JudaismDraft · awaiting advisor review

Did Christians abandon God’s law?

In short

Christians do not see it that way, though many Jews do. Jesus said he came not to abolish the law but to fulfil it, and the first Jewish believers kept it. The early church decided that Gentile believers need not take on the whole Torah, and Christians believe Jesus’ death and the new covenant changed how the law applies.

The Objection

The Torah presents itself as lasting. The Sabbath is a “perpetual covenant” (Exodus 31:16), and Israel must not add to or take from God’s commands (Deuteronomy 4:2). Maimonides counted the Torah’s permanence among Judaism’s principles of faith. Yet Christians eat pork, set aside the seventh-day Sabbath and the festivals, and Paul spoke of “the curse of the law”. Calling this “fulfilment” is a gentle word for leaving behind what God said would endure.

Put as its strongest advocates would put it.

The Christian Case

Scripture
Jesus said he came “not to destroy, but to fulfil” the law. Paul asks whether faith makes the law void and answers, “God forbid: yea, we establish the law”, calling it “holy, and just, and good”. Christians do not see themselves as rejecting the Torah as God’s word; they believe Jesus is its goal.
Scripture
Jeremiah promised a “new covenant” with the law written on hearts. Hebrews applies this to Jesus, says the first covenant is “ready to vanish away”, and teaches that his one sacrifice completes what the temple sacrifices pointed to.
Historical evidence
The earliest followers of Jesus were Jews who went on worshipping at the temple, and Acts describes thousands of Jewish believers as “all zealous of the law”. The argument in the first church was not whether Jews should keep the Torah, but whether Gentiles had to.
Historical evidence
The Jerusalem council ruled that Gentiles need not be circumcised, asking them to avoid idol food, blood, strangled meat and sexual immorality. Some scholars link these to the rules for foreigners in Leviticus 17–18. Rabbinic Judaism, too, does not require Gentiles to keep the Torah, only the Noahide laws.
Historical evidence
As the church became mostly Gentile, many Christians turned against Jewish practice. The fourth-century Council of Laodicea told Christians not to “judaize” by resting on the Sabbath, and Christian contempt for Jewish law later fed hostility and persecution. Here the Jewish charge has real force.
Christians differ
Many Catholics and Protestants hold that the moral law, summed up in the Ten Commandments, still binds, while ceremonial and civil laws are fulfilled in Christ. Others hold that the whole Mosaic covenant has ended, its moral teaching renewed in Christ. Messianic Jews and some scholars argue Jewish believers should still keep the Torah; Seventh-day Adventists keep the seventh-day Sabbath.

Where the Evidence Is Weaker

The Torah does not itself divide its commands into moral, ceremonial and civil; that division is a later Christian tool, and Jewish readers treat the commandments as one whole. Words like “perpetual” and “for ever” are hard to explain, and Christian readings of them through Jesus leave many Jews unconvinced. Christians must also admit that the church has often scorned Jewish observance, which made the charge of abandoning God’s law feel true.

Arguments to Avoid

Calling Judaism a religion of legalism or earning salvation by works; Jews see the Torah as God’s gift within his covenant.
Saying the Old Testament law is irrelevant, or that its God is harsh and different from the Father Jesus spoke of.
Claiming Jesus and the apostles rejected Jewish practice, when they kept the festivals, prayed at the temple and read the Torah.
Using “Pharisee” as a simple insult for any religious hypocrite.

Read for Yourself

Matthew 5:17–20

¹⁷Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. ¹⁸For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. ¹⁹Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. ²⁰For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.

Acts 15:1–29

¹And certain men which came down from Judæa taught the brethren, and said, Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved. ²When therefore Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and disputation with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas, and certain other of them, should go up to Jerusalem unto the apostles and elders about this question. ³And being brought on their way by the church, they passed through Phenice and Samaria, declaring the conversion of the Gentiles: and they caused great joy unto all the brethren. ⁴And when they were come to Jerusalem, they were received of the church, and of the apostles and elders, and they declared all things that God had done with them. ⁵But there rose up certain of the sect of the Pharisees which believed, saying, That it was needful to circumcise them, and to command them to keep the law of Moses. ⁶And the apostles and elders came together for to consider of this matter. ⁷And when there had been much disputing, Peter rose up, and said unto them, Men and brethren, ye know how that a good while ago God made choice among us, that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the gospel, and believe. ⁸And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us; ⁹And put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith. ¹⁰Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? ¹¹But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they. ¹²Then all the multitude kept silence, and gave audience to Barnabas and Paul, declaring what miracles and wonders God had wrought among the Gentiles by them. ¹³And after they had held their peace, James answered, saying, Men and brethren, hearken unto me: ¹⁴Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for his name. ¹⁵And to this agree the words of the prophets; as it is written, ¹⁶After this I will return, and will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down; and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up: ¹⁷That the residue of men might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord, who doeth all these things. ¹⁸Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world. ¹⁹Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God: ²⁰But that we write unto them, that they abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood. ²¹For Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every sabbath day. ²²Then pleased it the apostles and elders, with the whole church, to send chosen men of their own company to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas; namely, Judas surnamed Barsabas, and Silas, chief men among the brethren: ²³And they wrote letters by them after this manner; The apostles and elders and brethren send greeting unto the brethren which are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia: ²⁴Forasmuch as we have heard, that certain which went out from us have troubled you with words, subverting your souls, saying, Ye must be circumcised, and keep the law: to whom we gave no such commandment: ²⁵It seemed good unto us, being assembled with one accord, to send chosen men unto you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, ²⁶Men that have hazarded their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. ²⁷We have sent therefore Judas and Silas, who shall also tell you the same things by mouth. ²⁸For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things; ²⁹That ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication: from which if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well. Fare ye well.

Jeremiah 31:31–34

³¹Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: ³²Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD: ³³But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. ³⁴And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

Romans 3:27–31