Did Christ Reform The Law Of Moses?

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You keep saying this, but you don’t address the fact that Christ said that He and His disciples had done that “which was not lawful for him to eat, neither for them which were with him, but only for the priests.” You won’t address the fact that Christ admits that he and His disciples are as “the priests in the temple [ who]profane the sabbath, and are blameless.”

I am not guilty of saying that Christ did “that which is not lawful,” those are the words of Christ concerning the actions of Himself and His disciples. I am not accusing Christ of “profaning the sabbath.” It is He who points out that he and those who were with Him had, like “the priests in the temple, profaned the sabbath and are blameless.” Once again I give you nothing but the scriptures to ponder. I would appreciate some explanation besides “First you must understand that Jesus cannot and did not oppose the Torah. His teaching and life ministry was in complete harmony with the Torah.”

Mat 12:1 At that time Jesus went on the sabbath day through the corn; and his disciples were an hungred, and began to pluck the ears of corn, and to eat.
Mat 12:2 But when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto him, Behold, thy disciples do that which is not lawful to do upon the sabbath day.
Mat 12:3 But he said unto them, Have ye not read what David did, when he was an hungred, and they that were with him; Mat 12:4 How he entered into the house of God, and did eat the shewbread, which was not lawful for him to eat, neither for them which were with him, but only for the priests?
Mat 12:5 Or have ye not read in the law, how that on the sabbath days the priests in the temple profane the sabbath, and are blameless? Mat 12:6 But I say unto you, That in this place is one greater than the temple.
Mat 12:7 But if ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless.
Mat 12:8 For the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day.

Absolutely not. If He were not a reformer, as was Moses, then “He would surely be a false Messiah.” It was Moses himself who God has chosen to let us all know that the words spoken at Sinai, Torah, are not the words of the True Messiah. It is no less than Moses, the giver of Torah, who God has chosen as the prophet who was to foretell the coming of another great reformer who, as Moses puts it, would be “like unto me.” Here is that prophecy. Read it carefully and ask yourself ‘Is this prophet simply going to repeat the word of Sinai?

Deu 18:15 The LORD thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken;
Deu 18:16 According to all that thou desiredst of the LORD thy God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God, neither let me see this great fire any more, that I die not.
Deu 18:17 And the LORD said unto me, They have well spoken that which they have spoken.
Deu 18:18 I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.
Deu 18:19 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him.

Here is Israel’s request which Moses says “They have well spoken that which they have spoken:”

“Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God, neither let me see this great fire any more, that I die not.”

What is God’s response? Is it “OK, I’ll just let you, Moses, hear my words, and you can serve as their mediator, and I will give them ‘the sum of my word’ through you?” Is that what we have here in this prophecy of a coming Moses like reformer? Apparently not:

Deu 18:18 I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.
Deu 18:19 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him.

Does “whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him” sound as if He would simply be explaining the proper way of understanding…

Deu 21:14 And it shall be, if thou have no delight in her, [ your wife] then thou shalt let her go whither she will; but thou shalt not sell her at all for money, thou shalt not make merchandise of her, because thou hast humbled her?

No, of course not, this, “Prophet… like unto thee [ Moses], is to truly be like unto Moses.

Before the time of Moses, any Israelite could build an altar anywhere and make an offering to God. After Moses came this became a capital offense.

Deu 12:13 Take heed to thyself that thou offer not thy burnt offerings in every place that thou seest:
Deu 12:14 But in the place which the LORD shall choose in one of thy tribes, there thou shalt offer thy burnt offerings, and there thou shalt do all that I command thee.

Before Moses, all the money hungry false prophets, notwithstanding, there were no tithes to be paid, no weekly sabbath, no holy days to observe, no tabernacle, and no priesthood. But just as with the offerings, all these Moses and Torah oriented institutions, foreshadowed some facet of our multi- faceted ‘spotless lamb’ ‘high priest and king.’ All these things, in all their details simply foreshadow Christ:

Col 2:17 Which [“clean and unclean “meats,” sacrificial, “drinks,” “holy days,” “new moons,” and : sabbath days”] are [ all] a shadow of things to come; but the body [ casting that shadow] is of Christ.
Heb 8:5 Who [ physical descendants of Aaron] serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things..
Heb 10:1 For the [ entire] law having a shadow of good things to come…

If Israel was as you say, truly “redeemed” and not simply in ‘shadow’ and in “type” ‘redeemed,’ then please explain these verses to me:

Heb 3:17 But with whom [ all but Caleb and Joshua] was he grieved forty years? [ was it] not with them that had sinned, whose carcases fell in the wilderness?
Eze 16:55 When thy sisters, Sodom and her daughters, shall return to their former estate, and Samaria and her daughters shall return to their former estate, then thou and thy daughters shall return to your former estate.

Now you know what Paul meant by “the fulness of the Gentiles,” (Rom 11:25).

Rom 11:26 And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob.

This is so because:

Rom 11:29 For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.

But the time table for these events is not what our Torah- oriented Christianity of today teaches. The truth about “if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?” (Rom 11:15), is that “the receiving of them” is “When thy sisters, Sodom and her daughters, shall return to their former estate, and Samaria and her daughters shall return to their former estate, then thou and thy daughters shall return to your former estate” (Eze 16:55). All the resentment in the world against these scriptures, all the false accusations of “anti- semitism,” does not change the truth they reveal.

