The Law

You're most likely familiar with the Ten Commandments in the Bible stuff we generally take as good advice don't murder, don't steal, honor your parents the list goes on and those are just the first 10 they're actually a total of six hundred and thirteen commands all given to ancient Israel found in the first five books of the Bible which in hebrew are called the torah now the word Torah is usually translated in english as the law because it has all of these laws in it as you read through them you wonder am I supposed to obey some of these all of these and what's the purpose of the law well that translation is kind of confusing because while the torah has laws in it the book itself is fundamentally a story about how God is creating new kinds of people who are fully able to love God and love others and when Jesus taught about the torah he said he was bringing that story to its fulfillment. So walk me through the story and how it's fulfilled. So the story begins with God creating humanity who rebels and God chooses Abraham to bless all of the nations through his family who end up in slavery down in Egypt and so Guard rescues them then at Mount Sinai God makes a covenant with Israel like an agreement and all the laws that Moses gives to Israel are the terms of that agreement they're like a constitution. So some of the laws they are about rituals and customs that set Israel apart from the nation other laws are about social justice or morality and by following these Israel would show the other nations what God is like. Okay so the rest of the Torah is just the complete list of laws that Moses gives Israel? No, the rest of the Torah just continues the story and the six hundred and thirteen commands are only a selection from that original Constitution and even these have been broken up and placed at strategic points within the story now pay attention because you'll see a really clear pattern Moses gives the first laws to Israel. Don't worship other gods and don't make idols and then right after that there's a story of Israel breaking those very laws they worship the golden calf and so Moses gives some more laws and then you get more stories of rebellion. Some more laws, rebellion again, more laws more rebellion and you start to see the point right no matter how many laws they're just gonna continue to rebel. So at the conclusion of the torah's story of Moses gives this final speech to Israel as they prepared to go into their new home and he tells them you guys I know that you're not going to follow all of God's laws you've proven to me that you're incapable and Moses says the problem is that the hearts are hard and that they're going to need new transformed hearts if they're ever going to truly follow God's law and he was right to me the story goes on to recount Israel's total failure. They go into the land they break all the laws. Right now the next section of books in the Jewish tradition are the fifteen books of the Prophets and they reflect back on the story for example Ezekiel he said that if Israel is ever going to obey the law God's Spirit would have to transform their hard hearts into soft hearts and Jeremiah said that's when obedience to God's commands wouldn't feel like a duty that they would be written deep in their hearts and Isaiah he promised a future leader Israel's Messiah who will lead all of the people in obedience to the law. Now in Jewish tradition all of these books together are called the prophets even historical books because they're continuing the story told from the perspective of the profits ok so we have the law and the prophets and they're telling one connected story about God's desire to bless the whole world through a people Israel who it turns out needs a new heart yes and Jesus saw himself as continuing that story so he agreed with the law and the prophets when he taught that it's out of the human heart that come the most ugly parts of human nature is like the default setting of our hearts is opposed to God's law but Jesus also said that he came to solve that problem and in his words to fulfill the law. So what does he mean there to fulfill the law? Well, first he said that the demand of all of the laws in the Torah could be fulfilled by what he called the great command, that we are to love God and love others. So that seems pretty easy I mean we all want to love. Well, we think we want to love, but Jesus showed how love this far more demanding than we realize. So he quotes the law do not murder and he says yes not killing someone is very loving thing to do, but then he also says that when you treat someone with disrespect or when you nurse resentment against them you're also violating God's moral ideal because you're not treating that person with love. So Jesus said true love ought to extend even to our own enemies so even though this command seems very simple Jesus showed how our hearts are not currently equipped to fulfill even this basic command of God to love others. And that's kind of a downer. But where Israel failed Jesus brought the story to it's fulfillment as Israel's Messiah he fully loved God and others and he showed all of the nation's what God is truly like. He did this through his acts of compassion and mercy and ultimately by loving his enemies even unto death and after his resurrection he told his followers that he would send God's Spirit to transform their hearts so that they could follow him and fulfill the purpose of the law to love God and to love their neighbor. So this fulfills the story of the law and the prophets. Or, in the words of the Apostle Paul the one who loves fulfills the law. This video was made possible by over 1,300 people who chipped in and most of those are monthly givers to the Bible project thank you guys so much! We make a lot of videos like this one the trace a biblical theme from the beginning to the end of Scripture we're also making videos about every book of the Bible helping you learn about its design and overall message we're committed to keeping these videos free and we're able to do that because of your support if you want to see more videos and other resources we have good to www.jointhebibleproject.com

Channel: BibleProject

Views: 2,255,139

Rating: 4.9380894 out of 5

Keywords: Torah (Religious Text), Moses (Religious Leader), Mount Sinai (Mountain), Ten Commandments (Religious Text), The Bible (Religious Text), New Heart, The Great Commandment, Law and Prophets, Commandments

Id: 3BGO9Mmd_cU

Length: 6min 0sec (360 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 12 2015

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