The eternal words of Jesus as it says in John 6:63 “The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.”
They are the words of wisdom that God gave to man in the beginning and can be found all throughout the Old Testament(Psalms, Proverbs, the books of the prophets etc.) These words were the first, coming before the Levitical law, and are what the fathers (Adam, Abel, Seth, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob Joseph etc.) all followed.
The apostle Paul didn’t seem to think that “it will forever be the Law for mankind .”
Note: underlining, bold print, and words within brackets are mine.
The law is good, but it was through the law that death came. I think most folks who talk about keeping the law seem to focus on the easy parts like keeping the SABBATH (as opposed to meeting together on Sunday), dietary restrictions and of course, the granddaddy of all laws; circumcision. They forget things like the proper way to treat slaves, forcing their daughter to marry the guy who raped her, mixing two fibers in one garment (only 100% flax for them), stoning their disobedient son, gouging out the eye of a man who put out the eye of another man in a fight, cutting off the hand of a woman who grabs the testicles of a man who is beating her husband in a fight… stuff like that.
How, one might ask, could such ridiculous things find their way into the law of God?
First, it wasn’t “the law of God.” Jesus Himself called it the law of Moses. These laws meant something to the people of the day. I don’t know about the dietary things, but these restrictions weren’t unusual at the time. People speculate that some of these are for food safety reasons. Certainly they were at least in part symbolic–intended to keep the people in mind of the ways of God. Circumcision reminds us of the need for the “removal of the flesh.” (The flesh standing in for our fleshly, bestial, instinctive nature.) The fact that the law lays down rules (sometimes not very nice laws in our modern eyes) for treating slaves does NOT mean that God approves slavery. At the time, the idea that slaves deserved any consideration or justice or kindness at all was revolutionary. Moses’s law bettered the lives of slaves though it didn’t get all the way to freeing slaves. IMO the people weren’t ready for that kind of catastrophe level cultural earthquake. It s only in the last 150-200 years that slavery has come to be generally disapproved. Whether you know this or not, actual slavery is on the rise, yes, even in the USA. And it is as ugly or more-so than ever.
Mixing of fibers is doubtless symbolic, but maybe it had other purposes. Stoning a disobedient son–well, that’s pretty harsh. The implication is a physically mature son who is presumably dangerous or potentially dangerous. Too big for the parents to control. Still, pretty harsh. I somehow don’t think the folks who preach “the law, the law” are gonna be stoning their good-for-nothing young adult son any time soon. Eye for an eye–we don’t do that any more, and you don’t get to do it just because you’re a “law guy.” If a woman grabs the other guy’s “family jewels” to save her husband, she’s gonna be either praised or at worst, laughed at. The other guy is definitely going to be laughed at. Cutting off her hand might occur to HIM, but no one else is even going to think such a thing, let alone suggest it. No, not even “law guy” (unless it’s him that’s bent over double, gasping for breath). Still, I think (if I remember right), the punishment for such an impropriety had previously been death. (Ouch!)
Forcing a girl to marry her rapist sounds like a punishment (of her) to us. At the time, it was more like forcing the rapist to marry the girl he has attacked. In that culture, a rape was even more catastrophic for the girl than today, since no man would have her for a wife after she had been defiled. In that culture a woman was really in a fix without a husband to protect/provide for her. The language obliges the rapist, but it doesn’t oblige the girl’s father (who was the only one who had a say in the matter back then). It was intended to force the jerk to support and provide for the girl he had “humbled.” Not ideal, but (maybe) better than her being an outcast for the rest of her life and him getting away with just paying her dad off.
My point is that the law was first and foremost Moses’s law, and that it doesn’t even relate to modern Jewish society for the most part, let alone to us gentiles who were NEVER included in the culture to whom the law was given. Jesus absolutely fulfilled the SPIRIT of the law perfectly. In Him, we have also been given credit for keeping the law (if we need credit–the Jews among us perhaps legitimately feel that need). The law has been satisfied. Jesus gave us a new law. “Love one another.” THAT is our law. It’s actually a lot more challenging than a bunch of surface level edicts.
I agree. The entire Levitical law was not the Law of God, nor was it the Law that the forefathers(Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, etc.) taught or followed. They were led by faith in the Spirit of God who was in their hearts and minds showing them the truths of life, as it says in Hebrews chapter 11,“By faith Abel offered a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, By faith Enoch was translated, By faith Noah , being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with Godly fear…,By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called out…” Those who were brought out of the land of Egypt were given the bread of heaven, the SAME spiritual teachings which Jesus taught, which includes the Ten Commandments. However, they turned and worshipped other gods. As Cindy mentioned they “mixed the fibers” or “mixed the seed” meaning they incorporated pagan practices into their teaching as they were told not to do. It was a transgression to add to the Law. However, there were many who kept the faith and the wisdom of this faith is written in the Old Testament.
Cindy, the Law of love was not new. The Golden Rule can be found in Leviticus. 
Except Jesus DID call it new. I’m not sure why He did that…
He said in another place that loving God and loving your neighbor as yourself was the support from which the whole of “the law and the prophets” depended." The “law and the prophets” was (I’m told) another way of saying the entire TANACH (Old Testament (more or less) to us gentiles). Thus, it doesn’t seem to me like a “new commandment” yet that’s what He said. Can someone explain that?
So LLC, I haven’t read the whole convo. Do you try to keep the “law” in the sense that, say, an Orthodox Jew would try to keep the law? What does “keeping the law” mean to you?
Thus, it doesn’t seem to me like a “new commandment” yet that’s what He said. Can someone explain that?
Maybe it’s the “just as i have loved you” expression meaning agape love?
