God's thirst for blood - The Law Explained

Today I'm going to be dealing with two things: one that really bothered me and one that really confused me. Hence the title, "Bothersome Confusion: The Law and God's Thirst for Blood." That is one thing that really bothered me about the Christian religion.

And I never really—it never really seemed to bother anyone else, though. And then there's something that was a massive confusion to me about this religion that I professed. But here's the weird thing about the confusing part. It's like the core of the religion. I'm talking about these really weird concepts where the terms that we use to describe it, they're not terms that we use in today's language, and they're not concepts that we use today in our culture. But everyone uses these terms when talking about Christianity because you can't even talk about the religion without using these terms.

A lot of Christian teaching that I've sat through talked about these things, and everyone seemed to kind of explain it the same way. And everyone just seemed to nod their heads like, "Oh yeah, yeah, we understand what's being said," including me. But in reality, I didn't get it.

At least for me, it was massively confusing. So let's begin with the thing that bothered me, and then we'll move on to the thing that was confusing to me. When I was a child, I knew that this was a cow.

And I also knew that this was a cow. But I wasn't raised on a farm, nor did I have any men in my life who were hunters. And so I had never put a single thought into what the process looks like that takes a cow from looking like this to looking like this.

There was no reason for me to think of such things with my upbringing. And then one day, when I'm playing in the woods, I learned a little bit about it. A hunter had gutted deer right next to the rope swing where we used to play, and I was six, maybe eight years old. And I walk up on this pile of guts and organs, and I'm absolutely mortified.

What in the world happened here?

It being animal guts, it did not compete with me. In my mind, something had happened to someone. It was disgusting, and I couldn't stand to look at it, but for some reason, I couldn't look away. I was scared, and a feeling of darkness was all over me. I didn't know what to think. I just knew something really evil had taken place. Next thing, another teacher—preachers—telling me that God used to make us cut up animals and sacrifice them to him in these really gross rituals and do stuff with their blood almost on a daily basis.

What's wrong with God? I was thinking. For whatever reason, probably because of horror movies and television, once again, morbid darkness shrouded these ideas of animal sacrifice. People taking pleasure and slicing open flesh and spilling the blood in these rituals that just seemed like darkness to me. And I wasn't happy when I found out this guy, the God in my Sunday school books, used to be just like that.

Thirsty for animal sacrifice. And it didn't help at all when I read the instructions provided by this God that spelled out exactly how these disgusting things were supposed to happen. What kind of God would command people to cut up animals and do all these weird rituals with them and use their blood and just sling it all over each other?

Reading these Old Testament instructions on how these sacrifices were to be made, it gave me the same feelings that I had when I walked up on that pile of guts.

You grow up hearing this stuff. Two years up. By the time you entertained, you just act like it's normal. Well, yeah, you know, but you know, back before Jesus came, God used to make a sacrifice to animals to him and sprinkle blood all over each other. You know, normal stuff.

No, that's not normal. That's weird. And I have no idea if anyone in this room has ever struggled with thoughts like this. Maybe I'm alone in it. But just in case anyone hearing this has struggled with any of these ideas today, I hope to bring a little bit of clarity to that.

And so that's the thing that bothered me. And that leads to the confusing part: the law. Growing up, I don't have any memories of any sort of very clear or comprehensive teachings about Old Testament sacrifices or Old Testament law. It was always very vague. The most that I walked away with from these vague teachings was this: that that's the way it used to be. That's the way God used to be. And it was that way because at the time they were under an old law or the law of Moses, and all those sacrifice rituals were done under an old covenant.

But what was this covenant? Well, you know, a covenant's like a promise, like a marriage covenant, they would say. And I could get that a little bit. But the thing is, no one ever told me what the promise was. What was this arrangement that God had?

All that I ever heard was that the old covenant was the law of Moses. And that is not very clear at all. Reading David's book, The Kingdom That Turned the World Upside Down, was the first time I had heard anyone communicate what this covenant actually was. God said, "You do this and I'll do this. This is my side of the deal. This is your side of the deal."

I was nearly 40, and I never heard—and I had—and I was nearly 40 before I heard anyone teaching what this covenant arrangement actually was. All I knew was the old covenant was another way of saying the law of Moses, whatever that means.

