From: heb_roots_chr@mail.geocities.com
Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 1997 11:46 PM
To: Hebraic Heritage Newsgroup
Subject: Book: The Spirit of the Law by Dr. Ron Moseley
From: "HaY'Did" <shalom@haydid.org>
Organization: HaY'Did Learning Center
To: heb_roots_chr@geocities.com
Subject: The Spirit of the Law: Lesson One
Dear Mishpahah (family),
We are very blessed to share with you in the coming days the entire text
of THE SPIRIT OF THE LAW by Dr. Ron Moseley. This very simple book
will come to the newsgroup, but is also available in printed form from
Arkansas Institue of Holy Land Studies and HaY'Did Learning Center.
Dr. Ron Moseley is the head of AIHLS in North Little Rock which is a
specialty college that teaches the Jewish roots of our faith. You may
take classes by correspondence and they conduct a wonderful conference
the first week of August each year, that Eddie Chumney and the other
associate ministries attend and take part in. We encourage you to visit
their website at http://www.haydid.org/ark.htm for further information.
INTRODUCTION
The biblical text says much about God's Law, but often at the very
mention of the term Law it remains a closed book. There are many
reasons for this, but basically it is because we have taken on some
misconceptions about God's Law. It is the sincere desire of those
involved in the development of this work to help the reader understand
where and how many of these misunderstandings evolved and that the
law of God is as it always has been holy, just, good, and spiritual
[Romans 7:12-14].
The Spirit of the Law is not designed to be an all encompassing
exposition on the law of God. I can assure the reader, however, that he
will acquire a greater understanding and appreciation of God's law and
its present day benefits.
Ron Moseley
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FOREWORD
I consider it both an honor and a privilege to have been asked by Ron
Moseley to write a forward for his book. The Spirit of the Law. Ron is
the epitome of a true teacher and a good student. I have always
considered one of the principal characteristics of a true teacher to be
that he, or she, be a perpetual student. Of the many pastors and
teachers of my acquaintance, Ron Moseley has few equals. He is both
an excellent teacher and a diligent student.
Ron has been with me to Israel on several occasions, has studied
with me in almost every intensive study program I have taught, and has
continued to do both formal and independent study.
In writing The Spirit of the Law, Ron has recognized, and has
attempted to address, a subject of great importance that is basically
misunderstood in Christianity: namely, the place and purpose of the Law.
For most Christians, law conjures up all kinds of negative images. Law
is something harsh, bad, transient, and superseded by something better:
namely, grace. Such thinking does a grave injustice to God's revelation
of himself to mankind.
As Ron points out, the underlying idea of law, as it is used in the
Bible, is that of teaching and instruction. Law is God instructing His
people that they may know how to live in a moral and ethical way,
pleasing unto Him, and at peace with our fellow man. Law is instruction
that, if followed, will enrich one's life, if ignored will diminish it.
law was for the purpose of instructing man as to how he was to live here
in this world.
Ron is correct in pointing out that Jesus and Paul were both Jewish,
and their perspective on law was deeply rooted in the Judaism of their
day. Both saw law as all-encompassing. It encompassed the totality of
what a person is in his relationship both to God and to his fellow man.
Much of our misunderstanding comes from a failure to understand that
Jesus' audience was almost entirely Jewish, while Paul, on the other
hand, addresses a non-Jewish, or Gentile, audience. Even so, Paul was
Jewish, "...a Hebrew of the Hebrews," and viewed God with a Hebrew mind.
For both Jesus and Paul, law was not a legal system; law was all-
encompassing, full of God's mercy and grace. For Jesus' Jewish audience,
that grace would be appropriated in one way, for Paul's non-Jewish
audience, another way. But, for both, ultimately man's access to the
kingdom was dependent entirely upon God's grace.
Unfortunately, it has been difficult for both the Christian and the Jew
to understand many of Paul's statements about law because of what others
have said Paul was saying. many Jewish theologians have written
negatively about Paul and his teachings, based not upon a careful
examination of Paul, but based upon what Christian theologians said
about Paul.
Such misunderstanding started as early as 144 C.E. with Marcion, the
heretic. The western church was historically anti-Jewish and anti-law
through much of its history. Martin Luther impacted Christian theology
negatively with his anti-Jewish theology. Luther was a rabid anti-Semite
and, unfortunately, the influence of Luther, Marcion, and others remain
with us until today.
Ron has made a significant contribution for the Christian audience with
his book. The Spirit of the Law. In The Spirit of the law, Ron Moseley
assists us in understanding the nature and purpose of law for God's
divine plan for man.
Roy B. Blizzard, Jr., Ph.D.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
University of Texas at Austin
President, Yavo, Inc.
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BOOK: THE SPIRIT OF THE LAW
In Paul's day the Tenak, which was the Law, the prophets, and the Old
Testament writings, were all the Scriptural text that was available.
