Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Jesus Came to Fulfill the Law

St German's glass
Shield of Faith
(Photo credit: crunklygill)
As my longtime readers know, I have been reading the Old Testament (very slowly) for the last year and have been surprised with how terrible much of it seems. I have brought many of these points up in various places, and one of the most common defenses I hear is from Matthew 5:17, that Jesus came to fulfill the law and therefore the Old Testament doesn't apply. Most of the time, it seems that Christians I talk to use this verse as a shield against difficult passages from the Old Testament, they simply want to be able to ignore what is inconvenient. Often I will then get into a conversation about what fulfilling the law really means (I honestly am not sure) and why God would give a law that would only be valid for some people and not for others (certainly seems to contradict objective morality which many Christians assert is very important). But ultimately, these arguments spin out and feel very unproductive.

So in search of another angle of attack, I decided to think about what would happen if we just grant my other objections to the Christians and see what happens. Let's assume for the moment that it is reasonable for God to give different people different sets of laws. Let's further assume that Jesus fulfilling the law means that the law doesn't apply to us anymore. What does this really get them? It certainly allows them to disregard the rules God laid down for us such as kosher laws and the fact that we can't wear mixed fabrics or get tattoos. If you really want to push it, it can even invalidate the rules about it being okay to have slaves. But even taken to this extreme, it doesn't whitewash everything. Anything that God himself does must be explained in other ways. Jesus fulfilling the law doesn't explain why God had to murder all of the firstborn in the tenth plague, why he had to murder nearly everyone in the world in the flood, why he made the loved wife barren and the hated wife pregnant, or why a loving God could do pretty much any of the other horrible things he does in the Old Testament.

Next time this topic comes up about a horrible thing that God himself has done in the old testament, instead of arguing what fulfilling the law means, I will point out that this is completely irrelevant to the topic at hand. It's simply a diversionary tactic, because God isn't laying down a law, he is just being a monster. Jesus fulfilling the law can't apply to something that isn't a law.
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7 comments:

  1. This article rings so true for me. Recently I have been involved in a forum thread where a bunch of theists are defending Gods mass murders. I eventually gave up and in parting called them all moral monsters akin to the Rwandan generals.

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    1. It's really crazy, isn't it? Most people who defend such arguments would be 100% against them in any other situation, but they have decided ahead of time that God is perfect and so they need to justify it in some way. It's amazing what religion can do.

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  2. What? Jesus didn't come to pimp Walmart and sell AR-15s?

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    1. As with most things, if you really want the bible to say that, you can probably twist some verse to that end :)

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  3. Isn't it odd how god's objective morality changes according to his subjective whims?

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    1. Read scripture, pronounce every single word and understanding will be given to you, faith is your foundation build upon it, depend only on god by the grace of Christ. Turn away from sin. Look straight ahead look neither left nor right stay on the straight street and you will prosper. Gods will be done, not yours

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