If someone asked me the question, "What was the Old Testament covenant?" I would say, "Well, the Old Testament covenant, you know, it's the law of Moses." But don't worry about that. We don't even need to talk about that because we're free from that now.

Well, how did that happen? Well, you see, Christ came and he fulfilled the law, whatever that means. Now we're not under the law. Now we're under the law of Christ or the law of love under a new covenant.

Now, none of that really made a whole lot of sense to me. All of those words are still very vague. But you get away with just spitting it out, especially if your surroundings are other Christians. Eventually, I stopped thinking about these things.

No one else seemed to be concerned with them. And eventually, enough of a very particular narrative started circling through my mind that I didn't need to understand these things. And teaching these things, I would actually go out and teach these things in an effort to convert my neighbor without even being able to articulate the concepts. The narrative that I had developed was enough. What narrative? This is just a little sample of the narrative.

So if you want to be saved, you got to trust the finished work of Jesus on the cross. In other words, Jesus shed his blood, died, and rose again. And that's how you get saved. Now, don't go back to the law and start taking parts of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, Jesus' earthly ministry with the 12 disciples, and put it on yourself. Don't read anything else for salvation but Romans 2 by layman. You're only saved by grace. Once saved, always saved. Trust Jesus alone. So this is the whole point. Understand it this way. When Christ died, you died in Christ. When Christ rose, you rose in Christ. Christ perfectly fulfilled the law, and you have fulfilled the law in Christ.

He has fulfilled the law on your behalf. So he died on your behalf. He rose on your behalf. He lives in complete perfect conformity to the law of God on your behalf as a believer. Christ is the end of the law, it says.

So the law doesn't exist anymore. We don't have to obey the law. That's not what that means. Christ fulfills the law on our behalf because we could never do it. Ever. Ever on our best day. On our best day, we're still going to have probably just even a second or two of thinking, "I hate that person," or, "Oh, I'm so angry at them." You know, on our best day, we're still not going to be able to fulfill the law. So what? Jesus did it for us. And that's why he is the end of the law, because he's the fulfillment of the law, which is as a means of righteousness for us. In the Old Testament, there's 633 such laws.

But see, the law, its purpose was to show mankind its inability to keep the law. And so Jesus comes on the scene, and he is the fulfillment of the law. And so you and I, by trusting in Jesus, then enter into this freedom of life whereby all of these laws are gone.

It doesn't mean there's not things that Christians should do and not do, but it does mean that you are forgiven completely, not on the basis of how well you keep those laws, but on how well Jesus fulfilled it. We're actually free from the commandments. They're not of faith, as it says in the Bible. Galatians chapter 3, verse 10 to 13 tells us that you're cursed if you try to keep the commandments. Why? Because you have to keep them all. We can't disregard 613 and then all the new covenant laws too. We have to keep it all. And if we don't keep it all, cursed. Jesus says, "Don't think I come to abolish the law. I came to establish the law."

But people misinterpret this. They think they now have to keep the law. No, no, no. Jesus kept the law because we couldn't keep the law. And Jesus died for us because we couldn't die for ourselves. Jesus lives for us because we can't live for ourselves. It starts with Jesus. It ends with Jesus. He is the author and the finisher of our faith. He kept the commandments, not us. He came to make dirty, evil sinners like me and you righteous, holy, sanctified, justified. Holy, sanctified, justified.

The law includes both the old law of Moses and the new law of Jesus. Christ perfectly fulfilled the law. Therefore, you have also fulfilled the law in him. He filled the law on your behalf. That's a very key phrase there. He lived in complete and perfect conformity to God's law on your behalf. Again, Christ fulfilled the law on your behalf because we could never do it ourselves, even on our best day. Jesus was the end of the law because he fulfilled the law. The purpose of the law was to show man his own inability to actually keep the law. By trusting in Jesus, we enter into this freedom of life whereby all of these laws are gone.

You are forgiven completely, not on how well you keep those laws, but on how well Jesus fulfilled them. If you try to keep them, you're cursed because to keep—because if you keep any of them, you must keep all of them. This is the narrative that I'm talking about. Enough of this narrative became sufficient for me to not need clear explanations for these things that didn't make any sense to me. The whole point of this crazy law was to show us how impossible it is to obey God. That was the whole point, and that weird law had done its job.

