St. SteVen said:
There's a COMMON misquote. "... Jesus... did not come to abolish the law."
What are you saying here? That Jesus changed His mind? That at one time He wasn't going to abolish it, but did so anyway by fulfilling it? Of so, please explain how fulfilling is a definition of abolishing.
The misquote above stops short of the full statement, which completely changes the meaning.
It wasn't "the law" that Jesus did not come to abolish. It was "the Law or the Prophets".
So, the books of the Law or the Prophets, not the law itself.
The fulfilling therefore was not of the law itself, but of the prophecies about Jesus
in the books of the Law and the books of the Prophets. (and the Psalms)
Matthew 5:17 NIV
“Do not think that I have come
to abolish the Law or the Prophets;
I have not come to abolish them but
to fulfill them.
COMPARE
Luke 24:44 NIV
He said to them, “
This is what I told you while I was still with you:
Everything must be fulfilled
that is written about me in
the Law of Moses,
the Prophets and the Psalms.”
While you are at it, maybe explain why Jesus would abolish the sabbath just a short time after saying He was the Lord of the Sabbath, confirming that the Sabbath is the day of the Lord?
Jesus made himself an authority over the Pharisees by declaring he was Lord of the Sabbath.
Not only abolish the Sabbath, but the whole law. (but not the books of the Law, or the Prophets, or Psalms)
Galatians 3:23-25 NIV
Before the coming of this faith,[
a] we were held in custody under the law,
locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed.
24 So the law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith.
25 Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.
Hebrews 8:7, 13 NIV
7 For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant,
no place would have been sought for another. ...
13 By calling this covenant “new,” he has made the first one obsolete;
and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear.
2 Corinthians 3:6-8 NIV
He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—
not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
7 Now if the ministry that brought death, which was engraved in letters on stone,
came with glory, so that the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses
because of its glory, transitory though it was,
8 will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious?
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