The Truth still is “and if ye be Christ’s [ that great reformer], then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (Gal 3:29).

“The same system of comparison?”

With Christ’s own words backed up with the prophecies of Moses himself, I demonstrate that the new covenant is “Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers,” (Heb 8:9), that even a “piece that [ is] taken out of the new agreeth not with the old” (Luk 5:36), but is in every way superior to Moses and the old covenant. To refute these plain scriptures, you present the words of Christ in such a way as to make them appear inferior to Moses and Torah.

As Paul and Christ say “both [ must be] preserved” (Luk 5:38).

Luk 5:38 But new wine must be put into new bottles; and both are preserved.
Rom 3:31 Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish [ preserve] the law.

(To understand the subject of ‘the law of Moses,’ and its scriptural function in relation to ‘the law of the Spirit,’ see ‘The Law of Moses Versus The Law of The Spirit,’ on this web page.)

The ‘law of Moses’ will always be instrumental in bring us all, generation by generation, to Christ “before faith comes.” “But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.” (Gal 3:25).

So ‘the law’ is ‘preserved’ and ‘established’ as our generation by generation schoolmaster to “bring [‘carnal’ Christians] to Christ, at which point it is “done away” in Christ and “we are no longer under a schoolmaster.”

In all due respect and in brotherly love, I must say that you demonstrate the truth of Christ’s warning to the disciples of John the baptist and the disciples of the Pharisees, when He warned, “No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith, The old is better” (Luk 5:39). It is not better, rather:

Gal 4:1 Now I say, That the heir, as long as he is a child [ under the old schoolmaster], differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all;
Gal 4:2 But is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father.
Gal 4:3 Even so we, when we were [“carnal… babes in Christ, immature] children [ Greek- nepios- immature, as opposed to huios- mature], were in bondage under the elements of the world [“the law… not made for a righteous man but for the lawless” (1Ti 1:9)]:
Gal 4:4 But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law [ that is made flesh],
Gal 4:5 To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons [ Greek- huios- mature sons. We cannot “receive the adoption of sons,” so long as we are still “under the law.”].

Hundreds of years before the very first official ‘Catholic’ ever appeared on the scene, the apostle John distanced himself from Judaism, calling the Passover and the Feast of Tabernacles “feasts of the Jews.” Why did he not refer to them as ‘God’s holy days?’ It was a very zealous Jew named ‘Saul of Tarsus’ who wrote “Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law… [ and] Jerusalem which now is… is in bondage [ to the law] with her children” (Gal 4:25).

Without comment I give you Torah:

Deu 19:16 If a false witness rise up against any man to testify against him that which is wrong;
Deu 19:17 Then both the men, between whom the controversy is, shall stand before the LORD, before the priests and the judges, which shall be in those days;
Deu 19:18 And the judges shall make diligent inquisition: and, behold, if the witness be a false witness, and hath testified falsely against his brother;
Deu 19:19 Then shall ye do unto him, as he had thought to have done unto his brother: so shalt thou put the evil away from among you.
Deu 19:20 And those which remain shall hear, and fear, and shall henceforth commit no more any such evil among you.
Deu 19:21 And thine eye shall not pity; but life shall go for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.

“You shall do unto him as he had thought to have done unto his brother… thine eye shall not pity but life shall go for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.” Sounds more like retribution than restitution. Are we to believe that what is really being said here is “Then he shall restore unto his brother as he had thought to have done unto his brother?” I don’t think that is the point. The phrase “and those which remain shall hear, and fear, and shall henceforth commit no more any such evil among you” just doesn’t follow such an interpretation.

To follow Deu 19:16-21 would instill a fear of death. Were the Pharisees looking for restitution from the woman caught in adultery? If Christ had such a high regard for Torah, why did He not say ‘Bring in the man you caught her with and let’s get this stoning under way as Torah requires?’:

Lev 20:10 And the man that committeth adultery with [ another] man’s wife, [ even he] that committeth adultery with his neighbour’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.

You are not fighting me. The words that bother you are the words of Christ:

Joh 8:7 So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. [ Where are these words to be found in Torah?]
Joh 8:8 And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground.
Joh 8:9 And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.
Joh 8:10 When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee?
Joh 8:11 She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more. [ Does this sound like Torah] I think this is ‘new wine’ and ‘new cloth.’

When it comes to the hypocrisy of Christianity, you will get no argument from me. But ‘do unto others as you would have them to do unto you’ is better than anything you will find in Torah.

Every time Christ said, ‘you have heard it said by them of old time,’ He is talking specifically about Torah. Must I walk you through them? If I must, just ask.

Christ is talking to His disciples:

Mat 5:1 And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him:
Mat 5:2 And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying,

Did Christ fulfill the prophecies concerning His first coming? Of course he did! Are we to continue to prophesy the first coming of Christ? Of course not; “it is finished.”

Has Christ fulfilled the entire sacrificial system? Yes, He has. Are we to continue to sacrifice?

Is Christ our circumcision? Should we continue to circumcise?

The verse you accuse me of ignoring is:

Mat 5:17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.

In the next verse Christ makes this statement:

Mat 5:18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.

Do you see that? “Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.”

If your understanding of this verse is correct then Torah would be the law “till heaven and earth pass.”

Now notice this stern warning that comes in the very next verse:

Mat 5:19 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

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