In this new covenant, Jesus fulfilled the law, and he did it on my behalf. I just needed to accept that I needed to stop trying. Somehow, this freedom would come that if I learned how to properly and completely stop trying to live right, winning the Christian fight, that I would win. That was winning the Christian fight to give up. And that was the gospel that I was taking to the world. But it was massively confusing.

Why? It was confusing because Jesus said stuff, a lot of stuff. And he's supposed to be like the center of this whole thing. And everything he said seemed to be the opposite of this narrative. I'll give you just one example. "Do not think that I came to destroy the law and the prophets. I did not come to destroy, but to fulfill." And then in verse 20, he said, "For I say to you that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven."

Protestant teachings have a way of taking Jesus's teachings and then making them the opposite. I'm just going to give you one example. It'll be the last clip. I promise you won't have to endure any of that. In the book of Matthews, why did Jesus say that whoever keeps the law will be called great? You see, Jesus wanted to inspire with his listeners a sense of despair, not hope. We must despair of self-effort in law keeping before we can see our need for God's grace. Jesus goes on to make the law's standard even more clear. He says, "For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven."

He even goes further, telling his listeners that anger is just as punishable as murder. Looking at someone with lust is the same as adultery. They should cut off their hand and pluck out their eye and fight against sin. We got to understand that Jesus was showing the Jews what the law really looks like. He was exposing the futility of their attempts at law keeping so they would see their need for the brand new way of God's grace.

I could go on for hours on a montage. This is what Jesus said. This is what he really meant. This is what he said, but if you know how to decipher, this is what it means. This is what he said, but if you understood the context, you would understand why he chose the exact opposite words that needed to explain his point.

I'm not going to go through a montage here. That was enough there. But I did go through that process in my own life. And I was sitting there with a massive pile of confusion.

Eventually, I realized that I had to abandon my Protestant narrative. Somehow, the words of Jesus had to be reconciled to the Bible. And I was at that crossroads. You all know my story. And I made the decision that I was no longer going to be two-faced. I was no longer going to believe in Jesus as my Lord and Savior, yet not believe any of the words that came out of his mouth.

And the thing is, is that this narrative, with it being the foundation of my belief system, reconciling Jesus's words to the Bible and understanding this whole idea of the law was a confusing mess. Like, were we under the law or not? Did he fulfill it or not? What does any of this stuff mean?

And it was so easy to slip back into my old thought patterns. It was a challenge to rewire my own brain. Now, over the past three years, you brothers here, you've all done an amazing job helping me through this. David's teachings and Romans, five or six of those messages were just all about the law, the one about the capital L law and the lowercase l. A lot of that cleared up a lot for me. A month or so ago, Len had another really good message about it. Now, the shift in understanding for me, it didn't happen overnight, but I did get to the point where I could say I wasn't lost in my head.

I saw it a lot more clear. And then about, I would say, six weeks ago, I decided to start reading some of what the early Christians wrote about Christ fulfilling the law. And my mind was just, wow, I'd never heard anyone explain it like that.

Not different than what I've heard here, but just the way that they articulate their thoughts is just amazing. It was like I was seeing this picture and finally some big pieces to the puzzle just snapped into place. And so for the remainder of this message, what we're going to be doing is we're going to be looking at a couple of their writings. And I want you to notice their narrative.

In the same way that you hear a consistent narrative weaving itself through today's messaging, you will see a consistent narrative streaming through the early Christian writings as well. The two writings we're going to be looking at today were written about 20 to 30 years apart from each other.

One of them was written around 150 AD and the other one somewhere between 170 to 180. So there's about a 30-year gap there, but you see the narrative going through it.

And we will begin with Dialogue with Trifo, written by Justin Martyr. In this writing, a dialogue takes place between Justin himself and a man named Trifo. He was a Jew. Now, this conversation is a fictional conversation that takes place. It wasn't a real conversation, but it serves as a vehicle for Justin to defend Christian beliefs and practices. Similarly to the way that we see Paul do in some of his writings, where he would create a fictional conversation or debate with a Jew, and he would go back and forth with them in the scripture.

