When did the law actually end?

[Drew]

2 Kings 17:37 And the statutes, and the ordinances, and the law, and the commandment, which He wrote for you, ye shall observe to do for evermore; and ye shall not fear other gods.

All right, let's deal with this text. First, note how some translations do not go for the "forever" qualifier:

Here is the NET translation of this verse:

You must carefully obey at all times the rules, regulations, law, and commandments he wrote down for you. You must not worship other gods.

This translation does not clearly assert that the law is to be obeyed forever. When a parent tells a child "keep your room clean at all times", there is an implicit understanding that one day the child will be on his own and the parental instruction no longer has any relevance.

And other translations, too, do not have go for the "forever" sense. Here is the NRSV rendering:

The statutes and the ordinances and the law and the commandment that he wrote for you, you shall always be careful to observe. You shall not worship other gods;


Note the absence of any clear statement that the law is to be obeyed forever. Now, of course, the term "always" could denote an eternality, but, as is the case for the NET translation, this is not necessarily the case.

The point of this is that there is indeed some controversy as to whether this particular text implies that the Law of Moses is to endure forever.

 

[Drew]

Everyone who commits sin also breaks the law; sin is the breaking of law. (I John 3:4 HCSB)

Breaking the law of Moses is the very definition of sin. If Jesus broke even one single commandment, that means he was a sinner. If that's the case, then his death was meaningless, since he only died for his own sin, and that means that we are lost, without any hope of salvation.

There are problems here. As you may recall, the above was posted in response to my assertion that Jesus' obedience was not an obedience to the Law of Moses, but rather it was an obedience to the covenant obligations of his people, the nation of Israel. And Theofilus is arguing that Jesus' obedience had to be to the Law of Moses since "breaking law" is the very definition of sin. So

Well there is a hidden assumption that needs to be challenged. As God incarnate, Jesus has the authority to declare that the time of the Law of Moses has come to an end. You are implicitly ignoring this possibility.

And further, we know that Jesus clearly "broke" the Law of Moses when, in Mark 7 and parallels, He asserts that no food makes one unclean.

This clearly contradicts what the Law of Moses teaches - lots of foods make the Jew unclean - see Leviticus (chapter 11, I think).

 

[MarkT]

God gave Israel 40 years to repent - they did not, so he sent them into captivity in Babylon. Likewise he gave them 40 years to repent after the cross and those who did not were punished in 70 AD. I would say that the two covenants were in operation for those 40 years of transition and the Law officially ended with the destruction of Israel, Jerusalem, and the Temple. God gave Israel 40 years to make this transition from the Old to the New Covenant.

We're not supposed to think that Jesus came to abolish the law. Mt. 5:17 I guess plain English isn't enough. Doesn't it occur to you that you are teaching the exact opposite of what Jesus said? Do you even care?

 

[Bazz1040]

I believe that we're not under law, as Galatians 3 says. I'm not wanting to debate that particularly, I'm just wondering when the law actually ceased to be. I kind of assumed it was done away with when Jesus was crucified.But if you read Mark 2 v 23-28, where the pharisees are asking Jesus about doing something unlawful on the sabbath, Jesus doesn't say anything about it not being against the old covenant law; his response seems to imply that the law is already done away with.

What you are talking about is this.

1 Samuel 21:3-6 (ASV)
3 Now therefore what is under thy hand? give me five loaves of bread in my hand, or whatsoever there is present.
4 And the priest answered David, and said, There is no common bread under my hand, but there is holy bread; if only the young men have kept themselves from women.
5 And David answered the priest, and said unto him, Of a truth women have been kept from us about these three days; when I came out, the vessels of the young men were holy, though it was but a common journey; how much more then to-day shall their vessels be holy?
6 So the priest gave him holy bread; for there was no bread there but the showbread, that was taken from before Jehovah, to put hot bread in the day when it was taken away.


Basically, what Jesus is saying is that man's need supersedes the law, and that the law was made to serve man and not the other way around. The Pharisees saw keeping the law as more important than people's need. So much so that they criticize Jesus when He healed on the Sabbath.
And David and his men were able to eat the Holy bread because they fulfilled the requirement that allowed them to eat it.