Judaizers finding it so hard to accept that God no longer requires His people to keep the Mosaic Law

Why do you suppose the Judaizers found it so hard to accept that God no longer required his people to keep the law he had given to Moses? (Galatians 2:11-21)

Many Jews we meet still find it impossible to believe that God would no longer expect us to keep all 613 commandments.

The law is considered fulfilled, because Jesus is the end of the law.  He doesn’t abolish the law, but fulfils the law.  The law is still very useful to help us understand ourselves and our desperate need of Jesus, but we are no longer required to follow it as a body of law.

For many the law is impossible to keep, because we are sinners.  If one sins, he breaks the law and is cursed by the law.  Galatians 3:10:

For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written,

“Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.”

Even Jesus was cursed by the law. Galatians 3:13-14:

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us–for it is written,

“Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree“

– so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.

Today, we are privileged and blessed to be able to live and serve under the law of liberty.  Romans 8:2-4:

For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

The Jewish believers in New Testament times had grown up with the Law of Moses. It was the structure through which they had learned to worship God, and the framework for their relationship with God. To have that suddenly removed would have been very difficult for them to understand as they needed to learn to worship God in new ways.

Everyone is attached to the religion they were taught as children, and it is always hard to change even when you know that change is necessary and your new understanding is correct.

The book of Galatians was written to correct the false teaching that Christians needed to keep the law of Moses. It is full of instructions on this issue. Here are some examples.

Galatians 2:15-16
We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; 16 yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.

Galatians 3:24-26
So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. 25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, 26 for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.

Galatians 4:9-11
But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more? 10 You observe days and months and seasons and years! 11 I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain.

Galatians 5:1-4
For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. 2 Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. 3 I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. 4 You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace.

Those who want to follow Christ, whether or not being a Jew, must carefully consider what laws they want to follow. One can safely live according to the Jewish rules of life or the Mosaic Law, but then one has to live that whole law and not just take out pieces that fit in the water that one wants to enter.

Next: How many laws are spoken of in the New Testament?

Stay in Freedom

Shi Said

Isn’t freedom great!  We can live where we want, go to school where we want, and work where we want.  We can marry whom we choose.  We can choose how we would like to entertain ourselves and what we want to feed ourselves.  We have so many choices for so many different things.  Freedom gives us the opportunity to choose without there being persecution.  I am not saying that there aren’t times when negative things happen, but for the most part, freedom works in our favor.

However, sometimes freedom can be overwhelming.  It often involves you getting out of your comfort zone or leaving behind what feels familiar.  Look at the children of Israel. God brought them out of Egypt and into freedom.  They had to leave behind what was familiar and comfortable to them.  I am not saying that…

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