Both Jesus and Paul taught that believers should be guided by the Spirit
of God to fulfill the Law through faith and love. Although Jesus
fulfilled the ceremonial or sacrificial part of the Law by dying on the
cross, we still see the principles of the Law, such as the priesthood
and the atonement, evidenced today in the ministry of the church. In
short, the manifestation has changed, but the spirit of the Law that
exposes sin and produces light and life is the center of New Testament
teaching.
The question is asked, what about Paul's assault on the Law in his
epistles? All the letters of Paul were addressed to predominantly
Gentile congregations, which in regard to salvation, had nothing to do
with the 613 Laws of Moses that were given as the lifestyle of the
Jewish people. It is understandable that Paul, apostle to the Gentiles,
would get upset with a few Judaizers who consistently tried to hinder
his work by requiring his Gentile congregations to keep Jewish customs
for salvation. In this book we will show that not once did Jesus or
Paul stop or ever suggest that any Jew not keep the lifestyle prescribed
to them in the Law as a covenant people. It should be noted that
verses like Mark 7:15, where it appears Jesus is differing with the
Jewish food laws (when he points out the difference between physical and
spiritual pollution) do not suggest that He abandoned the food laws
given to all Jews. It should also be noticed that many Jewish scholars
of the New Testament, such as David Flusser in his book called Jesus
conclude that, "Jesus as a Jew was faithful to the Law." The problem in
understanding Paul's letters is similar to the game show Jeopardy where
contestants have the answers, but do not have the questions. Because
Paul's epistles were written to straighten out problems of his Gentile
converts, who were not familiar with the ways or laws of God, to the
casual reader they sometimes give the appearance that he was against the
Law of God. Actually, Paul only directs his seemingly negative comments
concerning the Law toward two groups:
(1) Those non- Jews who thought they needed to keep the Law for
salvation, and
(2) some fundamentalist Jews who tried to make it a prerequisite that
non-Jews must keep the Law for salvation.
When some Christians suddenly appear defensive at the mention of
God's Law, there is a temptation to ask , "Which law makes you feel
uncomfortable?" This is a rather startling reaction for the Law only
condemns law-breakers. For the most part, the church since the first
century has misunderstood the Law that both Jesus and Paul loved and
lived by. There are at least three basic reasons for this information
gap concerning the Law in the modern church:
First, when the early church gradually moved from Jerusalem to the
west, many of the Roman converts who became church leaders retained
certain of their pagan cultural practices. As a result, the Roman
leaders read the Hebrew Scriptures against their Greek background. They
imposed on the biblical text a foreign interpretive scheme that
established incorrect information in church theology concerning God's
Law that was irreconcilable with the Word of God that Jesus and Paul
knew.
Second , to Paul the Law was the Word of God, and he certainly did not
intend to start a new religion that opposed Scripture. Paul's heated
arguments that appear to be directed against the Law were actually
against the misuse of the Law by those who were putting his Gentile
congregations in bondage by teaching that the Law was for salvation.
Third, the teaching that the Law of God was superseded by or in
opposition to the grace of God did not originate with Paul, but
developed as a result of the heretic Marcion's interpretation of Paul's
writings. Marcion, who died about 160 A.D. rejected the Old Testament
completely. He believed, through the influence of Gnosticism, a
demiurgic notion that the God of the Old Testament was cruel and a
totally different God. He was so consumed with the belief that Paul's
message of God's grace opposed God's Law that he only kept an
edited portion of Paul's writings that agreed with his theology. Marcion's
theology was so foreign to God's Word that the great pastor Polycarp,
who was a student of John, called him the "first-born of Satan."
Marcion went to Rome about 139 A.D. and made a generous gift to the
church, but after examining his views the church gave back his money
and excommunicated him. Marcion founded his own church which
merged Gnosticism and orthodox Christianity, creating a theology that
was sharply dualistic, violently antagonistic to Judaism, strictly ascetic,
celibate, and yielded a wide and destructive influence in Christendom.
Unfortunately, some modern Christians have unknowingly endorsed
his ideas.
Later Augustine, a Roman Catholic monk, championed Marcion's ideas
about grace opposing God's Law and made it a major part of church
theology. At the time of the Reformation, men such as John Wycliffe
with his first manuscript English Bible , and Miles Coverdale the
English translator of the first printed English Bible were heavily
influenced by Augustine. In 1514 Coverdale was ordained a priest and
later entered the Augustine Monastery at Cambridge. The notion of grace
over Law was accelerated when the French Reformer John Calvin endorsed
this position in his "Institutes of Christian Religion," which became
the guide for the Reformed Churches of Protestantism.
