FORGIVENESS, OLD TESTAMENT STYLE

While there is a lot in the Old Testament about God forgiving Israel, I was surprised that I could not locate a single verse directing the Israelites to forgive one another.

Yes, there is a lot about Israel’s responsibility to care for the alien and even their enemies. For example:

·       “If you meet your enemy’s ox or his donkey going astray, you shall bring it back to him. If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying down under its burden, you shall refrain from leaving him with it; you shall rescue it with him.” (Exodus 23:4-5; ESV)

·       “When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.” (Leviticus 19:33-34)

However, not a word about forgiving one another as God had forgiven them! How amazing! It is as if God purposely left this essential provision out. But why? Perhaps because the basis of forgiveness - the Savior – had not yet been revealed, and that forgiveness was being reserved so that the Messiah would receive all the glory.

Indeed, in contrast with the Old, the New Testament glories in forgiveness – the forgiveness of God towards humanity and how it should trickle down to our neighbors.

To God Be the Glory!

IF WE ARE NO LONGER UNDER THE LAW OF MOSES, DO WE NEED TO OBEY IT?

Are we to obey the Law of Moses? From one perspective, the answer would seem to be “no,” since we are no longer under the Law:

·       For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. (Romans 10:4; ESV)

However, even though we are no longer under the Law, this does not settle the question. Why not? For one thing, the New Testament often quotes from the Law as if it is still normative for us. Here is just one small example:

·       Every charge must be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. (2 Corinthians 13:1; referencing Deuteronomy 19:15)

Besides, the New Covenant does not legalize crimes like murder and adultery. In fact, it seems that the teachings of Jesus embody much of the wisdom of the Mosaic Covenant like:

·       But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. (Matthew 5:28)

We therefore are left perplexed. It seems that we are no longer under the Law but it also seems that we still have to obey it. And this perplexity is not new. Manfred T. Brauch, formerly a professor of biblical theology, had commented of Romans 10:4:

·       This radical word about Christ as the end of the law—and similar expressions in other letters of Paul—have been the object of intense discussion throughout the history of the church. (“Hard Sayings of Paul,” IVP, 1989, 56)

Brauch is correct. Paul had often taught that we are no longer under the Law. Here are just a few references:

·       For he himself is our peace…abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace. (Ephesians 2:14-15)

·       But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code. (Romans 7:6)

·       And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. (Colossians 2:13-14)

However, Paul wasn’t alone in insisting that the Law had come to an end. James also suggested that we are now under a new regime, the “law of liberty”:

·       For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. (James 2:10-12; also see Hebrews 8:13)

Although James was not as direct as Paul in declaring the Law null and void, he suggested that we are no longer under the Mosaic Law. Jesus was even more cryptic about this:

·       “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. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.” (Matthew 5:17-18)

When was the Law “fulfilled” and “accomplished?” When Jesus proclaimed “It is finished” on the Cross” and the veil, which had separated us from the symbolic presence of God within the Holy of Holies was torn in two indicating that God’s plan had been accomplished. The way had been opened for us to boldly come into the presence of God.

Jesus had been secretly preparing for this moment all along:

·       And he said to them, “Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.) (Mark 7:18-19)  

In contrast, under the Mosaic Law, certain foods and external contacts would make us unclean. However, Jesus revealed that these laws were only symbolic and, therefore, temporary. Consequently, Mark commented, “Thus he declared all foods clean.”

Besides, Jesus initiated the New Covenant:

·       And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the [New] covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” (Matthew 26:27-28)

Under the New Covenant, sins would now be utterly eradicated (Jeremiah 31:31-34). Under the Mosaic Law, they had been “forgiven” but not eradicated. Consequently, the consciences of the Israelites had never been cleansed, God had never been propitiated, and the Israelites could not enter into His presence (Hebrews 9:13-15; 10:19-23). This was why Jesus came to initiate the New Covenant in place of the Old, which failed to bring about any real forgiveness and cleansing (Malachi 3:1-3; Hebrews 10:5-10).

