generally take as good advice don't murder, don't steal, honor your parents the list

goes on and those are just the first 10 they're actually a total of six hundred

and thirteen commands all given to ancient Israel found in the first five

books of the Bible which in hebrew are called the torah now the word Torah is

usually translated in english as the law because it has all of these laws in it

as you read through them you wonder am I supposed to obey some of these all of these

and what's the purpose of the law well that translation is kind of confusing

because while the torah has laws in it the book itself is fundamentally a story

about how God is creating new kinds of people who are fully able to love God

and love others and when Jesus taught about the torah he said he was bringing that

story to its fulfillment. So walk me through the story and how it's fulfilled. So the

story begins with God creating humanity who rebels and God chooses Abraham to bless

all of the nations through his family who end up in slavery down in Egypt and so

Guard rescues them then at Mount Sinai God makes a covenant with Israel like an

agreement

and all the laws that Moses gives to Israel are the terms of that agreement

they're like a constitution. So some of the laws they are about rituals and customs

that set Israel apart from the nation other laws are about social justice or

morality and by following these Israel would show the other nations what God is

like. Okay so the rest of the Torah is just the complete list of laws that Moses

gives Israel? No, the rest of the Torah just continues the story and the six

hundred and thirteen commands are only a selection from that original

Constitution and even these have been broken up and placed at strategic points

within the story now pay attention because you'll see a really clear

pattern Moses gives the first laws to Israel. Don't worship other gods and don't make idols and

then right after that there's a story of Israel breaking those very laws they

worship the golden calf and so Moses gives some more laws and then you get

more stories of rebellion. Some more laws, rebellion again, more laws more

rebellion and you start to see the point right no matter how many laws they're

just gonna continue to rebel. So at the conclusion of the torah's story of

Moses gives this final speech to Israel as they prepared to go into their new

home and he tells them you guys I know that you're not going to follow all of

God's laws you've proven to me that you're incapable and Moses says the

problem is that the hearts are hard and that they're going to need new

transformed hearts if they're ever going to truly follow God's law and he was

right to me the story goes on to recount Israel's total failure. They go into the

land they break all the laws. Right now the next section of books in the Jewish

tradition are the fifteen books of the Prophets and they reflect back on the

story for example Ezekiel he said that if Israel is ever going to obey the law

God's Spirit would have to transform their hard hearts into soft hearts and

Jeremiah said that's when obedience to God's commands

wouldn't feel like a duty that they would be written deep in their hearts

and Isaiah he promised a future leader Israel's Messiah who will lead all of

the people in obedience to the law. Now in Jewish tradition all of these books

together are called the prophets even historical books because they're

continuing the story told from the perspective of the profits ok so we have

the law and the prophets and they're telling one connected story about God's desire to

bless the whole world through a people Israel who it turns out needs a new

heart yes and Jesus saw himself as continuing that story so he agreed with

the law and the prophets when he taught that it's out of the human heart that

come the most ugly parts of human nature is like the default setting of our

hearts is opposed to God's law but Jesus also said that he came to solve that problem

and in his words to fulfill the law. So what does he mean there to fulfill the law? Well, first he said

that the demand of all of the laws in the Torah could be fulfilled by what he

called the great command, that we are to love God and love others. So that seems pretty easy

I mean we all want to love. Well, we think we want to love, but Jesus showed how love this far more

demanding than we realize.

So he quotes the law do not murder and he says yes not killing someone is very

loving thing to do, but then he also says that when you treat someone with

disrespect or when you nurse resentment against them you're also violating God's

moral ideal because you're not treating that person with love. So Jesus said true love

ought to extend even to our own enemies so even though this command seems very

simple Jesus showed how our hearts are not currently equipped to fulfill even this

basic command of God to love others. And that's kind of a downer. But where Israel

failed Jesus brought the story to it's fulfillment as Israel's Messiah he fully loved

God and others and he showed all of the nation's what God is truly like. He did

this through his acts of compassion and mercy and ultimately by loving his

enemies even unto death and after his resurrection he told his followers that

he would send God's Spirit to transform their hearts so that they could follow

him and fulfill the purpose of the law to love God and to love their neighbor. So

this fulfills the story of the law and the prophets. Or, in the words of the

Apostle Paul the one who loves fulfills the law. This video was made possible by

over 1,300 people who chipped in and most of those are monthly givers to the

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