THE WRITTEN LAW IS IMPOSSIBLE TO UNDERSTAND AND OBEY
If we would be honest with ourselves and God, we would have to admit that the literal laws found in the Bible are confusing and impossible to obey. No wonder that God says that the law is a stumbling block. And yet, all religionists are compelled to do their best to obey all the laws because God has clearly instructed them to be holy as he is holy while detailing out the many terms of the law. We thus get the clear sense that obedience to each d every detail of the law, no matter how vague, complicated, and even ridiculous it might be, is critical to personal holiness.

Because of the ways these legal concepts are used singly and in various combinations, we also get the idea that it is important to differentiate between different types of laws (e.g. moral, ceremonial, civil, judicial, etc) so that we would be better equipped to understand and obey them. In human terms, that is good, logical thinking, but that is not what God has in mind.

AUTHORS’ NOTE: Before we can understand God’s purposes in the details of the law, we must recognize that the number of scriptures with legal-sounding words in the New Testament is significantly less than the number found in the Old Testament. This makes sense considering the fact that the New Testament is about the New Covenant where the law is written on the heart.

Whereas the Old/First Covenant is all about the written law in all of its various manifestations, the New Covenant is about the law written on the hearts of New Covenant disciples. That being the case, there is really no need for detailed discussion about the written law like we find in the Old Testament.

Because the spiritual law in all its complexity is spiritually written on the hearts of New Covenant disciples as needed and when needed by the Holy Spirit, there is no need to go into all the legal details. This is why Christ (i.e. a model of a New Covenant disciple) is considered to be the end of the law (i.e. Old/First Covenant laws).

God makes his point about the complexity of the law by giving hundreds, perhaps thousands of scriptures about various aspects of the law. That seems like overkill or redundancy to anyone who wants to serve a simple god. But, anyone who stops to think about the many commandments found in the law will sooner or later come to the conclusion that keeping them all straight and doing them as prescribed is humanly impossible. That is an important understanding to come to. And after coming to that understanding, they will stop reading literally and begin reading for spiritual understanding and begin studying to glean the deep spiritual truths found in each law and apply those truths in their lives. They will cease making religion out of obedience to the literal rules and regulations.

When people come to these understandings and make these decisions they make an important transition from religionist to disciple. God calls that transformation of the mind which is necessary in order to know God’s good, acceptable and perfect will. In reading the Bible literally, they know God’s will, but what they know is not good, acceptable and perfect. What they read in the literal Bible is an imperfect shadow or image of God that is not able to impart life.

If they could be honest with themselves and God they would confess that all the fussy laws about animal sacrifices, washing and food, for example, are silly and out of date. But while rejecting these archaic laws, they readily accept what God says about priests, temples, tithes and worship. So they pick and choose the ones they think they understand and do their best to obey them in ways that are consistent with the times in which they live. They are double minded.

What we observe from this history is the formation of religion (i.e. Judaism, Christianity) that evolves over time and geography according to changing tastes, cultures, technology and social patterns. The word that is commonly used to describe this phenomenon is syncretism. The changes are slow almost to the point of being imperceptible but the religious attempts to be holy do change over time even though God does not change. The result is evolving religious standards for holiness based on evolving interpretations of the law.

AUTHORS’ NOTE: These changes in the law over time strongly relate to the so-called end times prophecy found in Daniel 7 where we find that the fourth beast wore out the saints and changed the time and the law. This leads us to the conclusion that the “end-times” are not some global, apocalyptic event as is commonly portrayed by religionists who specialize in eschatology. Given the evidence of the evolution of Judaism and Christianity, we find that the end times have been around forever because the saints in every generation have been worn out with their religious activity and because the laws have been evolving. See this link for insights on how to rightly interpret Biblical references to end times scriptures.

Even though God has said that no one will achieve righteousness through human, fleshly effort, religionists are dedicated to proving God wrong by pursuing righteousness through religious activities. That is why hundreds of generations of Jews and Christians up to the present day did not learn and have not yet learned how to rest from their religious works. They do not know the difference between their Defiled Religion which is based on legalistic performance of rules and regulations, and Pure Religion which is based on obedience to spiritual laws written on the hearts of people.

What these burned out religionists did not learn and have yet to learn is that it they are better off doing less work and more listening to the spirit of God. Religion is not what God wants — even though a literal reading of the books of the law leads us to think that God wants people do follow a bunch of moral rules and religious ceremonies. That simple, one dimensional, literal reading of the Bible has kept generations of people in bondage to religious activity.

Despite the appearance of the books of the law, Religion is nothing more than rules made up by men. Religion based on the literal reading of the law is walking by sight — not by faith. It is working for salvation by practicing Old/First Covenant religion. It is not New Covenant faith which depends on obedience to God’s voice.

AUTHORS’ NOTE: See God’s Written Word and God’s Spoken Voice for more about God’s voice.

These poor, tired, lost souls are deceived into believing that obedience to the written law and rules taught by men is the way to salvation. They are totally ignorant about the New Covenant where God’s spiritual laws are written on the heart. They are ignorant of the fact that the Messiah came to bring people to the end of working for their salvation and come to restin the New Covenant.