Clearly, we are no longer under the Mosaic Covenant. Instead:

·       Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. (Romans 7:4)

However, this does not resolve our confusion. It seems that we still must uphold the Mosaic Law:

·       Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law. (Romans 3:31)

But why? We are no longer under the Law. Why then uphold it? At this point, we must make a critical distinction. We are no longer under the Law, but many of the stipulations of the Law are eternal, like not murdering, stealing, or bearing false witness. These laws do not suddenly become irrelevant under the New Covenant. However, now we fulfill them in a new way, by the Spirit:

·       For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death. But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter. (Romans 7:5-6; NASB)

Besides, the new way of following the Lord, we also have been given a new and richer understanding of the Law, illuminated by Jesus:

·       And he [Jesus] said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:37-40)

Notice that these two great commandments do not invalidate the teachings of the Old Covenant. Instead, they summarize them. The Law and the Prophets are all about love, and we still need them to educate us about how love is to be expressed. The Prophets of Israel have shown us that love can take many forms, even through denunciations and the severest of warnings. They also teach how to love God:

·       And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. (Deuteronomy 8:3)

Jesus quoted this against the Devil during His temptation in the desert (Matthew 4:4). According to Jesus, loving God was a matter of living by His every word.

Therefore, the Old Testament remains the Word of God (2 Tim. 3:16-17), even those highly symbolic passages that had been fulfilled by Jesus. However, since they have been fulfilled, we need not follow them as the Israelites had:

·       Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. (Colossians 2:16-17)

Since Jesus is the reality which fulfilled the shadows, we should now focus ourselves on Him. However, studying the shadows brings understanding and confidence in the faith.

Brauch suggests that the Mosaic Law taught salvation by good deeds (by obedience to the Law):

·       [Jesus’] coming signals its [the Mosaic Covenant] end with regard to the attainment of righteousness (that is, right relationship with God). (61)

Instead, we find that no one had ever been declared righteous by their obedience to the Law. Abraham had been considered righteous because he had believed God (Genesis 15:6). King David, perhaps Israel’s most obedient king, found blessedness, not through his own attainments but through the mercy of God (Psalm 32, 51).

In contrast with the hope of attaining our own righteousness (Romans 10:3), the entire Mosaic sacrificial system declared that Israel depended upon the mercy of God. King Solomon affirmed this when he consecrated the Temple:

·       “If they sin against you—for there is no one who does not sin—and you are angry with them and give them to an enemy, so that they are carried away captive to the land of the enemy, far off or near, yet if they turn their heart in the land to which they have been carried captive, and repent and plead with you in the land of their captors, saying, ‘We have sinned and have acted perversely and wickedly’”… (1 Kings 8:46-47)

Israel’s blessedness depended upon the mercy of God through faith/repentance, not their meritorious good deeds, as the Psalms repeated proclaim:

·       If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?...O Israel, hope in the LORD! For with the LORD there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption. And he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities. (Psalm 130:3, 7-8; 143:2)

God would graciously pay the price (redeem) for all of Israel’s sins. Why? This is the only way that any of us could ever make it into heaven.

Consequently, Israel misunderstood their own Scriptures in believing that they could attain the goal by their own virtue:

·       Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone, as it is written, “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.” (Romans 9:31-33)

Israel refused to recognize their sinful and unworthy state and, therefore, thought that they could attain righteousness through their own efforts. For them, the mercy of God and His Messiah were irrelevant.

However, the main purpose of the Law was to lead to the Messiah rather than to prove that we didn’t need one. How?

·       Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. (Galatians 3:23-24)

How would the Law lead us to Christ? By showing us our dire need:

·       Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. (Romans 3:19-20)

If properly understood, the Law should stop any boasting and show us that we are under condemnation (Deuteronomy 27:26) apart from the mercy of God. To not see this is to sinfully repress the truth (Romans 1:18-20). It is also to reject the one hope that God has made available.

Although we are now under Christ (1 Corinthians 9:20), we have no choice but to respect the Hebrew Scriptures as God’s actual words. Jesus certainly did and quoted from them as if to say, “If Scripture says it, that settles it.” How then do we uphold them? Through the guidance of the New Testament!