Let's dig in. We do not rely on Moses or the law. If we did, we would be just like you. Remember, he's talking to a Jew. We don't rely on Moses or the law. If we did, we would be just like you. But now, since I have read that there will be an ultimate law and a covenant, the most superior of all, which all men must abide by, especially those who want to inherit the inheritance of God. But the law handed down at Horeb is now old and only pertains to you.

But this law is for everyone universally. Next, what he's going to do is he's going to pit the two laws, one against the other. Currently, law against law, the new has negated what came before it. And the covenant that came later similarly terminated the former one. And an unending and final law, specifically Christ, has been bestowed upon us.

So out the gate, he comes out saying there's definitely something different here. Something has shifted. There's an old law and an old covenant, and then there's the law of Christ and the new covenant. Now, this word negated, another word for that is nullified. So he says the law of Christ has nullified the law of Moses. Similarly, the new covenant has terminated the former one.

Wash and be cleaned. Remove wickedness from your souls as God commands you to be washed in this basin and be circumcised with the true circumcision. We too would follow the physical circumcisions and the Sabbaths and all the holidays if we didn't understand why they were mandated to you, specifically due to your transgressions and the stubbornness of your heart. So the stage is being set here with two very important concepts that we're going to see built upon and repeated over and over today through this early Christian narrative. The first one is, in the same way that the old covenant was marked with circumcision of the flesh, the new covenant is marked with a circumcision referred to as the true circumcision.

And number two, the reason for the old covenant law was because the Jews under the first covenant were sinful and had stubborn, stone-like hearts. That was the purpose of it. Let's read it again. Wash and be cleaned. Remove wickedness from your soul as God commands you to be washed in this basin. There he's talking about baptism. And be circumcised with the true circumcision. We too would follow the physical circumcision and the Sabbaths and the holidays if we didn't understand why these things were mandated to you, specifically due to your transgressions and the stubbornness of your heart.

Now, it's a pretty bold statement there. He says, "The reason God gave you these mandates is because you have a sinful heart, but we don't. Therefore, we don't follow them like you." I mean, we would if we had hard-hearted hearts like you, but we don't.

At face value, it seems very self-righteous, doesn't it? But Martyr doesn't just leave it at that. The very next things that he does is he lays out the evidence right on the table for them, showing, "Look, we're not the same as you. Even while enduring all things devised against us by wicked individuals and demons enduring both death and torture, we pray for mercy upon those who wreak these things upon us without retaliation, as the new lawgiver instructs us. How then would we fail to do those rituals which cause no harm, like physical circumcision, observing Sabbaths and holidays?" Like, look, he says, "We're different than you. When wicked people and demons, when they're torturing us and killing us, we literally pray for them as they're destroying us."

Why? Because the new lawgiver has instructed us to do this. But you and me both, you Jews would never do that. Are you crazy? That's what I mean. We're different.

And then if we're willing to do something like that, is it not evident that if God commanded us to do these things that don't cause any harm, like observing holidays and Sabbaths, isn't it not clear that we would do that? If physical circumcision were essential, as you assume, God wouldn't have created Adam uncircumcised. He wouldn't have appreciated Abel's offering while uncircumcised. He wouldn't have been content with Enoch's uncircumcision. He would not have allowed uncircumcised Lot to escape Sodom, guided by the angels and God himself.

Noah, at the start of our lineage, entered the ark with his children uncircumcised. Melchizedek, the high priest, was uncircumcised. To him, Abraham, who was the first to receive physical circumcision, offered tithes and was blessed by him. Abraham's lineage established the everlasting priesthood as declared by God through David. Therefore, only exclusively you require this circumcision, not God.

Now, remember, before we continue with this, what Martyr is doing is he is explaining why we no longer observe these things. And he all started off by saying, "We too would follow them if our hearts were hardened like yours." And then he demonstrates his point. This is what I mean.

This is how we are different. We pour out love as people torture us. The next thing that he does is he contrasts that with how the Jews are. And he uses the scriptures themselves showing how over and over and over the Jews were stubborn and hard-hearted. Let's continue.

