Sunday: The Law and the Prophets
Some believe that the Ten Commandments, delivered through Moses at Sinai, were relevant only to the Israelites before the Cross and are not binding in the New Covenant era of grace. Others teach that Christians are free from the old law, but only those of Jewish heritage, and not Christians, are still expected to adhere to it. As we have seen, though the Bible does teach that the works of the law can save no one, no passage gives a person license to violate God’s law. If any did, it would be a license to sin, and the Bible would blatantly contradict itself on a crucial topic.
Image © Jeff Preston from GoodSalt.com
In this context we remember that God revealed the terms of His covenant to Israel on tablets of stone that contained the law. However, the Bible contains many other commandments that cover details not found in the Decalogue. In seeking a comprehensive understanding of God’s will, the rabbis counted 613 scriptural laws, which they anchored in the Ten Commandments. Jesus appears to go beyond the rabbis when He announces that He has not come to abolish the law or the prophets (Matt. 5:17, NRSV; emphasis supplied). While summarized in the Ten Commandments, the law of God contains every divine command spoken directly to or through His prophets.
Compare Matthew 19:16-22 and Matthew 22:34-40. What do these verses tell us about Jesus and the Ten Commandments?
Although there are hundreds of commandments that God has revealed in His Word, the Ten Commandments provide solid principles that can be applied to all other laws. Hence, Jesus mentioned five of the Ten Commandments when speaking to the rich young ruler. There is an even more potent summary of God’s law in the commandments found in Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18, which is to love God and to love one’s neighbor. Jesus declares, On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets (Matt. 22:40, NKJV). Ultimately, Jesus and His Father are united in purpose as they urge the people of God’s creation to love as they have been loved, and obedience to the law is foundational to how that love is to be expressed.
What in your life shows your love for God and for your neighbor?
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This week SS lesson "The Law of God and the Law Of Christ" it seem that we have 2 Law, but in the sunday lesson there is only one Law (the Ten Comanment). Can you advise how the writer of this SS lesson put the confussion on the topic of this week, may be I missed some of the lesson objective, can yo help me..thanks
Hi Raymond,
Let me see if I can help. There is only one law of Ten Commandments, given at Sinai to Moses on the two tables of stone. This is the same Ten Commandments Jesus is referring to. The first four of the Ten Commandments honors God: He should always come first; when we love God, we will not have other gods before Him, we will not make graven images and bow down to them, we will not take the name of The Lord in vain and we will remember to keep the Sabbath holy which is a commemoration of creation that will help us to honor the first 3. This is how we show love to God and that is the first great and great commandment. Please remember also that Jesus and His Father are One! The next six laws of the Ten Commandments informs us how we should treat each other, how we should treat our neighbor. When we love our neighbor we will honor our parents, we will not kill, we will not commit adultery, we will not steal, we will not bear false witness also known as telling lies, and we will not covet or be jealous of what another person has; this is the second great commandment. In a nutshell; honoring the Ten Commandments, shows love to God and love to your neighbor. Jesus did not have a new law or new set of commandments, He emphasized, established, made clear what the Ten Commandments were about. The rich young ruler did not have a problem with the first four but those last six were a bit troublesome. Today, many will throw out the entire Ten Commandments to get rid of the 4th which reminds us of the Sabbath and who is Creator of heaven and earth. I hope this will help you. Have a blessed week.
As can be seen from the graphic image in Sabbath 's lesson and the memory verse, the concept is about the application of the moral law. The "law" of Christ is not another law. God's law becomes Christ law because Christ is living by that law. Similarly, this law becomes ours because we choose to live accordingly.
Please i agree with Raymond.i know only the ten commandment as the law.so what is the law of God n the law of Christ are talking about?
Hi Dorcas,
I would dare to say along with what I said to Raymond and as I understand the moderators or writers of the SS lessons is that the Law of Christ is that obedience and honoring of the Ten Commandments from a place of love rather than from a place of duty or obligation. When obedience comes from any place other than love then it is a burden. Christ's way is voluntary, He came to earth freely from a place of love to set us free from sin. He wants us to honor and keep the Ten Commandments from a place of true love and obedience. He and His Father are one, there is only one law of Ten Commandments; His law was to show us how we were to keep those laws without 613 other laws added to choke us. His burden is easy and His yoke is light. I hope this does not create more confusion. Have a blessed week.
who is Christ?,Is Christ not equallyGod
?According to colossians1:16,we see that Christ is the creator of all things,thus at creation He was there.The conclusion of the whole matter is that The Law of God is the same as The Law of Christ for They are united in purpose .In my opinion,the aim for the caption"The Law of God and The Law of christ " is to eradicate the notion that some christians and even some seventh day adventists have,that the Old Testament God is a wicked God whereas The New Testament God that is Christ is a God of grace.
OK please correct me if Im wrong.The ten commandments is the Law of Jesus and to love God with all your heart and your neighbour as yourself is God's Law.