The Mosaic Law: Its Life and its Death

Does the Mosaic Law (ML) kill or does it give life? Is it “against us” (Col. 2:14) or is it for us? Dr. Daniel Botkin argues that the law is good and, therefore, there is no need for its repeal:

·       According to this misinterpretation, God’s Law was “against us,” and “contrary to us” because it was a heavy yoke of bondage. It was an impediment, a hindrance to man’s attempt to be reconciled to God. Therefore, God had to “take it out of the way” and get rid of it. He did this by nailing it to the Cross… This view is flawed for a few different reasons. First, it contradicts the biblical truth that God’s Law, properly understood, is neither “against us” nor “contrary to us.” According to the Bible, God’s unadulterated Law is a blessing, not a burden. (See, e.g., Deut. 4:5-9; Psalm 19, Psalm 119, Romans 7:22, 1 Tim. 1:8, and many other passages.) (Gates of Eden)

Botkin is correct to point out that the ML is good. Paul says as much:

·       So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good. (Rom. 7:12)

However, right before this, Paul declares that the ML also produces sin, deception, and death:

·       What shall we say, then? Is the law sinful? Certainly not! Nevertheless, I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of coveting. For apart from the law, sin was dead. Once I was alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death. (Romans 7:7-11)

How then is it possible that the “law is holy… righteous and good,” and yet its effects are so damning? Paul explained that the ML made Israel aware of its sin (death) and, consequently, their need for the mercy and forgiveness of God (life):

·       Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin. (Romans 3:19-20)

The ML humbles and silences our arrogance. It shows us what we are really all about, and it’s not pretty. Instead of directly imparting life, the law shows us our damning sin (Rom. 6:23) and our need for God’s mercy, where we find life.

The Temple symbolized Israel’s need for mercy. Every day, sacrifices were made for the sins of Israel. This communicated that their level of obedience would never be good enough. Instead, any one sin would place them under a course:

·       “Cursed is anyone who does not uphold the words of this law by carrying them out.” Then all the people shall say, “Amen!” (Deut. 27:26)

However damning this truth is, it is also life-giving:

·       For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, as it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.” Clearly no one who relies on the law is justified before God, because “the righteous will live by faith.” The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, it says, “The person who does these things will live by them.” Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole.” (Galatians 3:10-13)

The curse of the law can bring us to Christ. Paul argued that the ultimate goodness of the ML was found in its ability to lead us to the mercy of God through the Messiah:

·       So the law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith. Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian [the law]. (Gal. 3:24-25)

However, Botkin seems to deny that the ML kills in order to lead us to grace:

·       God’s unadulterated Law does not put people in bondage; it liberates. “So shall I keep Thy Law continually forever and ever. And I will walk at liberty” (Psalm 119:44f). God wants us to keep His commandments.

In a limited sense, Botkin is correct. The law does “liberate,” but it only gave Israel a taste of the coming liberation to which the law pointed – Christ! While there was a type of “forgiveness” under the law, it never was able to open the door to the Presence of God. The Holy Place remained guarded, the blood offerings were a daily reminder that Israel was still in their sins, and their conscience remained uncleansed. Fullness could only come with the Cross:

·       How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God! For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant. (Hebrews 9:14-15)

A true forgiveness and cleansing could only come from the Messiah. Nevertheless, Israel had experienced a foretaste of the promised grace through the Temple. However, they could not come boldly before God with a pure conscience. Consequently, Boykin overstates the “liberty” experienced under the law.

Botkin would agree with much of this. However, he would still maintain that even though we are saved through the mercy of God at the Cross, we are still under the ML. Boykin therefore denies that Jesus had fulfilled the ML on the Cross:

·       Jesus said we are not to even think that He came to abolish the Law. (See Matthew 5:17-19.)

However, Boykin leaves much out of his equation. Jesus had taught:

·       “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.  For truly I tell you, 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. Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands [before they are fulfilled] and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:17-19)

Admittedly, this teaching is cryptic. Jesus didn’t explicitly teach, “I am bringing in a New Covenant that will replace the Mosaic.” Why not? Israel wasn’t ready to hear this. In their minds, such teaching was a capital offense, which would have brought immediate stoning.

