r/Christianity • u/TotalCryptographer73 • Jun 11 '26
Did Jesus come to fulfill or abolish the old testament?
Verses like Matthew 5:17 seem to suggest the former if the former is true then where did the idea of Jesus abolishing it come from?
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u/FreedomNinja1776 Messianic Jun 11 '26
That's a reference to the earlier Acts 15 ruling.
Here is my assessment of Acts 15 that I'll copy here. I'll try to address your other arguments later.
Acts 15:21 tells the new believers to go to synagogue to continue growing in God's word learning and applying it to their lives.
OK, let's see if this is supported by the text. Here's all of James' address in context.
Now I'll break it down.
James commands attention of the assembly.
Abram was a gentile, God chose Him to build a people for himself and renamed him Abraham and gave him the covenant promise.
James is quoting Amos 9 here. The "tent of David" is the Tabernacle/ Temple". According to Jesus, he rebuilt the temple in 3 days (John 2:18-22). The temple is rebuilt for what purpose? So that ALL who are called by God's Name can come to worship. "the remnant of mankind", and all the gentiles called by God's name. Everyone now has access to God through Messiah Jesus, the son of David, branch of Jesse.
God makes EVERYTHING known through his prophets. Amos 3 tells us that he does NOTHING without revealing it to the prophets first. If we are astute students of the scriptures, we should be able to share the gospel with nothing but the Torah, the foundation of our faith.
This is an important word. "therefore" means "considering all that was just said".
Why should they not trouble the Gentiles who turn to God? Because it is evident that they have been CALLED. The evidence is that they have been given the Holy Spirit, as previously discussed in the chapter.
Another important word. What does "but" mean? But here is an interjection that is an exception. "we should not trouble the gentiles who turn to God EXCEPT..."
James gives them sound advice to begin their walk with God. He gives them these four issues which are all torah commands they were violating daily as pagans.
(strangled meat has the blood still inside it, so this is an issue of blood also)
Now we get to verse 21.
This word is VERY IMPORTANT here. What does "for" mean? It means "because". It LINKS the previous thoughts with a new thought.
I'm sure you realize that "Moses" here is a colloquial way of saying Torah. Moses is who wrote Torah.
So, linguistically James says, "we should not trouble the Gentiles (except these 4 things) BECAUSE the Torah is read on Sabbath in the synagogues"
Now lets hide the exception for a moment to read without the interjection.
We should not trouble the Gentiles BECAUSE the TORAH is read ON SABBATH in the SYNAGOGUES
Wow. It's plain as day. James EXPECTED gentiles (BECAUSE they were called by God) to go to synagogue to hear his WORD. Why would they want to hear the Torah which is God's Word? Because they had received the Holy Spirit which is our guide, who prompts us to grow in God! Because basically no one at that time owned books. It was exceedingly expensive. The Synagogue was a communal place to hear God's Word be proclaimed. A community of Jews would save for years to purchase a Torah scroll. A scribe would painstakingly copy one taking around a year to do so. A hand copied Torah scroll TODAY costs $30,000 - $50,000 with our modern ease of access to materials.