That could be… Not sure. I guess what I’d see as “new” would be Jesus’s command in the Sermon on the Mount that His listeners should love their enemies. (agape?) That wasn’t really spelled out in “the law and the prophets” although I do think it was implied in the idea that the Jewish nation was supposed to be an example and a blessing to the world.
Loving your enemies was also in the Old Testament, Exodus Chapter 23. Also Proverbs 25:21 says this: :If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat, and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink.
I may have missed it, but I did not see the injunction to “love your enemies” in Ex 23. Certainly do the right thing that justice demands, even for an enemy; loving him, though…not so much?
Exactly–THAT was a new command. I think it’s probably implied in the bit about Abraham being a blessing to the nations, but never overtly stated in any way in the OT that I’m aware of.
Although Jesus said to love your enemies, as a teacher of the gospel, Paul doesn’t exactly say those words. However, he does say this in Romans 12:20 “Therefore if your enemy hungers, feed him; if he thirsts, give him a drink; for in doing so you will heap coals of fire on his head.” This comes from the book of Proverbs which also says this: “Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and do not let your heart be glad when he stumbles.” I think this is basically saying to care for or love your enemy.
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary
34. a new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another—This was the new feature of it. Christ’s love to His people in giving His life a ransom for them was altogether new, and consequently as a Model and Standard for theirs to one another. It is not, however, something transcending the great moral law, which is “the old commandment” (1Jo 2:7, and see on [1849]Mr 12:28-33), but that law in a new and peculiar form. Hence it is said to be both new and old (1Jo 2:7, 8).
43You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 4
Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers
(43) Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.—In form the latter clause was a Rabbinic addition to the former; and this is important as showing that our Lord deals throughout not with the Law as such, but with the scribes’ exposition of it. But it can hardly be said these words, as far as national enemies were concerned, were foreign to the spirit of the Law. The Israelites were practically commanded to hate the Canaanites and Amalekites, whom they were commissioned to destroy. The fault of the scribes was that they stereotyped the Law, which was in its nature transitory, and extended it in a wrong direction by making it the plea for indulgence in private enmities. Our Lord cancels the Rabbinic gloss as regards national and, à fortiori, private hatreds, and teaches us to strive after the ideal excellence which He realised, and to love, i.e., to seek the good of those who have shown us the most bitter hostility. So He taught men to find a neighbour even in a Samaritan, and so He prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
I don’t see this as a new concept. Being a servant of the Lord is giving one’s life in whatever capacity that may be. In the Old Testament, there were many servants who risked their lives and were killed because of it, ex. the prophets. Moses was sent bring the people out of Egypt Daniel was thrown into the lion’s den, David went up against Goliath etc. To say that the people of old did not love one another makes no sense to me.
“The “New Commandment”, the Wycliffe Bible Commentary states, “was new in that the love was to be exercised toward others not because they belonged to the same nation, but because they belonged to Christ … and the love of Christ which the disciples had seen … would be a testimony to the world”.[10]”
“One of the novelties introduced by this commandment – perhaps justifying its designation as New – is that Jesus “introduces himself as a standard for love”.[11] The usual criterion had been “as you love yourself”. However, the New Commandmant goes beyond “as you love yourself” as found in the ethic of reciprocity and states “as I have loved you”, using the Love of Christ for his disciples as the new model.[11]”
“The First Epistle of John reflects the theme of love being an imitation of Christ, with 1 John 4:19 stating: “We love, because he first loved us.”[12]”
Great points, Origen. Thanks for sharing that. It does seem to make sense. LLC, yes the love for enemies is foreshadowed, and implied by the commands you mention. Jesus really brings it out though–He’s not shy about it. The sermon on the mount seems to me one of those challenging declarations that says–no, you can’t live up to the true standard of the law in and of yourself. THIS is what living up to the law REALLY looks like.
Thanks Origen for providing the information. However, I still say there was no new commandment. People can argue over the wording, but Jesus loved others as He loved God and Himself, which is what was already stated. It is man’s law that demands perfection, God’s Law demands forgiveness.
God’s law demands LOVE. Both forgiveness and perfection (also can be translated as maturity, I’m told) are part of LOVE. God knows we don’t grow into that standard all in the snap of a finger.
I’m not even sure anyone here is disagreeing. By “new”, I understand something that the listeners would perceive as ‘new’ (as in, ‘Oh. I never thought of it that way.’ or even ‘Oh. I never realized THAT was what He meant…’) Obviously God does not change, so nothing could be said to be “new” in that front. We could “agree to disagree”, but like I said, I’m not at all sure we DO disagree.
Cindy, I agree, although I’d add truth to the list. 
What I meant by man’s law demands perfection is at it says in Isaiah 28:10 “But the word of the Lord was to them precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little there a little that they might go and fall and be broken and snared and caught.”
not only was the Jewish law full of religious rituals and pagan practices, it was law upon law upon law.
We see this in today’s world as well. If you don’t like that your neighbor has weeds, let’s make a law so that we have the means to prosecute if the weeds get too tall. if you don’t like that someone said a mean word, let’s make a law against such language. There are noise ordinances, dogs can’t bark, covenants where you can’t paint your house this color or that color, or you can’t park your car on the street, bushes must be trimmed, lawns must not have brown spots, etc. etc. etc. etc.law upon law. It is said that the average everyday American unknowingly commits at least three felonies a day. This is besides all the other rules and ordinances that we break unbeknownst to us.
A few years back, one of my sister’s friends, who happens to be Jewish, said that it is against the law in Israel to push an elevator button on the Sabbath. I couldn’t believe it, but it’s true. They have special elevators that operate hands free for the occasion. They can’t even turn on a light switch because the Bible says not to light a fire on the Sabbath. 
But this is how it is, we want perfection through the law.