I have always been a person that held the Mosaic Law in high regard. Today, that gets me labeled, and into trouble, because the norm seems to be that through Christ the Mosaic Law has been done away with despite the Words of Christ Himself. So, I am presented with another argument of why the Law is useless, presenting to me another scripture to prove the point of neglect. The statement was;
“We are no longer under the Mosaic law as the way to righteousness and to salvation, because it is weak and useless to do either.” (Heb 7:18-19).
So I read Hebrews 7:18-19 (KJV)
[SUP]18 [/SUP]For there is verily a disannulling of the commandment going before for the weakness and unprofitableness thereof.
[SUP]19 [/SUP]For the law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did; by the which we draw nigh unto God.
I still couldn’t get my head wrapped around the way this scripture was presented, because I believe there has never been righteousness achieved by being under the Mosaic Law. I’ve always thought that the Mosaic Law had a purpose however, but I knew it had no power to make a man or a woman righteous because humans are incapable. The Word says, if you break one of the least commandments, that you’re guilty of breaking all of them. It looks like verse 18 really does appear to read as if the Mosaic Law has truly been disannulled.
So then I saw it. There was something “going before” this disannulling. It was a “weakness and unprofitableness thereof.” A subtlety that was very easy to miss without study. This person was actually saying the law was weak, and never mentioned that the flesh was weak. I can now see the distortion of scripture, yet it was not misquoted, and was even the truth, as far as it went, but wasn’t the whole truth.
I suppose that if one wants to negate the Mosaic Law, and throw it away, they would have to declare it as the entity at fault. So I began to search scripture that said that the law was weak.
Romans 8:3 (KJV)
[SUP]3 [/SUP]For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:
Yes, the law is weak, but not in itself, it is us affiliated with it that makes it weak. That isn’t God’s fault, it’s our fault, for if we claim his Word as weak in itself without us being attached, we actually are equating God’s Word as weak instead of us. That way of thinking (for all intents and purposes) inadvertently makes God’s Word weaker than we are, and then we can claim strength in salvation by neglecting reality, and just go on our merry old way, singing “I’ll fly away”.
Our adversary doesn’t want us to recognize our nature in the flesh, he wants us to turn a blind eye to the reality that even though we are saved by the blood of Christ, we still have this old nature that fights within our members. The Mosaic Law in its entirety is like the mirror that the brother of Jesus mentioned.
James 1:23-25 (KJV)
[SUP]23 [/SUP]For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass:
[SUP]24 [/SUP]For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.
[SUP]25 [/SUP]But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.
God never negated the law, for He wants us to see ourselves as He sees us, and that leads us to the law of liberty, understanding that the law is good if we use it lawfully.
1 Timothy 1:8 (KJV)
[SUP]8 [/SUP]But we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully;
From reading the history of the founding fathers of the United States, I think that the 1[SUP]st[/SUP] continental congress had this understanding when they signed the constitution.