The Law is abolished...Right?

The Law is abolished…. Right?

There seems to be two scriptures that contradict each other on the “abolishing” of the Law.

Jesus says in Matthew 5: 17. "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.
18. I tell you the truth, 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.

Paul seems to say the opposite in Ephesians 2:10. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
11. Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called "uncircumcised" by those who call themselves "the circumcision" (that done in the body by the hands of men)-- 12. remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. 13. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.
14. For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, 15. by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, 16. and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.
17. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. 18. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.
19. Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, 20. built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.
21. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. 22.And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.


So how can both be true?

Jesus spoke to the Jews concerning the Law in a way that buried them… “Be perfect as you Father in Heaven is Perfect.” Of course the disciples asked as we should, “Who can be saved?” Jesus replied, “With God all things are possible.”

Jesus’ statement is about the expectation of the Messiah to come and establish His power here on earth…. Which He did, but not the way they expected. He came to fulfill the Law. In His work on the Cross and through His resurrection He did this… In Hebrews we are told, He “5: 8. Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered 9. and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him 10. and was designated by God to be high priest in the order of Melchizedek.


What Jesus did was remove the earthly sacrificial system and replaced it with the Kingdom of God.

This was unexpected for the Jewish leaders of the day.

In this Jesus did abolish the Law as Paul states in Ephesians. We either can walk in faith in the Law…(Torah, and the prophets) or walk in Faith in Christ Jesus. And that is the issue…. Do we walk in our own righteousness or His?

Now the issue of homosexuality to me is about one’s identity. Is one a gay or lesbian or transgender, or a child of G-d? If one has the identity of a child of God, then one should seek out how and what a child of God is about and to properly respond to our Father through our Lord Jesus. We need to understand grace is for all and that is how we are saved… not of our own doing. We need to think though that God is saving us FROM sin and death into HIS LIFE, which is ETERNAL. How can sin continue to dwell in Christ’s very own life imputed to us? The mistake is thinking that my life is still mine as a believer… so one cannot be gay or lesbian as a Christian, as that would lead to a double-minded half-life in Christ. I am not saying one might not struggle with this as a sin that is in ones life as a Child of Christ, but rather that the focus is not to be on our sin, but on the Life of Jesus as He lives it through us.

My motto is this: He who gave His life for me, gave His life to me, to live His life through me.

The bottom line is Jesus transcends the sexual issue… even to say in the Gospels that there is not going to be the marriage of man and woman in heaven, but rather, the marriage of the Bridegroom (Jesus) and the Bride (His Church).

Blessings,
iggy