In fact, Jesus never explicitly taught against the ML. However, He hadn’t been explicit about many other things – His Deity, His Messiah-ship, the New Covenant, or His Atonement. It was only at the end that He taught more explicitly about His mission. About His being the Messiah, Quoting two Messianic passages, He only revealed Himself to the leadership at the end in order to help them put Him to death:

·       “Tell us if you are the Christ…” Jesus said to him, "It is as you said. Nevertheless, I say to you, hereafter you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power, and coming on the clouds of heaven." (Matthew 26:63-64)

Although He had been cryptic, Jesus was nevertheless preparing His followers for the coming New Covenant, which would replace the Old. He radically proclaimed that He was greater than the Temple and the Sabbath (Mat. 12:6-8). Loving God was no longer a matter of keeping the ML but His commandments (John 14:15; 21-24). The way to the Father was no longer though Moses but through Him (John 14:6). Israel’s faith would now have to be placed in Jesus (John 8:24) as the only way to the Father. They were no longer to be cleansed by the offering of animals but through His Word (John 15:3).

He set the stage for the passing of the ML in other ways. Under, the ML, Israel was defiled by coming in contact with external pollutants. However, Jesus cryptically contradicted this:

·       "Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. Nothing outside a man can make him 'unclean' by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him 'unclean’...Don't you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him 'unclean'? For it doesn't go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body." (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods "clean") (Mark 7:14-19; NIV).    

It was Mark who brought out the fact that Jesus, in effect, had “declared all foods ‘clean.’" Only in the end did Jesus make mention of the New Covenant, which His blood would bring (Mat. 26:28; Mark 14:24).

Although He didn’t explicitly mention that this New Covenant would replace the Mosaic, this was clearly His meaning. When He sent out His disciples (the Great Commission), He didn’t mention a word about their spreading the teachings of Moses. Instead:

·       “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age" (Mat. 28:19-20).

Jesus left it to His Apostles to teach about the complete fulfillment and replacement of the Mosaic Covenant by the New, which they did with all clarity:

·       Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another--to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God. For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death. But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter [of the law]. (Romans 7:4-6)

There is no suggestion in any of these replacement verses that Christ had only fulfilled part of the Old Covenant. Instead, when we died to the Law, we died to it entirely. According to Paul, only complete freedom from the Old would enable us to be exclusively under Christ.

While I am quite certain that Boykin would not have us reconstruct the Temple in order to return to the animal sacrificial system, he nevertheless claims that we are under the law of Moses. Would he claim that we are only under part of this covenant because Christ only fulfilled part and not all? If so, such a distinction is not scripturally supportable. If Christ fulfilled the covenant of the law, He fulfilled it entirely or not at all. This is the message of Scripture.

Jeremiah tells us that the New Covenant would be distinct from the failed Old Covenant:

·       "Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah-- not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the LORD. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more." (Jeremiah 31:31-34)

The Old Covenant is no longer in sight (Jer. 3:14-16), consistent with Apostolic revelation:

·       By calling this covenant “new,” he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear. (Hebrews 8:13)

·       First he said, “Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them”—though they were offered in accordance with the law. Then he said, “Here I am, I have come to do your will.” He sets aside the first to establish the second. (Hebrews 10:8-9)

Scripture gives no hint that Christ only fulfilled part of the ML and covenant. However, does this mean that the ML is no longer instructive or valid for Christian living? Not at all! Instead, Paul declared that we have to uphold the requirements of the law (Romans 3:31)!

Murder is still murder; adultery is still a sin. The moral essence of the law is affirmed by the New Testament and therefore mandatory. However, much of the law is not a matter of substance but of the shadows cast by the Messiah. Therefore, now we embrace the Messiah and not the shadows He had cast:

·       Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. (Colossians 2:16-17)

Although we are no longer under the law, the law still conveys the vital truths of God. However, how do we distinguish substance from shadow? By understanding the Bible Christo-centrically!

Botkin is unclear whether he thinks that the Old Covenant applies only to Jewish believers in Christ. The Jerusalem Council had decided conclusively that the Gentile believer did not have to become circumcised to become a Jew and to follow the ML (Acts 15). Sadly, some Jewish believers erroneously believe that the Jews are still under the law.

This creates the kind of division within the Body of Christ that Paul had taught against. He openly criticized Peter for drawing back from fellowship with Gentile believers when the Jewish believers arrived. Why? Because Peter had betrayed “the truth of the Gospel” (Galatians 2:14)! Instead, the Gospel requires unity of all believers:

·       Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called;  one Lord, one faith, one baptism;  one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. (Ephesians 4:3-5)

Without unity, we will not be able to impact this world as Jesus had prayed:

·       “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—  I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. (John 17:20-23)

           

Let us therefore pray for unity as Jesus had!