Jesus said that he had not come to destroy the law, but he came to fulfill it.
As with so many other passages in the Bible, people only get confused
when they fail to listen carefully to what is actually being said.
For example, they ready John 3:16 and don't even notice the phrase "whosoever believes in him".
So they assume you just believe you're saved because the pastor told you to.
Then they read the one about rendering to caesar
and they totally miss the second half of the verse, much to their ruin.
We put in stuff that was never there.
We read the word 'work', and we insert 'for money'
when there's not a single word to support that in the original passage.
We read the word 'baptize', and we insert 'with water'.
It all has the effect of messing up our heads, but not because of any problem with how it was written.
The problem is in how we read it.
So, in this verse, Jesus says that he did not come to destroy the law.
Some people stop there
and then they jump into trying to revive all or some of the Old Testament laws.
Why? "Because Jesus hasn't destroyed them", they say.
The Modern Hebrew Roots Movement is most famous for that
but a similar teaching has been around in the Seventh-day Adventists
and in the worldwide church of God for much longer.
Really, when you look at it more closely, virtually all Evangelical churches in the world
at least wander around in a bit of confusion over whether or not
the Old Testament law has been destroyed.
But, what has been overlooked in the passage I quoted above? Let's read it again.
Jesus said that he had not come to destroy the law, but he had come to fulfill it.
"Fulfill it". What does that mean? And more to the point, has Jesus, in fact, fulfilled it?
The Old Testament law said a lot about various animal sacrifices that were to be offered for sins.
Has that been fulfilled? Has it been destroyed? Are we still to practice that?
Have all those rules about animal sacrifices been fulfilled in Jesus?
And if so, does it give us the right to ignore all those many rules and regulations now
about sacrificing lambs and doves and bullocks?
The word we might be most inclined to use for that new attitude we have toward the Old Testament now
is that those old testaments sacrifice rules were 'replaced'.
Was it because they were bad? No, not at all.
Jesus did not come for the express purpose of destroying them
but he did come to fulfill them, and when that happened, they pretty much became redundant.
He's replaced them with something better.
Look at it like this: you meet someone on the Internet, and a romantic relationship develops.
They send you a photo of themselves, and you fall madly in love with this wonderful man (or woman).
Then one day you finally meet up in person.
You have moved from a two dimensional image of the love of your life
to a personal living encounter with him or her.
So, what are you going to do?
Do you say, "Excuse me a moment. Every day, at this time, I take a few moments out to just look at your photo
"and to write a letter to you."?
Is that what you do? No, of course not!
You've graduated to a higher relationship...a three dimensional one.
(Well, in fact, a four or five dimensional one.)
That personal encounter was never meant to destroy the photo
but the truth is that the photo itself becomes pretty useless now
because you have each other, together in the flesh.
You might save it as a souvenir as you enter into a lifelong relationship with your love
but you would never go back to swooning over the photo again, unless (and this is very important)
unless your relationship broke down with the real thing.
And that is exactly why there is so much interest today in such trivial Hebrew facts
as how to spell the name of Jesus without using a J.
The churches have lost their relationship with Jesus, if indeed they ever had one.
They have left the real Jesus...the real Yeshua...the real Yehoshua (or whatever you want to call him)
and they've gone back into the shadows and types of the Old Testament, worshipping photos and such.
The Bible says that the law came through Moses, but that truth, ultimate true, real truth, eternal truth
came through Jesus Christ.
Now, is it saying that there was something wrong with the law...that it was untrue?
Or is it just saying that Jesus came with something better?
Let's examine something that Jesus said in his great sermon on the mount.
"You have heard that it was said by them of old time
"'Thou shalt not kill, and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment.'
"But I say unto you that whosoever is angry with his brother
"without a cause, shall be in danger of the judgment."
Let's compare these two versions.
Is there anything wrong with a rule (as it was worded in the original ten commandments) "Thou shalt not kill"?
No, not at all. God doesn't want us killing one another, and so he gave Moses a very good rule.
This rule is taught and enforced by governments all over the world: people must not kill anyone.
But then what does Jesus say? He says, "Don't be angry with your brother."
Now, surely this is a fulfillment of the original law.
The original law, you see, dealt with the objective behavior (that is, murder)
whereas what Jesus gets us to look at is the root cause of this behavior.
The cause of murder is hate.
If we can learn to love God with all our heart, and to love our neighbor as ourselves
then the law against murder has been fulfilled.
There's no need to keep harping on about thou shalt not kill.
Just stop hating. You certainly won't be murdering anyone as a consequence.
Can you see it?
The original version has been destroyed, not for being bad
but because it's been replaced with something better
something which captures the spirit of the original, but then takes it one giant step further.
And so the Bible says, "The law came through Moses, but truth came through Jesus."
Jesus went through several of the ten commandments in the sermon on the mount, trying to illustrate this point.
But he did not, at that time, go through all of them.
The early church addressed the further application of this principle with regard to some of the ceremonial law.
In a letter to the Hebrews, Jesus is seen both as the high priest and as the sacrificial lamb.
One sacrifice for all time...no more need for priests...no more need for sacrifices.
Would you agree with that?
Do you really want to go back to killing pigeons and calves and sheep every week or every year?
Satan has tried repeatedly, throughout history and in many areas of the world
to resurrect the Old Testament law in one way or another
and it has always represented an attempt to minimize the authority and impact of all that Jesus taught.
Ironically, one of the most popular attempts to drag us away from Jesus and back into the Old Testament
centers around the fourth commandment, about keeping the Sabbath day holy.
I say, "ironic", because that is the one commandment that Jesus was most openly accused of destroying.