We as followers of Christ have to know and understand how much that our Creator loves us; He came from heaven and walked among us to save us and show us how to live. He gave us His law to live by and showed us by example how to live by it. Finally He gave his life for us even though we did not deserve it. This is unconditional love; a love that has no boundaries or has no limits. This is the love God wants us to have for one another. Because God is love. So let us show love one for another and use Jesus as our example to live the life He lived.
In order to be candidates for heaven we must meet the requirement of the law: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself" (Luke 10:27).
"True love is not merely a sentiment or an emotion. It is a living principle, a principle that is manifest in action. True love, wherever it exists, will control the life. Thus it is with the love of God. "God is love;" and in all His works, in all His dealings with mankind, His character is revealed."
"in redemption God has revealed His love in sacrifice, a sacrifice so broad and deep and high that it is immeasurable."
If then love means so much to Christ ,and we want to emulate Christ that we ask him to show how to love....
"We can do this only as we grasp by faith the righteousness of Christ. By beholding Jesus we receive a living, expanding principle in the heart, and the Holy Spirit carries on the work, and the believer advances from grace to grace, from strength to strength, from character to character. He conforms to the image of Christ, until in spiritual growth he attains unto the measure of the full stature in Christ Jesus. Thus Christ makes an end of the curse of sin, and sets the believing soul free from its action and effect."
Hi Raymond, Dorcas and Rhonda....
God and Jesus Christ has the same essence of deity. They are one. Therefore, the Law of God and the Law of Christ are the same. One does not exist without the other. The law of God the Father were revealed to us from the beginning in the Old Testament. The law of Christ was demonstrated to us after the birth of Jesus Christ the son, the promised Messiah, as Jesus came in human flesh and lived an exemplary life for us to emulate.
There are many commandments listed in the Bible that God spoke about and has revealed to us. However, these commandments are intertwined to the Ten Commandments. All other commandments are applied to the Ten Commandments.
You may read for emphasis... Exodus 20:1-17, Deuteronomy 5:6-22, Deuteronomy 6:4-5, Leviticus 19:18 & St. John 10:30.
The Law of God is the Ten Commandments and the Law of Christ is the Ten Commandments, "Jesus and His Father are united in purpose as they urge the people of God's creation to love as they have been loved, and obedience to the law is foundational to how that love is to be expressed." Jesus told the Pharisees and the Sadducees that the greatest commandment is "Love to God and love to man". If we love God and Jesus supremely and our fellow men, we are following God's Law and Jesus' law of love.
The author is not trying to confuse. The law of God and the law of Christ is the same law. In the New Testament, Jesus summarizes the law as love to God and love to Your neighbor. The first four commandments in the Decalogue deals with our love for God; the last six deals with love to our parents and neighbors.
Exodus 20 The Ten Commandments compared with
Matthew 19 The Rich Young Ruler
1, I am the LORD thy God. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
This is not included.
2, Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image
This is not included.
3, Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain
This is not included.
4, Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
This is not included.
5, Honour thy father and thy mother
Included.
6, Thou shalt not kill.
Included.
7, Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Included.
8, Thou shalt not steal.
Included.
9, Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
Included.
10, Thou shalt not covet.
This is not included.
Close examination opened my understanding. Matthew ended the list by quoting Matthew 22:39
Matthew 22:35-39
Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
In asking the young ruler to sell his goods he was reveling to him that he really had not loved his neighbour if he had not been doing anything for the poor.
Jesus had listed the commandments in Matthew 19 that gave instructions about relationships with people. The last commandment was missing, do not covet. Coveting happens in the mind and leads a person to break the other commandments. Jesus only listed the commandments that had observable actions.
In Matthew 22 Jesus says that the first and great commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart. So I reread Matthew 19 and four words jumped off the page, “Come and follow me.” Those words invited the ruler into a relationship with Jesus; an invitation to love the Lord thy God with all your heart. The first four commandments are all about our relationship with God. Now the invitation to the young ruler became my invitation, "come and follow me." Joy filled my heart as I realized God had revealed this to me and this story convinced me that the significance of the Sabbath was in the New Testament. It was there along with: put God first, don’t worship idols, don’t take his name in vain, and keep the Sabbath. The text says, “Keep the commandments and thou will enter into life.” I understood that all ten were for me.
God and Christ do not have different laws. God gave the 10 Commandments to Moses and Christ summarized them by saying "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”
I think the author is trying to address the issue raised by those who say that the God in the Old Testament is different to the Jesus in the New Testament. Some feel that in the Old Testament that God presented many laws (with little love) while Jesus in the New Testament focused more on love. However, when we study it closely we can see that there is no conflict. It is one and the same law. Jesus did not come to abolish the law (which is presented in the Old Testament) but to fulfill it. Not sure if that answers your question 🙂
We do not enter eternal life by keeping the commandments but by faith in the doing and dying of Jesus. Jesus knew the young man and told him to keep the law to enter because he was proud of his own merit. Jesus then showed him how far he was he was from perfect obedience to the laws demand. If anyone says he keeps the law they are a liar 1John. When we fall in love with Jesus we love His law because it is His character. We yearn to be more like Him because of our love for HIM.