Furthermore, all of the righteous individuals mentioned earlier, there he's talking about Adam, Lot, Noah, Melchizedek. Therefore, all of the righteous individuals mentioned earlier, although not observing Sabbaths, they were acceptable to God. And then following them, Abraham and all of his descendants up until Moses made your nation appear unfaithful and ungrateful to God, crafting a calf in the wilderness.

I just want you to think about how stubborn and stiff-necked these people had to be. 430 years in Egypt. And then God sends plague after plague after plague, and he sets them free from slavery. They get to the Red Sea, and it parts in half, and then it swallows their enemies behind them. Bread somehow rains down from heaven, and every morning there's manna on the ground for them to eat. They want meat, and so God sends them more quail than they could possibly consume. Then they need water, and so God gives them water from the middle of a rock in the middle of the desert. During the day, there's a pillar of clouds that's before them that guides them on which direction to go.

And then in the evening, there's a pillar of fire in the sky telling them where to go. They follow this pillar of fire. These people were surrounded by miracles and signs day in and day out. And then they get to Mount Sinai.

And Moses goes up the mountain for 40 days to receive the Ten Commandments by God. And by the time he gets back, they're worshiping a golden calf.

Your people were stubborn, Martyr says. Furthermore, all those righteous people before you, your ancestors, Adam, Enoch, in comparison to you, it even highlights more how ungrateful and unfaithful you were crafting a calf in the wilderness.

Here's the picture I get. Say you have a toddler named Jeffrey. He's special. You can't take your eyes off of Jeffrey for a second. You've learned this the hard way. There you are. You're in the kitchen. Make a piece of peanut butter cookies. You open up the peanut butter. You get your flour out and your sugar out, and you're looking in there, and you're like, "I feel like something's missing." So you go for the recipe, and you realize, "Oh no, I left my phone in the car."

So you look up. You see your car parked on the street through the front door glass screen. You start making the calculation. "All right, it's going to take me about 10 seconds to get there. I'll be able to grab my phone in like three or four seconds. 10 seconds to get back. I'll be back in less than 30 seconds. I'll be back." You look over at Jeffrey.

He's consumed with this toy. He's not even paying attention to you. You look back at the car. You look back at Jeffrey. You make a mad dash for it. You get to the car. You grab your phone. You get back. You get back faster. And you thought you'd been gone for 19 seconds. 19 seconds you've been gone.

And you walk back into this.

This is the feeling I get. True, 40 days is longer than 19 seconds. But after God had performed miracles and wondrous signs right before their eyes day in and day out, 40 days, and they're worshiping a golden calf.

Sinful, stubborn hearts. God was dealing with an entire nation of Jeffreys.

So here we have God's chosen people worshiping a golden calf. And what is God's response to this? This is absolutely beautiful to me. This just shows his patience and God's willingness to work with man where man is at.

In response, God obliged your nation to perform sacrifices as if to his name so that you might not worship idols. Nevertheless, you failed to heed this directive. Instead, you offered your children as sacrifices to demons. The sacrifices had nothing to do with the desire of God.

The desire for the sacrifices was completely on the side of the people. After 400 years in slavery, they had been totally indoctrinated and polluted with the religious cultures of the Egyptians. All traces of righteousness that was found in their ancestors was gone.

And without being under the watchful eye like that, they're worshiping a golden calf. And God sees this, and he knows what this calf worship leads to. It leads to the sacrifice. So God obliged them. Fine. Your hearts, they thirst for the sacrificial rituals of the pagans. So he obliged them. He said, "Offer the sacrifices as if to me, not to idols."

The hardness of their heart was so deep, and their appetite for the demon worship was so strong. God specifically had to tell them, "Listen, do not sacrifice your children to Molech."

Do you realize how intense and how deep the drawl must have been for them for these practices, for them to be willing to set their children on fire for a demon? Like this was in them. And Martyr points out they were stubborn still. Nevertheless, you failed to heed his directive. Instead, you offered your children as sacrifices to demons. We see that later on in the story.