There was something in the way that he acted which indicated
he did not see the seventh day as being superior to any other day.
The command had, by implication and by the way he acted
been replaced already in him, and the lifestyle that he lived.
In one place, Jesus says (concerning doing healings on the Sabbath)
"Well, my Father works every day, and so do I."
In another place he says, "Man was not made for the Sabbath; the Sabbath was made for man."
So what is he doing by saying these sort of things?
He's doing exactly what he did with rules like "Thou shalt not kill" and "Thou shalt not commit adultery".
He's trying to get us to (A) understand why the original rule was there
and (B) to understand how he had fulfilled (or replaced) the old rule with a better one.
Not one that contradicts the old one
but one that captures the spirit of the original, and takes it even further.
So, why was there such a rule as a Sabbath rule to begin with?
That's the first thing Jesus tries to get us a question.
In the Old Testament, we read about a curse.
It was put on mankind after Adam and Eve left the garden.
The passage says that the ground would be cursed with weeds
and that by the sweat of our brow we will have to work all the days of our life.
Now, bear in mind that this is a curse, not a command
as some have claimed, and not a blessing as others have claimed--it's a curse!
But the Bible says that Jesus came to redeem us from the curse...the curse of the law, in fact.
And this one particular rule about resting after six days of hard work
addresses that curse better than any of the other rules.
It says, "Six days shalt thou work, but on the seventh, set that one aside to keep it holy between you and God."
Greedy employers, and for that matter, greedy employees will push themselves
and push others non-stop until they totally break down, whenever there's more and more money to be made.
But God had said, "Hey! Stop it! Six days out of seven is quite enough, thank you."
In all of Israel, one day out of seven was to be set aside for rest (the word 'Sabbath', you see, means rest).
Take time to rest. Take time for Sabbath.
The rule was made for workers, as a symbol of God's grace.
But for the Pharisees of Jesus' day and for the modern day Pharisees
man was made for the rule, meaning that if you don't do it right, you'll be punished.
Resting became a long list of sub-rules
about all the things you must do or that you must never do on the so-called holy day.
Then Jesus comes along with this whole new concept of rest.
He says, "Come unto me all you who labor and are heavy-laden. I'll give you Sabbath."
Remember, 'Sabbath' means 'rest'.
The disciples saw Jesus and they left their fishing boats and their fishing nets.
Matthew and Zacchaeus saw Jesus and they left their tax collecting.
To the multitudes, Jesus said, "You cannot work for God and work for money at the same time."
In other words, stop killing yourselves spiritually by working for money six days a week!
"Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly of heart."
Can you see this?
Jesus pulls the carpet right out from under those who want you to believe
that righteousness is all about what day of the week you rest on.
Yes, if you must continue being unholy the rest of the week, then why not keep things simple
and meet on the seventh day, like the Bible says.
I'm not pushing for Sunday worship but, friends, listen to me, when Jesus arrives on the scene
it's not about which day at all!
It's about whether you're going to cast aside the shackles of materialism and start working for Jesus
the Liberator...the champion of the working class.
That's what taking his yoke means.
Taking his yoke means working for him.
We can do like God and Jesus now, where we can work every day, because work is more like playing now.
I call it 'plorking': a combination of playing and working.
Change your motive and start working for God now instead of for money
knowing that all your material provision is his responsibility now
and you enter into a whole new world called the Kingdom of Heaven.
Jesus said that his followers were different from the Gentiles in one specific way.
"After all these things", he said, (referring to food and clothes in particular) "do all the gentiles seek.
"Do not be like them, but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness
"and all these other material things shall be added unto you."
Whether it's Saturday or Sunday, it's so sad to see the blindness of religious Pharisees arguing over which day
instead of getting into serving Jesus every day, like he asked us to do.
So, what we have here is yet another example of how the entire church world has closed its ears to Jesus
and thus missed the real point of the Sabbath rule.
They did not see how Jesus has replaced one day a week holiness with seven day a week holiness.
Some people go so far as to say that it's evil to worship God on Sundays.
They have the audacity to say that the devil is one day going to order all of you to bow down and worship God
and God will send you to hell for doing it.
Why? Because he's going to make you worship God...on Sunday!!
Seriously, this is the official Seventh-day Adventist teaching
that is, that the Mark of the Beast is worshiping God on Sunday.
The only way to avoid that awful Mark to do everything you can to not worship God on Sunday.
I know it's hard to believe, but that's what they teach, and it's probably one of the most widely preached myths
in relation to Bible prophecy anywhere in the world today.
I'm going to finish this as I finish so many other videos on this channel
by urging you to stop listening to all of this outdated and irrelevant rubbish about Jewish laws
Jewish holy days and the like, and just follow Jesus.
If you follow him--if you love God and love your neighbor as much as you love yourself
you will be following everything that has been taught in the law and the prophets.
It's all summed up and fulfilled in Jesus.
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, brothers and sisters.
Memorize them: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
The teachings of Jesus: they are the Cornerstone that has been left out of modern day Churchianity.
Let's put Jesus back into the Bible.
Put him back into our churches, and put him back into our lives.
Amen and Amen.
God's eternal law is the law of love.
The law that Moses gave is not good enough.
It was alright for while, but now it's out of style. It all got fulfilled in God's son.
The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.
That was always the plan and now we have it.
The new replaced the old.
What have we been told?
Come to me, and I will give you rest.
The old law said, "For sins you must pay the price."
So take your animal and sacrifice.
The premise remains the same, but what's been rearranged is Jesus paid it all with his life.
The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.
That was always the plan and now we have it.
The new replaced the old. What have we been told?
Come to me, and I will give you rest.