New Dimensions for the Old Law

MEMORY SELECTION: “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.” —Matthew 5:17

SELECTED SCRIPTURE: Matthew 5:17-20; Jeremiah 31:31-34

OUR Lord declared that he came not to destroy the Law and the prophets but to fulfill them. The Law had been given to the nation of Israel as a basis of the divine covenant with them. Under that arrangement the Israelites were obliged to keep the Law, and God agreed that if they did keep it they would be granted everlasting life, together with the favors and privileges of being especially used for the blessing of the rest of the world under the kingdom of Messiah.

The Israelites, like the rest of the human family, were fallen, through the inherited weaknesses of father Adam. They were, therefore, unable to keep the requirements of God’s laws. The divine commandment was so exacting that even the most sincere of the Jews were unable to perform it and to gain the blessings promised. Indeed, even Moses himself, the mediator of that covenant, was unable to keep the Law or to provide life to the people in connection with his position.

The failure of the Law Covenant is not an indication that it was an unjust one. No, God created man perfect and with the ability to keep the divine instructions. Because of our first parents’ disobedience to the requirements of the Law, which was written in their hearts, they fell from divine favor. Immediately sin was introduced into the human family, and death became its penalty.

What was needed was a New Covenant and a new mediator. The prophet states: “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the Lord: but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”—Jer. 31:31-34

The central figure in the New Covenant arrangement is our Lord Jesus. Because of his ability to keep the Law of God, he did not have to die but could have lived everlastingly under it. Instead, he willingly laid down his life as a perfect human being—as a ransom for the disobedient Adam and the rest of humanity, including all that are in their graves. It is, in turn, through his sacrifice that the world will be given an opportunity to gain everlasting life under the terms of the new and better covenant. It is a better covenant because of the provision of a period of mediation and because our Lord himself will be its Mediator. Together with him, as co-mediators, will be the followers of our Lord who have grasped the grandeur of the future time of blessing for the world and have laid down their lives as a sacrifice along-side the Master’s.

During the present Gospel Age, Jesus’ followers have received the value of his ransom sacrifice ahead of the rest of the human family. Because of the imputation of his merit on their behalf and the presentation of that merit to the Heavenly Father, his footstep followers are justified. The Apostle Paul explains (Heb. 9:24) that our glorified and risen Lord appeared in the presence of God “for us,” that is, the church class.

When all of the church have been called, chosen, and proven faithful, then the merit of our Lord’s ransom sacrifice will be made available for the sins of the whole world. At that time the New Covenant under the Christ (our glorified Lord and the 144,000 members of his antitypical body) will be inaugurated for the blessing of all the families of the earth.

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