Finally, after 40 years, a digestible answer to this haunting question: why in the world did the God of love desire these animal sacrifices to himself? The answer is he didn't. The very next thing that Justin does is he demonstrates through scripture, both New Testament and Old, that God did not want or desire these sacrifices. He obliged their polluted hearts to keep them from worshiping idols. Malachi, one of the 12 prophets, spoke for God when talking about your offerings.

God found no pleasure in your offerings and did not accept them. Then we see it in the New Testament. Therefore, when he came into the world, and he is Jesus, he said, "Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you have prepared for me. And burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin you had no pleasure." Previously saying sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and offerings for sin, you did not desire nor had pleasure in them which were offered according to the law.

So the next thing that Martyr does is he continues to give more and more examples of God establishing additional laws to them that were still due to the stubbornness of their hearts. He says, "You were instructed to observe Sabbaths to remember God. His words bring forth his message saying that you may know that I am your God who redeemed you. Moreover, you were commanded to avoid certain foods to keep God in your thoughts while eating and drinking because you were inclined to forget God. As Moses confirmed, the people ate and drank and rose up and played. And again, Jacob ate and was satisfied and grew fat, and the beloved one kicked. He grew plump, thick, and obstinate, and he forsook the God who created him.

Through Moses, God ordered you to abstain from unclean, improper animals. Despite eating manna in the desert and viewing the miraculous acts God performed for you, you made and worship a golden calf. He rightfully keeps saying, 'They are foolish children in whom there is no faith.' Furthermore, God required you to keep the Sabbaths and follow other directives as markers. Why? Because of your unrighteousness and that of your ancestors. He allowed some of you to survive to prevent his name from being disparaged among the nations. This can be proven from his words recited in Ezekiel, 'I am the Lord your God. Walk in my statutes and keep my judgments and do not adopt Egypt's customs. Sanctify my Sabbaths.

They will serve as a sign between me and you to show that I am the Lord your God. Notwithstanding, you opposed me, and your children did not follow my laws or heed my rulings that if followed would confer life. But you polluted my Sabbaths. I aspired to unleash my fury on you in the wilderness and to vent my anger on you. Yet I refrained lest my name be entirely maligned among the pagans. I led you out under their watchful eye. I swore in the desert that I would scatter you among the pagans and distribute you across countries. But you did not comply with my laws.

You despised my decrees. You polluted my Sabbaths and followed your ancestors' inventions. For this reason, I granted you laws that were not beneficial and rulings by which you could not live. And I will defile you and your own offerings and exterminate all of the firstborn when I pass through."

So here he's saying that the keeping of the Sabbath and the dietary laws, these were given for the same reasons as many of the sacrificial laws specifically do to their transgressions and their stubbornness of hearts. The Sabbath was put in place to keep them from forgetting God. 40 days in the wilderness and they're worshiping a golden cow. God says, "I can't turn my back on you stiff necks for a second. Therefore, every seven days on the Sabbath, you will observe the Sabbath to keep me on the forefront of your mind." But once every seven days wasn't even enough. These stubborn people needed a symbol before them every day, multiple times per day, every meal. Every time their stomach growled, "What am I going to eat?"

To even satisfy their hunger, they had to think of the things that were forbidden to them to constantly be bringing God to the forefront of their minds. And the argument that Justin is making through this is that this sinful, stubborn heart problem, this has been dealt with in the Christian through the blood of the new covenant.

But I want you to notice something before we move on from him. The stubbornness of their hearts was not the only reason he says the law existed. Look at what he says here. "Notwithstanding, you opposed me and your children didn't follow my laws or heed my rulings that if followed would confer life."

According to Justin, the law was not given to prove that the proved man has an ability to keep and obey God. It was the opposite. Yes, sin did enter through the law because the law established the clear line. This is obeying God. This is not obeying God. So when you cross that clear line, you've disobeyed God. And so sin entered through the law. But God's purpose and desire was for the law to confer life, to give life because obedience to God brings life.

The law was given to bring this nation out of the darkness of the world and to confer life.

From here, what we're going to do is we're going to look at what Irenaeus, who was another one of the early church fathers, what he had to say about these things. As mentioned earlier, this writing was coming about 20 or 30 years after what we just read from Justin Martyr.

And again, I want you to pay close attention to the narrative. He communicates a lot of the same things as Justin did, but he does this in a different way.

