Fulfilling the Law

"Why did Jesus say I have not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it? But then we as Christians today do not follow rules like in leviticus. Like stoning of homosexuals. Or that a raped woman can be bought for 50 shekals. The invading of other nations and parts about crushing babies skulls against the rocks. Or that Christians are crazy because if God told them to sacrifice their only son they would.(Isaac) Even if these laws are void under Christ for some reason. How do we reason that God allowed these laws or commands to beging with. Also how does Christ fulfill the law, yet we have changed from following alot of the Old Testament laws."

Because the entirety of the Old Testament was leading up to and preparing for the arrival of Christ. The ancient Hebrew people were being slowly reformed and refined morally speaking, from people who would fight clan wars and destroy every member of a family for the sin of one member of that family (look at the rape of Dinah, for example) to a people who would follow a moral code more along the lines of "an eye for an eye," which we find in a lot of the laws of Leviticus and such and eventually to a code of forgiveness and grace and true justice in the coming of Christ.

Jesus is not an alteration of God's will, He is not saying that God's will has changed, He is the fulfillment of the plan of which the Old Testament records the preparation. Everything that came before Him leads up to Him, prepares for Him, and makes ready for Him. Which is why those laws are not abolished but fulfilled, and in fulfillment we understand them differently.

The only way to understand the Old Testament properly is through Christ, He is the lens by which we can understand God's revelation, because God's revelation is focused on Him. Lacking Him, we'll never truly understand the bulk of Sacred Scripture.

Which means when it comes to answering your questions, we need to look at the Old Testament in light of the New Testament. Just this past Sunday we had the Gospel reading about the woman caught in the very act of adultery, whom they brought to Jesus to test Him concerning the law of stoning. What was His response? Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. We Christians understand that thanks to Original Sin, we all sin, we all make mistakes. Christ came so that even with our sins we might know His forgiveness, His grace. Christ came so that we may be slaves to sin no more, and as a result, we can always repent in this life and return to Him. This is the ultimate truth which the Hebrews were being prepared for that we see in Christ. Forgive. Do not condemn, but instead let sins be forgiven and let sinners go and sin no more.

Likewise, when we speak about raped women being bought, we must understand it in light of the New Testament. To the ancient Hebrews, women were considered property of their fathers. The rape of a woman was thus a crime not only against her but against her father, her whole family. Such a crime might provoke, again, a genocidal response, exactly as it did in the case of Dinah, because the tribal nature of the times meant that a sin against the family had to be met by the whole family, and if you left any men in the opposing family alive, they were honor bound to try and destroy your family in response. This is applicable to the arguments about genocide in the Old Testament as well. The Hebrews were being gradually brought away from this system, but they still had to survive in a world where it was the rule for many centuries. So amongst themselves, it was made law that a raped woman had to be bought and MARRIED, thus preventing family feuds and blood debts from destroying the Hebrews before God had a chance to being Christ to us. Instead of the families being divided, they would be united. And yes, the prospect might have been rather miserable for the woman, and maybe even for the man, but the alternatives were worse.

We however understand from Christ that marriage is about the union of two persons of equal dignity and worth, and that in Christ there is neither Greek nor Jew, male nor female, slave nor free. Every person is equal in the eyes of God, regardless of status or gender or country in this world. This is an equality that we could only know with two perfect examples of humanity; Christ the suffering servant, and Mary, meek and obedient. In these two we see the perfection of masculinity and femininity, and we see that finally we can understand Man and Woman such that we no longer need understand women as property to provide them with protection, nor do families who understand forgiveness need to fear the blood debts and tribal warfare of the ancient world.

Likewise, war by the time of Christ had become something between nations, not between tribes, and so the difficulties of leaving any member of a tribe alive to seek revenge and retribution had become moot. Likewise, there was no longer the danger that the Jews would be tempted to be unfaithful to God, their polytheistic tendencies, which God had also been trying to prevent by making sure they weren't tempted by polytheists, had at last been weeded out by the Babylonian exile, and so it was no longer necessary that they be at war with polytheist tribes in Canaan and elsewhere who tried to corrupt their faith. Thus the two main reasons why the Hebrews had to fight to destroy every male of an opposing army, tribal warfare and resistance to polytheism, have been removed. Instead we are now called to the fulfillment of warfare against idolatry, which is spiritual warfare centered in Christ and following His path, taking up our crosses, and dying to ourselves.

The reference to Abraham and Isaac is an interesting one. In the passage it says, "Isaac said to his father: My father. And he answered: What wilt thou, son? Behold, saith he, fire and wood: where is the victim for the holocaust? And Abraham said: God will provide himself a victim for an holocaust, my son."

Christ is the victim of the holocaust, the offering, Kasie, Christ is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Again, we see Christ fulfilling the New Testament. Any Christian asked by God to sacrifice his son would know that such a test is a trial of faith, for God never tempts us to evil, for He is good. An evil act like murdering a child is not His will, His will is to reveal to ourselves and the world the depths of our faith. And like with Abraham, He will provide such that we do not have to commit any evil.

There is more that can be said regarding Old Testament laws, but I am not a scholar of them, so for fear of mis-speaking I will keep it short and simple. It is my understanding that there are differences in the laws of the Hebrews. Some, like the Ten Commandments, are considered laws given by God Himself and of a far more eternal and binding nature, while others are not of the same level of authority and power, but more laws made for the governing of their society at that time. Certainly the Jews seemed to have developed a fairly legalistic approach to viewing them. Christianity does not abandon the Ten Commandments, but it does consider the commandments of Christ to accurately and completely sum them up and thus fulfill them. Christians are not, however, bound to the various dietary or dress requirements unless they so desire, for example, since those are not the same sort of laws as the Ten Commandments. The need that those laws fulfilled has been met, and after Christ is no longer relevant to us spiritually or materially.

Hope that helps.

Apologetics Knights

For those of you wondering, I am still blogging, but my recent writings have been posted on the website of the Apologetics Knights, a Catholic apologetics group of which I am a member. Check out our site, www.apologeticsknights.org if you get the chance. I'm still planning on blogging here, and potentially linking the two sites eventually, or posting simultaneously on both, but for now this blog will be for debates and discussions, the other for current events and media apologetics.

Also, look forward to the return of the debate with Mr. Diga sometime soon.

Cheers.