Paul's perspective on the law

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.  I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.  Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.  For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.”

- Matthew 5:17-20

Reading the scriptures can be confusing at times.  In the above verse, Yeshua himself says that he has not come to abolish the law and that those “who break one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be the least in the kingdom of heaven.” But we all know from reading the letters Paul wrote that we are saved by grace and therefore we are not under the law.  We can read this in several ways, and I am not here to debate the scriptures, but to give a different perspective.

Judith and I went to a party, not long before we got married, where we met a young Jewish girl who was having a hard time understanding exactly what Messianic Judaism was.  We tried to explain, that since Jesus was Jewish, it only made sense that we live a Jewish lifestyle.  To which she replied, “If you want to believe that Jesus was Jewish, that’s your problem.”  Judith and I were both speechless, but unfortunately, there are actually people out there that don’t know Yeshua was Jewish.  Perhaps this is because Christianity seems so different from Judaism.  Yet, early Christianity was considered a sect of Judaism, so how did the two religions become so different?

Many people read the book of Acts as a history of the early church.  The first non-Jewish believer, Cornelius, doesn’t enter the book until chapter 10, and the Jews weren’t exactly sure what to do with him.  After hearing Peter’s story of how these uncircumcised Gentiles were baptized in the Holy Spirit, the other Apostles and brothers from Judea praise God saying (Acts 11:18), “So then, God has granted even the Gentiles repentance unto life.”

As more Gentiles came to faith, some brothers from Judea were teaching (Acts 15:1), “Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved.”  In verse 5, we see this idea repeated from “some of the brothers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees,” who added that the Gentiles should also be required to obey the law of Moses. The decision was made that they should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God, and not to burden them with anything more than abstaining from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality.

We read throughout the rest of the New Covenant how Paul took the Gospel message “first to the Jew, then to the Gentile” preaching first in the synagogues and then to others, in many of the provinces of the Roman Empire in the area of the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas.  It is believed that during Paul’s life, which ended a few years before the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem (Paul is believed to have been martyred around 67 AD while the Temple was destroyed in 70 AD) Christianity was still considered a sect of Judaism, although, as we read in Acts, many Jewish leaders strongly opposed this movement.  Some historians believe there was a power struggle between Pharisaic/Rabbinic Judaism and the followers of Yeshua which eventually lead to the formation of these two separate religions [source needed].

After the destruction of the Temple, and the end of the Jewish revolt, the Roman Emperor Vespasian placed a tax on Jews throughout Roman Empire in place of the “tithe” Jews used to pay for the upkeep of the Temple [source needed].  Domitian expanded the tax during his rule to also include anyone who observed Jewish customs [source needed].  Naturally, Christians petitioned the Emperor to recognize Christianity as a separate religion so they would not have to pay the tax [source needed].  Nerva, Domitian’s successor, limited the tax to those who openly practiced Judaism, allowing Christians to avoid the tax by disassociating themselves from Judaism [source needed].

In 303 AD Christians were again persecuted in the Roman Empire under the Emperor Diocletian [source needed]. Christians pushed themselves further from Judaism at the Synod of Elvira in 306 AD when they banned marriages, sexual relations and community contact between Christians and Jews [source needed].  In 313 AD Emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Milan officially recognizing Christianity as a separate religion.  Finally at the First Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, the complete separation was made official when the church declared; “we desire dearest brethren, to separate ourselves from the detestable company of the Jews.” 

Part 2

While Judith and I were dating, we attended a college and career group.  The teaching one night, perhaps for our benefit, was on the question of differentiating between the “law” and “sin.” A leader of the group explained the law could be separated into different categories; moral law (as in the ten commandments), ceremonial law (as in the sacrifices) and civil law (as in an eye for an eye).  He argued that Yeshua and others who uphold obedience to the law were referring to moral law, while Paul, in arguing against the law, was referring to the ceremonial and perhaps the civil law. Perhaps, but that really ignores who Paul was.

Who was Paul?  In Acts 22: 3, Paul says; “I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city.  Under Gamaliel I was thoroughly trained in the law of our fathers and was just as zealous for God as any of you are today.”  Paul was a Pharisee.  As I mentioned in my earlier post, Judges, Pharisees and Rabbinut, during the first century, there were two types of law in Israel, the written Law, or the Mosaic Law, and the Oral Law, which would become the Rabbinic Law.  The Pharisees believed that their interpretation of the Mosaic Law, through the Oral Law which had been handed down to them, was to be held in higher regard than the scriptures themselves, for without the rabbinic interpretation, the meaning of the scriptures is unclear.  As Christians have separated themselves from Judaism over the centuries, they also separated themselves from the rabbinic law as we are told from the scriptures not to be under the law, which coming from a Pharisee would mean, not to be under the law of the Pharisees.

Take a look at what Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 9:19-21: “For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law.”  Here, Paul specifies that he is outside of the law, “not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ."

Popular thinking is that Paul is referring to Jews when he refers to “those under the law.”  But if you read this as a Pharisee living in the first century (as Paul was), you read those under the law as those who live according to the interpretations of the Pharisees.  Remember, the Pharisees were not the only religious leaders at the time, there were also the Sadducees who believed the Law of Moses should be read literally, and does not need the interpretation of the oral law.

It is written in Matthew that Yeshua says “not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.”  There are no pen strokes in the oral law, a point which surely wasn’t lost on the Jews listening to Yeshua.

Christians seem to like to call everything that is “Jewish” living “under the law.”  If you keep any type of kosher, keep Shabbat or celebrate Jewish holy days then you are living under the law.  Although Christians can back up decisions not to keep the above commands with other scripture, I would argue that we cannot just throw away everything Jewish by saying it is living under the law.  I would argue that we are taught not to be under the oral law and the rabbinic interpretation.  That when we read the scriptures, keeping kosher, keeping the Shabbat and celebrating the biblical feasts look very different from what Orthodox Judaism makes these commands look like.  Am I telling you that you need to start keeping kosher, keeping the Shabbat and the biblical feasts? Certainly not as the Orthodox Jews do today.  I would like to see what the scriptures say (Old and New Covenant) about these ideas, but we’ll deal with those scriptures another week.