He says, again, things are different now. We're not the same as you. But instead of explaining the differences, he approaches it by saying, "Look, this entire transition from the old covenant law to the new covenant, this was all foretold in prophecy." And then he masterfully strings together a series of both Old Testament and New Testament prophecies painting this picture.

Therefore, this is Irenaeus. I believe it's from Against Heresies. Therefore, our calling is based not on the newness of the Spirit, not on the oldness of the letter. As the prophet Jeremiah foretold, I put the prophecies in blue so you can decipher when the prophecy is happening. "The time will come," says the Lord, "when I will complete the promised covenant for the house of Israel and Judah."

So under the old covenant, God was forming for himself a nation, for himself, a nation of kings and priests. But the people refused. Then through Jeremiah, God prophesied, "A time will come," says the Lord, "when I will complete this promised covenant for the house of Israel and Judah." This was the covenant I promised their ancestors when I led them out of Egypt, but they failed to uphold it. Thus, I disregarded them. However, this new covenant I will establish with the house of Israel. I will embed my laws in their minds and inscribe them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. They won't need to educate one another about me because everyone will know me personally from the least to the greatest.

I will forgive their sins, and I will no longer recall their iniquities. These promises were to be inherited by the calling out of the Gentiles, ties in with our Sunday school. This was confirmed by the prophet Isaiah, who said, "Trust in your Maker, the Holy One of Israel. Do not place reliance on man-made items or the work of your hands." These words were specifically for those who had ejected idols and embraced faith in our Maker through the Holy One of Israel, who is Christ. He appeared to mankind for us to look upon, and we dedicated ourselves to him, refusing to trust in man-made idols.

Ejected that word, it means to forcefully throw something out, typically in a violent or sudden way. So it says, "These words are specifically for those who have violently cast out idols and embraced the faith of our Maker through Christ, who appeared to mankind for us to look upon." And we have dedicated ourselves to him, refusing to trust in man-made altars. Afterwards, the Son of God took human form and interacted with our kind. To this, this too we see revealed in the prophecy of Isaiah. "I revealed myself to those who didn't seek me. I surfaced among those who didn't request my presence. I declared myself available to a people who did not use my name."

This group would become a holy people, as prophesied by Hosea. "I will refer to the ones who were not my people as my people. I will call the unloved love. They shall be referred to as the children of the living God in the place where it was previously stated that they were not my people." Similarly, John the Baptist proclaimed, "God can create descendants from Abrahams for these stones. God can create descendants for Abrahams from these stones."

This was actually very interesting to me. I never thought about this passage as being a reference to God's power to bring the Gentiles into the fold. "Israel, you refused to be in this covenant with me. Fine. I'll make descendants of the Gentiles."

Our hearts detached from stone-like worship. Here he's pointing out the same thing that Justin did. Our hearts, our hearts are not like your hearts. Your hearts are like stone, but ours are detached from stone-like worship. We see God through faith and become children of Abraham justified by faith. And here's another recurring theme that we see through these writings, that the ancestors were righteous.

They were justified by faith. He is saying that under the new covenant, the Gentiles who were void of any blood connection, they have become children of Abraham. That is to say, they have been restored back to be like the righteous ancestors who were justified through faith.

But this is that confusing stuff.

And how do we know that this is what he's getting at here? Because look at the very next thing he says. Ezekiel prophesied this. "Therefore, as projected by the prophet Ezekiel, I will give them a new heart and a new spirit I will infuse into them. I will remove the stony heart from their being and replace it with the fleshy one, enabling them to abide in my precepts, observe my ordinances, and implement them." This word abide, it means to be able to tolerate. It can also mean even better to accept or act in accordance with. So do you see this?

This was God in the Old Testament telling us through the prophet Ezekiel that under this new covenant, we will be given new hearts. It doesn't say that we would be given a new heart so that we could finally realize that there's no way to obey God and just give up unrighteousness. No, it says, "I will remove the stony heart from their being and replace it with the fleshy one, enabling them to act in accordance with my precepts, observing my ordinances and implement them.

They will become my people, and I will be their God." Thus, through the new call from God, the hearts of the Gentiles were transformed. And the word of God incarnate went—let me say that again. Thus, through the new call of God, the heart of the Gentiles were transformed when the word of God incarnated and dwelt among us.