I was also amazed when I read this week title. I wandering if we have two laws in the bible, at the same time I asked myself if God and Jesus were not d same? As I study I know dt the lesson is talking about God' Law which Ȋ̝̊̅§ the ten commandment and noting more than, rather Jesus came on earth and lived it out and also explain it better for us to practice it in our daily life.
Joyce, I think you are absolutely correct. The author takes us on a journey of critical thinking. Jesus is our example, he lived by the law (he is the law is just another expression of saying what he did). In the context of this quarter's lesson, we cannot live by grace independent of the law. Let's follow his example.
I think. the law of God is an expression of God's love to mankind for it to direct us in the right path to go, because he don't want us to end in destruction, therefore what we have to do is to respond to God's love by obeying his commandments.
as for me God and christ is one and the same (john 10v30)what christ is doing is the. God 's will. between the two no one is against each other they are doing the samething
I believe that Jesus loves GOD so much that he was able to love us so much also to give his own life and don His Godly stature to save each one of us. Thus if we truly Love God then it is easy to obey the second greatest commandment.
Generally the Bible talks of two main laws, you will see this easiest using the NKJV Bible, but context shows it also. The one Law is the commandments of God, which abide forever and exist today throughout the new testament. The second, is the law of ceremony and ordinances, which were given as a means of the system of repentance for violating the first Law. This second law points forward to Christ. It is the law which was nailed to the cross, hence the renting of the veil of the temple and the destruction of the temple. Jesus gave us new ordinances, those of the foot washing, unleaven bread and the juice of the vine as ceremony symbolizing humility, and being with Him in body and spirit. But Jesus never taught anything other than the moral character and love of God which is manifest in His holy ten commandments which man has had knowledge of since the first sin of Adam and Eve.
Col Davis, what you have said is what I have always heard during the forty years plus I have been in the church. We have always been told that there are several groups of laws, the moral laws, the ceremonial laws, and the health laws. Certainly those things that point to Christ as the Messiah are no longer valid and if we do those things then we basically are denying the First Advent. As for the rest, I think we need to be just a bit careful what we say about them.
I have just reread Ex 20-24 and there are some observations I would like to make. The first is that there was quite a bit more besides the Ten Commandments that were ratified by Israel as part of the old covenant. In Ex 23:10-19 God commands laws that are extensions of the Ten Commandments and gets into sabbatical years and the commandments to keep three feasts, unleavened bread, harvest, and Ingathering. All of these were included in the book that Moses wrote that was ratified with blood in Ex 24:3-8. While the commandments were certainly part of the covenant they were written on stone by God after ratification but were considered part of what Israel agreed to, “All the words which the LORD has said we will do” (Ex 24:3 NKJV).
As far as Col 2:14 goes I have said several times in past comments which I still stand by that what was nailed to the cross wasn’t anything that God commanded but was the traditions and commandments of men that were tacked on to the old covenant and laws that surrounded it (see Col 2:8; Col 2:22).
In a theological sense if the sanctuary with all its services were entirely done away with the whole plan of salvation would go with it. There are still some elements of the sanctuary services that are yet to happen that were not directly connected to the First Advent. That doesn’t mean, however, that we are to keep those elements as feast days for they are now being accomplished in Heaven in the sanctuary built without hands and by faith we accept them as such.
Besides all of that, as I read this week’s lessons it becomes apparent that they are not talking about moral vs. ceremonial laws but about the fact that in all that Jesus said He was talking the law and the prophets which He came to fulfill. Those are the same things that God commanded in the Old Testament and to attempt to separate Jesus from them by making two laws is to say that Jesus did away with all the law in the Old Testament which in my estimate is ridiculous when considering Mat 5:18. But then we all know that there is really only one law that bothers most Christians, that nasty, pesky law in the middle of the commandments that specifically sets the seventh-day (Saturday) apart for worship rather than the first (Sunday).
The ten commandements are being amplified by Christ. Christ is trying to teach us practical christianity. Of what use is our obedience of the laws if they could not manifest the fruits of the spirit hence we become legalistic, religious and trying to earn salvation through our works. This is quite impossible because all our righteousness is filthy. We are able to keep His laws because we have known Him and live in Him, as a result of our relationship with Him. We are not keeping the laws to be saved but because we are saved. So summarily, Jesus is charging us to relate with the others as people that have known God. Hence we are like the "Christians" that abandon the needy and go on getting busy for the gospel before the good Samaritan comes along to model love of Christ.
I'll like to link this lesson with last week's lesson with a question, Jesus came to show us how to "live" the law, He came to fulfill the law. Was grace needed by Jesus in order to live out the Law?