-If the Mosaic Law is done
away, why did Jesus tell this man to keep the commandments?.Matthew
19:17-19 "And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what
good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? And he said unto him,
Why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, that is, God, but
if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. He saith unto him,
Which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery,
Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Honour thy father
and thy mother and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. The young
man saith unto him, All these things have I kept from my youth up. What
lack I yet? Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that
thou hast and give to the poor and thou shalt have treasure in heaven and
come and follow me."
When Jesus said that to
this young nobleman, the nobleman replied with this:.verse
20. Notice what he said. He said "all these have I kept since my youth,
what lack I yet?"
Notice how
keeping
the ten commandments makes one feel that it's never enough. He still
felt something else was needed, that something still was lacking.
Don't you too sometimes feel
that way around some people?; that no matter what, it is just never quite
good enough; that their love for you is dependent not upon their acceptance
of you, but rather upon some degree of performance expected of your character.
That is because they expect
performance from you before acceptance of you; that is because their lack
of humility prevents them from showing any
grace
toward you, as God does toward us.
If they did they would see
you in a framework of mind comprising what you will eventually be.
Such demanding individuals
are effective by driving others. They believe more in force than the peace
of cooperation. They need to apply the psychology in the
Book
of Proverbs.
What this young nobleman
really needed was the Holy Nature of the Great Infinite One that Christ
came to reveal, but that nature of heart would not be available for all
the world until Jesus died and rose again and sent it, making it available
for all who believe:.John
16:7; 15:26; 14:16-18,26;
Mark
1:8; Acts 19:2.
There was still a veil over
one's understanding of Christ:.2Corinthians
3:14. It was not the time of Christ yet. Jesus had not yet risen
to His former glory that he had with the Father:.John
17:5.
Jesus, of course, knew the
Holy Spirit, the Holy Nature of God, would be sent by Him once He returned
to the Father:.John
16:7. That is why He dealt with this young nobleman the way that He
did.
It was still the time of
the Mosaic Law:.Matthew
23:2-4;
Romans 3:19. Jesus taught
it; making it even more binding (Matthew
5:21,22,28,29,31,32,33,34) and said that He did not come to destroy
the law, but to bring that law to its full purpose:.Matthew
5:17,18.
Jesus fulfilled all righteousness
(Matthew 3:13-15) so it could be
given to us as a gift:.Romans
5:17. He had it! It was His to give. What a wonderful Savior!
The law's full purpose was
to lead to Christ (Ephesians 3:11),
which purpose would become readily evident by the work He commissioned
His disciples to do after He completed the reason why He came and then
went back to heaven.
Jesus, being the only accurate
teacher of the Mosaic Law at the time (Matthew
12:3,5; 15:1,3; 19:4;
22:31;
Mark
12:19 and so on), as the Pharisees had so perverted it to the point
that their version of it not only made them feel superior, when it was
designed by God to make a man realize he was inadequate (again,
Romans
3:19,20; 4:15;
5:20),
but their version of it was almost unrecognizable as coming from the original.
The Mosaic Law was only
a shadow of much greater things to come:.Colossians
2:17; Hebrews 8:5. It is now
gone altogether, and with all of its parts:.Hebrews
8:13. Although it was a righteous law, it could not make anyone
perfect, even if they could perfectly keep it, which they could not:.Hebrews
10:1.
That is why it was taken
away (Hebrews 10:9) and we now are
sanctified
in Christ (Hebrews 10:10), that
is, He made possible for the loving nature of the Great Infinite One to
be our nature. This sets us (spiritual persons) apart from those of the
mass mind of humanity. Sanctified means to be set apart for a purpose of
the Great Infinite One, and that purpose is to love.
The something.greater
that the young nobleman felt he needed, yet did not know about, was (Galatians
3:24) this God nature in him, with all that means.
The law's purpose was good.
Would God design anything otherwise? It was a law of righteousness having
to do with fleshly, carnal things (again
Hebrews
9:10), which righteousness is now fulfilled in us (Christ, born physically
as the person called Jesus, fulfilled the physical Old
Testament law spiritually perfectly), who now are under no obligation
to use the defunct
Mosaic Law to regulate fleshly conduct concerning how the Infinite may
now think of us:.Romans
9:31;
8:4;
9:32.
It is now done away, superseded
by the higher nature of love revealed by Christ:.Romans
10:4. This is what now counts:.Romans
13:10 ".....love is the fulfilling of the law."....answer
continues