On the one hand, the first synagogue had the law as its guardian. On the other hand, Moses and Deuteronomy indicated that the Gentiles would become leaders and the non-believing Jews would become followers because the non-believing Jews abandoned God and worshiped false deities, killing God's prophets. Therefore, their birthright was bestowed upon the unsophisticated Gentiles.

I love that term, unsophisticated Gentiles. I was thinking about getting shirts made. Given this, we receive the life through this call and were grafted into the faith of Abraham. We must not revert to the initial legislation. Instead, we must embrace the Son and through faith in him, learn to love our neighbors. By doing so, love drives away all sin and criminal intent towards our neighbor. We no longer need the law of Moses as a guide as we readily converse with our Father and his presence fuels us.

Now we can engage earnestly in righteousness and sobriety as children would. For this reason, the existence of these laws, do not commit adultery, do not kill, do not covet your neighbor's goods, become irrelevant to us who are living by this law of Christ. There will be no need for tithes for those who dedicate all of their possessions to God, even forsaking their own families all for the cause of God. Nor will there be directives for rest for a day when the true Sabbath is perpetually observed in service of God, righteously edifying every moment.

Quoting the Lord, he continues, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. Truly, I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of the pen will by any means disappear from the law until everything is accomplished. Since the law originated with Moses, it ended with John the Baptist, logically, when Christ came to fulfill it."

He then says, "Look, this is what Luke was saying when he said, 'For this reason, the law and the prophets were with them until John.'" The Lord did not abolish the natural law by which a man is justified, which was observed by those who were justified by faith and who pleased God even before the law was given.

So who is he talking about here again? Once again, he's talking about the righteous ancestors, Abraham, Melchizedek, Enoch. Enoch was so righteous that God took him into heaven without even tasting death. And that was before the law was even given, he says.

Now notice what law he says God did not abolish. He said God did not abolish the natural law. And this was the law that justified the ancestors before the law was even given. And this is one of those confusing law things that I had to wade through. What in the world does it mean that they were justified by this law before the law was given? Strangled.

Stick with me. He explains it very clearly here shortly. Rather, he extended and fulfilled them as demonstrated by his words. These teachings of Jesus don't contradict or undermine the old law. Rather, they fulfill and extend them, as Jesus himself explained. And then quoting Jesus, "Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven."

This is the passage I spoke about earlier. It was so utterly confusing to my Protestant ears. It all gets cleared up right here. He says, "The excess of righteousness he is discussing means that we must believe not just in the Father, but also in his now revealed Son, who guides us into unity with God. We must not only talk, but act, unlike those who don't practice what they preach. And we must abstain not just from wicked acts, but even from the desire to commit them."

His teachings don't contradict the law. Rather, they fulfill and deepen it. For it would have been against the law if he had demanded his followers to do something forbidden by the law. Instead, he commanded his disciples not only to avoid that which the law forbids, but also to eliminate the desire for such acts. This emphasis is not against the law, nor does it seem to come from someone abolishing the law. Instead, someone fulfilling, extending, and imposing the law on a grander scale.

So according to this, Christ fulfilled the law. It was not him doing it for you because you could not do it for yourself. When he was fulfilling it, he was extending it and imposing it on a grander scale. To illustrate this point, what he does now is he lays out the teachings of Jesus where he actually did all of this fulfillment or much of it. This is why he, Jesus, said, instead of simply enforcing, "Do not commit adultery," he strictly forbade lust.

He didn't say, "You've heard that it said, 'Do not commit adultery.' But because I know it's impossible for you to do it, I went ahead and done that for you." He said, "No, it's not enough that you don't commit adultery. I forbid you to even entertain the lustful thought in your mind."

Instead of saying, "Do not kill," he prohibited anger. And beyond requiring tithes, he encouraged us to share all of our possessions with the poor. Christ didn't do it for you. He raised the bar, and he raised the bar, and he raised the bar. And then he tells us that if we're not at least shooting for that new bar, there's no place for us in heaven. When he said, "Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven." He taught us not only to love our neighbors, but our enemies, and to do good to those who persecute you.