In the New Testament what appears to be the substitution of grace for
Law is nothing more than a difference in the way God's eternal
principles of Law are manifested. In the Old Testament the principle of
sacrifice was portrayed through animals, but in the New Testament Christ
is ever fulfilling that dimension of the Law as the "Lamb of God." Each
time a life is redeemed, the spirit of the Law with the principles of
sacrifice and priesthood of the Messiah is even more evident today than
before.
THE LAW WAS ONLY UNTIL JOHN
It is common to hear someone point to the misunderstood phrase from
Luke 16:16, "Did not the New Testament say that the Law and the prophets
were only until John?" Along with the question, "Aren't we under the Age
of Grace today?" This verse is often wrongly interpreted. Luke 16 is
simply stating that the Law and the prophets until John was all the
Scripture there was at that time.
The New Testament, as we know it today, was not canonized until some
150 years later. Furthermore, the Book of Luke could not possibly mean
that the Law of God was outdated, because it was used constantly by the
church after John the Baptizer a minimum of 185 times in the New
Testament writings. This is not to imply that the writings of Luke
were not inspired, but that it was not until approximately 200 A.D. that
the New Testament was collected into a recognized corpus of writings
that were listed as authoritative. It is clear that Paul, like Christ,
never intended to be understood as replacing God's eternal Law [Matthew
5:17-20; Romans 3:31]. It is equally clear that Paul had strong
feelings about his Gentile converts not having to live by or attain
salvation through the Law that the Lord gave as a covenant to the Jews
[I Corinthians 7:17-201.
JESUS WENT BEYOND THE LETTER OF THE LAW
Often Jesus went beyond the letter of the Law and instructed His
disciples in the spirit of the Law. A couple of obvious examples of
this can be seen as He cautioned that if any lusted they had already
committed adultery, and if they called a brother a fool they were in
danger of Hell fire [Matthew 5:19-30]. Each of the above examples are
far beyond anything the Law ever suggested.
What was Paul's intent when he taught that the letter of the Law
kills? It is obvious that he did not mean the Law of God is bad and
will put one in bondage, as is suggested by these words today. Paul
kept the Law and encouraged Jews everywhere to do the same [I
Corinthians 7:18]. We should remember this statement was written to the
Gentiles at Corinth, never to Jewish believers [II Corinthians 3:61.
Even the best qualities of the Law of God have always been referred to
as "ministration of death" to those in sin. The purpose being that the
very intent of the Law is to expose and define sin. For the Gentile
converts to try to keep a Jewish lifestyle without the godly disciplined
background, it would become a bondage that was neither necessary nor
proper. In this context Paul said the letter of the Law kills, but he
went on to point out that the spirit of the Law gives life. Paul was
addressing salvation to the Gentiles and concerning this issue the
letter of the Law is death and only through the spirit can life come.
The summary of Paul's view is found in his statement to the Romans "for
the Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law
of sin and death ... that the righteousness of the Law might be
fulfilled in me" [Romans 8:2-4].
WHAT CHRISTIAN LEADERS SAID ABOUT THE LAW
Was Martin Luther, the great faith reformer, against the Law? Not at
all, in fact he said, "The first duty of the Gospel preacher is to
declare God's Law and show the nature of sin, because it will act as a
schoolmaster and bring him to everlasting life which is in Jesus
Christ." John Wesley said, "Before I preach love, mercy and grace, I
must preach sin, Law and judgment." Wesley later advised a friend,
"Preach 90 percent Law and 10 percent grace." Charles Spurgeon, who is
known as the "Prince of Preachers," said, "They will never accept grace
until they tremble before a just and holy Law." Charles Finney who is
labeled as having a 80 percent success rate in his ministry said,
"Evermore the Law must prepare the way for the Gospel; to overlook this
in instructing souls is almost certain to result in false hope, the
introduction of a false standard of Christian experience, and to fill
the church with false converts." John Wycliffe, the "Morning Star of the
Reformation" said , "The highest service to which a man may attain on
earth is to preach the Law of God." D.L. Moody, who is credited with
having over one million disciples for the Lord, put it in perspective
when he said, "God being a perfect God, had to give a perfect Law, and
the Law was given not to save men, but to measure them."
If we were to ask the Apostle Paul why the Law was given and if it had
any effect on the world today, the Scriptural Text gives us his
answers. We would expect to receive the same answer he gave to the
Romans "that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become
guilty before God" [Romans 3:19]. The most significant tribute to God's
Law comes from the Saviour when He said, whosoever does and teaches the
Law will be great in the Kingdom of Heaven [Matthew 5:19]. The sad
truth is that since the turn of the century, various new ideas have been
substituted for the teaching of God's Law and standard in Christendom to
the extent that Mr. Finney's above three areas of warning concerning the
Law have been self-fulfilling.
END PART ONE
Visit our homepage for more information on our colllege and trips to
Israel. Dr. Ron Moseley is available as a lecturer at 1-800-617-6205.
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