, which included the blessing of all peoples through his seed, presumably in the same way that Abraham himself was believed to have been blessed by his covenant God. 

The law had been, for Israel, an astounding gift of God’s grace.  It was taken to be a revelation of the expectations of a people’s god, showing them how to live and how to by truly human, with this standing in striking contrast to the capriciousness and seemingly arbitrary expectations of the gods of the people that surrounded Israel.  By its very receipt, the tribal nation of Israel was blessed above all peoples, receiving direct revelation from their God, with the knowledge of how to serve and please Him, and by extension how to serve the whole of the creation and humanity. 

As a sign of their acceptance of the law, and the grace and beneficence of their God that was signaled by that law, Israel was given covenant markers that consisted of not worshiping idols, of reverencing God’s sanctuary, honoring the Sabbaths, and the continuing rite of circumcision, which, along with a trusting allegiance to the Creator God (faith), was the original covenant marker that had been required of Abraham and his household.  These would mark them out and delineate Israel as the Creator God’s chosen people---chosen for the purpose of representing their Creator to His creation. 

By Jesus’ day, these covenant markers had been reduced down and were primarily demonstrated in the keeping of food and purity laws, honoring the Sabbath, and bearing the mark of circumcision.  Reverencing the sanctuary was fairly commonplace (perhaps even overdone), and, at least as it would appear in the historical records, idolatry was not an issue in the Israel of Jesus’ day.  These three things (purity laws, Sabbath-keeping, circumcision) were commonly referred to in that day as the “works of the law,” were representative of what had previously been a slightly different list, and now stood for living according to their God’s law. 


A person could hold to many traditions, customs, and laws, but if one was not holding to these main things, the powers-that-be generally presumed that such a person was outside of the covenant.  Consequently, said person was looked upon as a sinner---perhaps even as less than human.  Ironically, not living up to the requirements of the covenant did indeed, when measured against the purpose of the law and its relation to the covenant and its God, did mean that one was less than human, but Jesus’ response to those that were holding some as such surely indicates that He did not share their particular application and interpretation of what constituted the bounds of true humanity.   

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